I had wanted to share about Bodhidharma, first the man and now briefly some of his message.    

These quotes I have taken from different talks Bodhidharma gave to his disciples.  They are not given to you in the order he said them.  I have chosen to place them in a certain order to concentrate the point I wished to share:

 The Practice You Cultivate Doesn't Exist Apart from Your Mind

Quotes of Bodhidharma:

"Everything good and bad comes from your own mind."  "All karma, painful or otherwise, comes from your own mind.  If you can just concentrate your mind and transcend its falsehood, the suffering of existence will automatically disappear.  And once free from suffering, you're truly free."  "Don't cling to appearances.  Wherever you find delight, you find bondage." "If you seek direct understanding, don't hold on to any appearance whatsoever, and you'll succeed.  I have no other advice." "No advantage in fooling yourself.  Good and bad are distinct. Cause and effect are clear to see." 

What Bodhidharma is telling us is that thinking gives you a limit.  Whatsoever you think, this becomes your reality, your experience.   Thoughts come from your mind, every thought you have is a by-product of your mind.  It is your attitude, your speculation, your reaction, your prejudice, but it is not existence itself.  It is not reality with the big "R".  It is your limited reality.  And you cannot experience anything beyond your own thoughts.  You are trapped by your own thinking.  When you have a certain thought, that thought becomes your barrier between you and reality.  People believe that they can simply rearrange the furniture, rearrange their thought system and be free, and this is not true.  Any thought system that you hold becomes a limit, becomes an entrapment.  Sooner or later one wishes to be totally free.

To become religious means that now you are going to give up your limited thinking, your limited view.  Becoming religious means that you are not satisfied with the reality you are projecting, that you are ready now to know the truth of your being, to see reality as it truly is. Being religious means that now you are ready to face your eternal body, to face eternal reality.  Everybody says they want the truth, but nobody really wants it.  To become religious means you are now going to live without 'your' mind.  You will surrender and become empty.   You will not cling to any appears that you have produced from your thinking.  

Bodhidharma says:  (and again I have taken these quotes and placed them in a certain order) "To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss."  "People are deluded.  They are unaware that their own mind is the buddha.  Otherwise they wouldn't look for a buddha outside the mind."  "If people weren't deluded why would they ask about something right in front of them?"  "Awareness is not hidden. But you can only find it right here and now." "You should realize that the practice you cultivate does not exist apart from your mind." "Whoever talks about leaving the mind doesn't get very far." "People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools."  "Using your mind to look for reality is delusion.  Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness."  "The buddha is your real body - your original mind."

The body is not only the body, a deeper body is the mind.  Body consists of matter, mind also consists of matter - subtle, more refined, but still matter.  We can detach from the body easier because of its gross form, but the mind is more difficult to detach from because of its subtle nature.  Bodhidharma says "Mind is subtle and hard to see."  Mind is your inner layer.  It is very near to you.  Please remember both body and mind are not you.  The body will die, but the eternal you will not die.  In death your outer body drops, but you carry the inner, subtle layer with you.  You are so attached to it that even at death you are not separated from your mind, from the subtle body.  And not only is the mind of this life contained within your body, but your past lives also. Layers and layers of subtle mind within you. You are so attached to them that you never lose the grip.  In death the outer dissolves, but the vibration of your mind, your thought vibrations carry with you and you create and enter a new body according to the thought pattern.

That's why meditation is considered an even deeper death than the physical death.  And there is a deep fear to transcend mind, even deeper fear than losing the body.  People can easily become detached from body, but not so easily from their mind.  Great courage is needed to be empty, without any support.  You must die to your mind, allow it to dissolve and melt.  You must have courage to die.  And once you die to your mind, you are born anew, you are resurrected, a new person.  You cannot even find a trace of the old.  Now you will never again be identified with the old mind.  You will use the mind, but you will never again become identified with it.  It will become an instrument.  Right now you are the instrument and the mind is the master.  You believe and do whatever it says.

"To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity."

So if you are truly interested in Reality, in knowing the truth of your existence there is no other place to seek outside of your mind.  So many people say they are interested in meditation, but that interest is not very deep because no one is being transformed by it.  No one wants to let go of themselves.  That means we are deceiving ourselves, hoping we can find some way to rearrange the mind and feel blissful, liberated.  "Not to be subject to affliction is what is meant by liberation." 

The new mind cannot be a continuity with the old mind.  The old must discontinue, must go.  Only then can you experience the new come into being.  But we are afraid.  We want to be transformed but at the same time, we want to remain the old, we want to cling to mind and what we know as true.  This is the deception.  This is why so few become transformed by meditation, by practice. 

Sometimes mind is so cunning that it will create superficial interests so we can say to ourselves, Look!.  I am changing, I am transforming...meditating, doing whatever I can do.  And we remain the same.

"You cannot know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.  As long as you are enthralled by a lifeless form, you're not free." "Once you stop clinging and let things be, you'll be free, even of birth and death.  You'll transform everything.  You'll possess spiritual powers that can't be obstructed.  And you'll be at peace wherever you are."

"...the practice you cultivate doesn't exist apart from your mind." "If you have not awakened to this great truth you'd better look for a teacher on earth or in the heavens.  Don't compound your own deficiency."

May every being be at peace wherever they are!

The practice you cultivate does not exist apart from your mind. 

Thank you, Bodhidharma.

Bodhidharma's name stands out amongst all the Buddhist enlightened people second only to Guatam Buddha.  I met this man when I was about 18.  I fell deeply in love.  He stays in my heart at every moment.  I love him so deeply, I fall into silence just to hear his name.   He is my hero.  "I will stand by you forever.  .....my hero."

I had wished to share a little about the man and in the below blog,"The Practice You Cultivate Doesn't Exist Apart from Your Mind" some about his teaching.

Bodhidharma was born fourteen centuries ago as a son of a king in the south of India.  He was born into a big empire, the empire of Pallavas.  He was the third son of his father, and a man of great intelligence.  He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs. He renounced the kingdom.  His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end.

His father was hoping he would be the successor to his empire.  And at that time times were quite beautiful in the east.  But Bodhidharma renounced the kindgdom saying to his father, "If you cannot save me from death, then please don't prevent me.  Let me go in search of something that is beyond death."  The father thought for a moment and he said, "I will not prevent you, because I cannot prevent your death.  You go on your search with all my blessings. It is sad for me but that is my problem; it is my attachment."

Bodhidharma was a follower of Gautam Buddha.  And even though Guatam Buddha was quite reluctant to initiate women, Bodhidharma believed strongly that women could become enlightened.  He was even initiated by an enlightened woman named Pragyatra.  It was she who ordered Bodhidharma to go to China.  Bodhidharma was courageous enough to be initiated by a woman on the path of Guatam Buddha.  There were other enlightened people, but he chose a woman for a certain purpose.  And the purpose was to show that a woman can be enlightened.  Not only that, her disciples can be enlightened.

Bodhidharma did not accept many disciples.  He was a very choosy man.   Of the two million Buddhist in China at that time, he accepted only four worthy to be accepted as his disciple.  And it is a matter of fact that upon entering China he sat looking at a wall for nine years!  Nine years facing a wall.  He made it a great meditation.  He would just simply go on looking at the wall.  He declared to the audience that would sit behind him "Unless somebody who deserves to be my disciple comes, I will not look at the audience."

So people used to come and sit behind him, not knowing what to do.  Yet Bodhidharma would not turn to face them.  He said, "The audience hurts me more, because it is just like wall.  Nobody understands, and to look at human beings in such an ignorant state hurts deeply.  But to look at the wall, there is no question; a wall, after all is a wall.  It cannot hear, so there is no need to be hurt.  I will turn to face the audience only if somebody proves by his actions that he is ready to be my disciple."

Nine years passed.  People could not find what to do, what action would satisfy him. They could not figure it out.  Then came this young man, Hui Ko. He cut off one of his hands with a sword, and threw the hand before Bodhidharma and said, "This is the beginning. Either you turn, or my head will be falling before you.  I am going to cut my head too."

Bodhidharma turned and said, "You are really a man worthy of me. No need to cut the head, we have to use it." This man, Hui Ko, was his first disciple.

One day when he intended to leave China he called his four disciples to question them and decide which one would be his successor.  After questioning them he chose Hui Ko as his successor.  But in the night Bodhidharma was poisoned by some disciple as a revenge, because he had not been chosen as the successor. So they buried him.  And after three years a governmental official came upon Bodhidharma barefoot walking out of China towards the Himalayas with his staff in his hand and one of his sandals hanging from the staff.  The official had known him, and loved him deeply.  He asked, "What is the meaning of this staff, and one sandal hanging from it?"  Bodhidharma said, "Soon you will know.  If you meet my people just tell them that I'm going into the Himalayas forever."

The official reached the monastery where his people resided.  And there he heard that Bodhidharma had been poisoned and he had died.  And the tomb was there.  He said, "My God, but I have seen him, and I cannot be deceived because I have seen him many times. He was the same man, those ferocious eyes, that same fiery and wild look, and on top of that, he was carrying on his staff one sandal."

The disciples opened the tomb.  And all they could find there was only one sandal.  Then the official knew the meaning of the words, "You will find out the meaning of it; soon you will know."

We have heard about Jesus' resurrection, but not much is said about the resurrection of Bodhidharma.  There is no other knowledge of him after his departure to the Himalayas.  He must be buried in the eternal snows of the Himalayas somewhere.

  "Am I in too deep?  Have I lost my mind?".....

"And would you save my soul tonight?"....

Pure love is a very small percentage of what one experiences in love affairs.  A very small percentage is pure love.  The larger part of love is fighting, insecurities, anger, jealousies, possessiveness.  Before you can experience pure love, you must go through many purifications. 

In love affairs, the larger part crushes the small percentage of pure love that is existing in the heart.  And after a few experiences, after one has been burnt a few times, one becomes very weary, tired. One begins to feel it is not worth the hassle to enter and allow themselves to be in love again. 

So to avoid love people start moving toward pure sex because sex does not give you the same problems, the same hassle. It seems far more convenient and you are not taken to such hells as you are in love.  But of course you also do not experience the beauty of love.

To enter into sex with someone is easy.  Being in love is not so easy.  But that is because your heart is involved.  And it is immensely significant when you start having your heart stir, when you are experiencing a true movement within your heart, because the heart is yours. The heart is what cannot be borrowed or sold. It is the gateway to your being.  The head is not yours.  It was given to you by society.  The head is a utility, a good mechanism for survival.  But you cannot enter yourself through it.

If you put an armour around your heart you block the emotions. Then the 'other', the lover, the friend remains distant.  Even if there is sex, even if you say to one another 'I love you."  There is no meeting.  You remain isolated as ever.  If you take that armour down your heart will melt, it will melt into the other, and the two hearts commune. 

Everybody has suppressed so much emotion, so much hurt, resentment, sadness, pain, anger, sexuality.  All these negative emotions crushing the love.

And it is only a matter of intelligence that we would be tired of this, feel the fear of entering again.  We get very nervous.  And we get nervous because love comes from the unconscious. And the unconscious is 99 percent of you.  Only one percent is conscious.  We try to stay in the one percent to avoid the 99.  We are more comfortable staying with knowledge than with the unknown.  And love arises from the deep unknown, from your unconscious and we don't know how to handle it. Yet this is where LIFE comes from.  This is where the adventure comes from - entering the unknown - the unknown self.

This is why people become dull and dead.  They are afraid of love, afraid of the unconscious.  When the unconscious arises there so much confusion.  Your nice orderly way of being is put into chaos.  You cannot control the unconscious. 

Allow it.  Allow it.  Otherwise you live life as a Pinochio...not yet a real boy.

And, of course it is good to have conscious control and order, it is good to have the head to maneuver.  But also allow yourself to enter the unknown.  LIfe consist of both. It takes a very courageous person to enter love, to allow the unconscious to rise.  You must be willing over and over to allow.   To enter love means to enter insecurity.  You don't know what will arise. Yet if you remain aware you get wonderful opportunities every moment to purify your heart of all the other rubbish that is suppressed and one day you experience life with pure love.  The one percent is now 99. 

Then your love is open...

"What is truly needed is a circumcision of the heart." jesus

You have separated the wheat from the shaft.

Your heart

is open. 

Your love is pure.