Bodhidharma Quotes

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

Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.

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.

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

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.

Not suffering another existence is reaching the Way.

The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

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

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?

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

In order to see a fish you must watch the water

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.

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

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.

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

I never lost or fail, not yet conquered. If I fall seven times, I get up eight

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.

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.

To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

. . . 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.

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.

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.

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.

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.