Bodhidharma
Traditionally 5th or 6th century AD; the dates are not agreed
Who was Bodhidharma, and what is truly known of them?
What is known
The monk whom Chan Buddhism, called Zen in Japan, counts as its first patriarch in China. The earliest notice is in a record of the monasteries of Luoyang written in 547, which mentions a monk Bodhidharma from the western regions, there said to be a Persian, admiring a pagoda. A preface by his follower Tanlin calls him the third son of a south Indian king and gives the one short text commonly held to be his, the Two Entrances and Four Practices. The life written by Daoxuan about 645 adds that he reached south China by sea and taught a meditation called wall-gazing in the north.
The teaching
Taught from the Two Entrances and Four Practices, with Tanlin's preface and the early records of his school.
Two ways in
There are many ways into the path, the text begins, but all come down to two: entry by principle and entry by practice. Tanlin, who set the teaching down, sums up what his master gave in four parts: wall-gazing to make the mind peaceful, the four practices for living, going along with the world so as to give no offence, and skilful means to keep the pupil from clinging.
Entry by principle: wall-gazing
To enter by principle is to awaken to the essence through the teaching: to believe deeply that all living beings, ordinary and holy alike, share one true nature, which is hidden only by dust from outside and by false thinking. Whoever turns from the false and returns to the true, resting unmoved in wall-gazing, finds no self and no other; the ordinary and the holy are equal and one. Holding firm and not shifting, no longer led by written words, such a one is in silent accord with the principle, without discriminating, still and doing nothing. That is entry by principle.
What wall-gazing is the text does not explain. Zongmi, a later master of the school, gives a saying in Bodhidharma's name that shows how it was understood: outwardly let all involvements rest, inwardly let the mind not pant; with the mind like a wall one may enter the Way. It is the mind made upright and unmoving, not a feat of endurance. Sitting is learned in short periods with a teacher, and pain or distress is a reason to stop.
Repaying wrongs
Entry by practice is four practices that hold all the others. The first is repaying wrongs. When one suffers, one should think: through countless ages I have left the root for the branches, wandering through every kind of life, and caused hatred and harm without end. Though I do no wrong now, this is the fruit of past wrongs ripening, which no god or man has sent me, and I accept it patiently and do not complain. The sutra says: meet suffering without distress, because one sees to its root. When this mind arises, one is in accord with the principle, and through wrongs suffered one advances on the Way.
Going along with conditions
The second is going along with conditions. Beings have no self; they are turned by conditions, and suffering and joy alike arise from conditions. If one meets with honour, fame or good fortune, it comes from past causes; one receives it now, and when the conditions are spent it is gone again, so what is there to be glad about? Gain and loss follow conditions, while the mind neither grows nor shrinks; the wind of joy does not move it, and one is in silent accord with the Way.
Seeking nothing
The third is seeking nothing. People of the world are always deluded, craving and clinging everywhere, and this is called seeking. The wise awaken to the truth and turn from custom: they rest the mind in what is not made and let the body go along with its changes. All that exists is empty, and nothing in it is worth wishing for; merit and darkness always walk together. To stay long in the three worlds is to live in a burning house; to have a body is suffering, and who can find rest there? The sutra says: to seek is to suffer; to seek nothing is joy.
Practising the Dharma
The fourth is practising in accord with the Dharma. The principle of the pure nature is called the Dharma: in it all marks are empty, there is no stain and no clinging, no this and no that. The sutra says the Dharma has no beings, because it is free of the stain of beings, and no self, because it is free of the stain of self. The wise who believe and understand this practise accordingly. Because the Dharma holds nothing back, they give body, life and goods without regret; they practise the six perfections to clear away false thinking, and yet nothing is practised; they help themselves and others and adorn the way of awakening.
The sutra he gave
Daoxuan's life of his pupil Huike records that Bodhidharma handed him the Lankavatara Sutra in four scrolls, saying that in the land of China he saw only this sutra, and that by relying on it one could cross over the world. The sutra teaches that the whole world is mind's own seeing, that the true nature lies within every being, and that words point to the truth as a finger points to the moon, and are not the moon.
What the later school remembered
The school that grew from him gave him four lines on a transmission outside the scriptures, not standing on words and pointing straight at the mind, which are taught on the page of Zen, among the mystics. Its later records add the sayings most remembered. Asked by the emperor for the first principle of the holy teaching, he answered: vast emptiness, nothing holy. And when Huike begged him to pacify his mind, he said: bring me your mind and I will pacify it. Huike answered that he had searched for it and could not find it, and Bodhidharma said: there, I have pacified it for you.
Orders and memberships
A Buddhist monk. The Chan lineage that names him its first Chinese patriarch, and the twenty-eighth in a line from the Buddha, was drawn up in the eighth and ninth centuries. No source of his own time ties him to the Shaolin monastery.
The legend
That he sat facing a wall for nine years, that he cut off his eyelids to stay awake and tea bushes grew where they fell, that he told the emperor Wu of Liang his good works had earned no merit, and that he taught the monks of Shaolin the exercises from which kung fu descends.
What was forged, or is false
The Yijin Jing or Muscle Change Classic, the exercise manual said to be his gift to Shaolin. Its prefaces claim dates in the Tang and Song dynasties; the historian Tang Hao showed in 1930 that the book is of the seventeenth century.
Their works
- Two Entrances and Four PracticesTeaching, 6th century
A short text with a preface by his follower Tanlin, teaching entry to the way by principle, through wall gazing and the knowledge that all beings share one true nature, and by four practices of daily life. It is the one teaching commonly held to be his, and the earliest text of the school that became Chan and Zen.
It is held to be his on the word of Tanlin’s preface; nothing else confirms it.
Ask the Oracle about it - Record of the Monasteries of LuoyangAccount, 547
Yang Xuanzhi’s account of the Buddhist temples of the old capital Luoyang, which mentions a monk named Bodhidharma from the western regions, said to be a Persian, praising the beauty of a great pagoda. It is the earliest notice of him, and the only one from his own lifetime or close to it.
Ask the Oracle about it - Further Lives of Eminent MonksBiography, about 645
Daoxuan’s collection of the lives of Buddhist monks, which tells that Bodhidharma came to south China by sea, taught wall gazing in the north, and passed his teaching to Huike. It is the first real life of him, written about a century after his death.
Ask the Oracle about it - Record of the Transmission of the LampAccount, 1004
A Song dynasty history of the Chan masters, which gathers the famous tales of him: the meeting with the emperor Wu, the nine years before a wall, and Huike cutting off his arm to be taught. It fixed the legend that most people know.
The tales it tells are later than the earliest sources and are held to be legend.
Ask the Oracle about it - Muscle Change ClassicBook, 17th century
An exercise manual, the Yijin Jing, said in its prefaces to be the gift of Bodhidharma to the monks of Shaolin. It lies behind the story that kung fu descends from him. The historian Tang Hao showed in 1930 that the book is of the seventeenth century.
It is not his; its prefaces claim false dates to tie it to him.
Ask the Oracle about it
How the house tells a life
This life is told from the record, with what is documented, what is legend and what was forged kept apart. A membership in an order is stated only where documents show it. A person’s chart explains none of their deeds.
The arts it feeds
Lives near it in time
Thinkers and teachers
NagarjunaPlotinusManiPorphyryHypatiaProclusAdi ShankaraPadmasambhavaAl-KindiAvicennaMilarepaAl-GhazaliThe whole tree
