Bodhidharma Quotations

The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher's help.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both. . . . The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.

As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha

Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice.

Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.

If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it's the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.

But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.

Once you see your nature, sex is basically immaterial.

If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha.

To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature.

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.

To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.

Life and death are important. Don't suffer them in vain.

To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn't apparent because it's shrouded by sensation and delusion.

According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.

Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.

A Buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.

The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing, and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.

Whoever realizes that the six senses aren't real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of Buddhas.

And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.

People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.

But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.

To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.

The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting.

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.

All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions.

As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.

As long as you're enthralled by a lifeless form, you're not free.

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist.

And the Buddha is the person who's free: free of plans, free of cares.

The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind.

Buddhas move freely through birth and death, appearing and disappearing at will.

If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure.

Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit.

Not suffering another existence is reaching the Way.

Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.

The mind is always present. You just don't see it.

People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking.

Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space.

To find Buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha. If you don't see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good memory, keeping precepts results in good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings-but no Buddha.

Unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause & effect is nonsense. Buddhas don't practice nonsense.

Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.

Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form.

People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something, always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons.

All Buddhas preach emptiness. Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness, he betrays all Buddhas.

But when you first embark on the Path, your awareness won't be focused. You're likely to see all sorts of strange, dreamlike scenes. But you shouldn't doubt that all such scenes come from your own mind and nowhere else.

To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, "To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss." When you seek nothing, you're on the Path.

A buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad. Such is his power that karma can't hold him. No matter what kind of karma, a buddha transforms it. Heaven and hell are nothing to him. But the awareness of a mortal is dim compared to that of a buddha, who penetrates everything, inside and out.

Those who worship don't know, and those who know don't worship.

In order to see a fish you must watch the water

Leaving behind the false, return to the true: make no discriminations between self and others. In contemplation, one's mind should be stable and unmoving, like a wall.

Worship means reverence and humility. It means revering your real self and humbling delusions. If you can wipe out evil desires and harbor good thoughts, even if nothing shows, it's worship. Such form is its real form.

Without the mind there is no Buddha. Without the Buddha there's no mind.

Someone who seeks the Way doesn't look beyond himself.

People who don't see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.

I do not need any writing, since I transmit teaching beyond words and ideas.

Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.

Don't hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you'll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you'll experience the assurance of no rebirth.

Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way.

When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.

To have a body is to suffer.

If you know that everything comes from the mind, don't become attached. Once attached, you're unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. It's thousands of sutras and shastras only amount to a clear mind. Understanding comes in midsentence. What good are doctrines? The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions. . . . Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers. . . .

Everything sacred, nothing sacred.

Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.

An Awakened person is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.

Unless you see your nature, you shouldn't go around criticizing the goodness of others. There's no advantage in deceiving yourself. Good and bad are distinct. Cause and effect are clear. But fools don't believe and fall straight into a hell of endless darkness without even knowing it. What keeps them from believing is the heaviness of their karma. They're like blind people who don't believe there's such a thing as light. Even if you explain it to them, they still don't believe, because they're blind. How can they possibly distinguish light?

If you see your nature, you don't need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?

Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and internally have no pantings in your heart; when your mind is like unto a straight-standing wall, you may enter into the Path.

Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.

The essence of the Way is detachment.

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

The awareness of mortals falls short. As long as they're attached to appearances, they're unaware that their minds are empty. And by mistakenly clinging to the appearance of things they lose the Way.

When we're deluded there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape.

At every moment where language can't go, that's your mind.

But this mind isn't somewhere outside the material body of the four elements. Without this mind we can't move. The body has no awareness. Like a plant or a stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It's the mind that moves.

Not thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the buddha.... Using the mind to reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

Reality has no inside, outside, or middle part.

The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting. The Way has no form or sound. It's subtle and hard to perceive. It's like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is, but you can't tell others.

One clings to life although there is nothing to be called life; another clings to death although there is nothing to be called death. In reality, there is nothing to be born; consequently, there is nothing to perish.

This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all.

Still others commit all sorts of evil deeds, claiming karma doesn't exist. They erroneously maintain that since everything is empty, committing evil isn't wrong. Such persons fall into a hell of endless darkness with no hope of release. Those who are wise hold no such conception.

The true Way is sublime. It can't be expressed in language. Of what use are scriptures? But someone who sees his own nature finds the Way, even if he can't read a word.

The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.

Buddhas don't practice nonsense.

The mind's capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind.

The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind has no form or characteristics, no cause or effect, no tendons or bones. It's like space. You can't hold it. It's not the mind of materialists or nihilists. If you don't see your own miraculously aware nature, you'll never find a Buddha, even if you break your body into atoms.

. . . the fools of this world prefer to look for sages far away. They don't believe that the wisdom of their own mind is the sage . . . the sutras say, "Mind is the teaching." But people of no understanding don't believe in their own mind or that by understanding this teaching they can become a sage. They prefer to look for distant knowledge and long for things in space, buddha-images, light, incense, and colors. They fall prey to falsehood and lose their minds to insanity.

When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they're full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don't consider the past. And they don't worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.

All know the way, but few actually walk it.

When you don't understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death. You'll transform everything.