Bodhidharma Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Bodhidharma

  Reality, Depends

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.57, Macmillan

  110 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Crush, Ideas, Wish

  13 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Attachment, Transformation, Birth

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.41, Macmillan

  97 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Reality, Opposites, Understanding

  75 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Fall, Eight, Failing

  27 Copy quote

• In order to see a fish you must watch the water

  Bodhidharma

  Order, Water, Watches

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Peace, Suffering, Doe

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.5, North Point Press

  20 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Understanding, Way, Dharma

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.55, North Point Press

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Lying, Reality, Thinking

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.49, Macmillan

  20 Copy quote

• All know the way, but few actually walk it.

  Bodhidharma

  Buddhism, Inspire, Way

  86 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Inspiring, Worship, Knows

  39 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Somewhere Else, Long, Mind

  112 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Roots, Mind, Grows

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.77, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Suffering, Bliss

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.5, Macmillan

  75 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Doctrine, Way, Tao

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.31, Macmillan

  44 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Real, Uprising, Mind

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.53, Macmillan

  14 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Anger, Passion, Ignorant Masses

  46 Copy quote

• . . . 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Believe, Fall, Teaching

  88 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  Lying, Thinking, Mind

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.49, Macmillan

  92 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Karma, Wisdom, Memories

  17 Copy quote

• Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.

  Bodhidharma

  Ignorance, Stupidity, Engaging

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.51, Macmillan

  25 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Reality, Mind, Use

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.55, Macmillan

  79 Copy quote

• The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.

  Bodhidharma

  Real, Mind, Body

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.43, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

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

  Bodhidharma

  World, Deluded

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.51, Macmillan

  33 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bodhidharma

  Wisdom, Real, Space

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.43, Macmillan

  30 Copy quote

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