Bodhidharma's wall

Bodhidharma, who is regarded as the First Patriarch of Ch'an or the Zen tradition, is sometimes called the wall-contemplating or wall-gazing Brahmin.  He is often depicted as sitting in a cave gazing at the cave's wall which he did, supposedly, for nine years! Most likely this is a fictional account devised by later Zennists to fill in the gap left by the elusive term "wall-gazing" which in Chinese is biguan/pi-kuan.  Heinrich Dumoulin gives us a better understanding of Bodhidharma's wall-contemplation.

"In an ancient text ascribed to Bodhidharma, his way of meditation is characterized by the Chinese word pi-kuan, literally wall-gazing or wall-contemplation.  Except for the word pi-kuan, the same passage is found in a Mahayana sutra; it reads: "When one, abandoning the false and embracing the true, in simplicity of thought abides in pi-kuan, one finds that there is neither selfhood nor otherness, that ordinary men (prthagjana) and saints (arya) are of one essence."  The sutra speaks of the "vision of enlightenment [chüeh-kuan]" at this point—an expression that also occurs in Zen literature.  Whatever the case may be, with the insertion of the word pi-kuan in this text (most likely taken from the sutra), the expression pi-kuan and the whole text indicated a manner of meditation that later generations typified as "Bodhidharma Zen" (Zen Enlightenment, p. 38).  

Pi-kuan is certainly a special kind of vision or insight which is not this worldly.  Jeffrey Broughton provides us with another angle on pi-kuan—a Tibetan perspective—one which is certainly more esoteric.

"Various Ch'an text were translated into Tibetan, one of the most important being the Bodhidharma Anthology, which in Tibetan is usually referred to as the Great Chinese Injunctions (Rgya lung chen po).  The recently discovered ninth-century Tibetan treatise Dhyâna of the Enlightened Eye (Bsam gtan mig sgron) contains translations of some of [Bodhidharma's] the Two Entrances, some material from Record I, and the whole of Record III.  Early on the Dhyâna of the Enlightened Eye gives summaries of four teachings known in early Tibet: the gradualist gate; the all-at-once gate (Chinese Ch'an); Mahayoga; and Atiyoga (Rdzog-chen).

The summary of Ch'an ends with a series of quotations from Ch'an masters, the first of whom is Bodhidharmatâra, the version of the name that is encountered in Tibetan sources: "From the sayings of the Great Master Bodhidharmatara [Bo-dhe-dar-mo-ta-ra]: 'If one reverts to the real, rejects discrimination, and abides in brightness, then there is neither self nor other.  The common man and sage are equal.  If without shifting you abide in firmness, after that you will not follow after the written teaching.  This is the quiet of the principle of the real.  It is nondiscriminative, quiescent, and inactive.  It is entrance into principle" (The Bodhidharma Anthology, p. 67). (Italics mine.)

The Tibetan lhan me is rendered, in the above, as "abides in brightness" but could easily be rendered "abides in luminosity" which pertains to the luminosity of Mind.  Abides in brightness serves to give Bodhidharma's words a profoundly spiritual ring which they deserve in light of the context of this sermon and others.  Following this, here is Red Pine's translation which is roughly the same as Broughton’s translation except for the problem with the wall!

"Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason" (The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, p. 3). (Italics mine.)

Reason should tell us meditating on walls will get us no where in the spiritual scheme of things, but abiding in brightness or the luminosity of Mind certainly will.  We can think of this wall as being a luminous wall.  It alone represents true reality.  The wall’s nature is purely universal and dynamic from which all phenomena arise and return.  It is also thoroughly signless and empty—yet not empty of true reality.  It is only empty of the non-real or the same, empty of illusory phenomena.

On a slightly different note, Japanese Soto Zen took Bodhidharma’s wall-gazing quite literally.  This explains why Soto Zennists, to this day, still sit facing a wall when doing zazen.  In the Bendowa, Dogen firmly believes Bodhidharma sat nine years in zazen at the Shaolin monastery on Mount Sung facing a wall.  What Dogen is apparently not aware of is the term “zazen” doesn’t appear in the passage that contains pi-kuan.  Bodhidharma never sat in a cave, facing a wall doing zazen, in other words. 

 

 

 

Comments

[Imperishable Night]

Couldn't it be that the "wall" also symbolizes turning away from the world? People look at this and that, but nobody would look a wall. A wall is the least interesting thing in the phenomenal world. So gazing a wall could also mean to gaze what is most uninteresting (in the phenomenal) because one is - really engaging in something totally different, non dual, above and outside all phenomena. That is to say, the wall is a metaphor of turning away from all dharmas, to where? An inward-turning.

Similar to Heraclitus, the father of Western philosophy, who said all his insight came from "Self-inquiry", following Delphi's GNOTHI SEAUTON!

[infrared light therapy]

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[Jundo Cohen]

Does it truly matter whether we face the wall or away, is there any of the Juppo 10 Direction(s) that is not faced at once, faced and facing? Our self seeps into every stone and crevice of the wall, the wall is every crevice and stone of the sitting. No wall to face, no body to face the wall ... just Original Face originally facing.

And in this way, the wall stands there tall and strong, and I sit here tall and strong ... the wall sits hours of Zazen facing me ... and it hurts like hell when I bump my knee on that damn shining wall.

Something like that.

Gassho, Jundo

[minx]

My master told me;

"The chan of the ignorant is powerless. It serves no other purpose but to reinforce their own incessant desires and illusions. You should only deal in what works for right knowledge and right release from samsara. Nothing else matters.

What you need for the latter is real power, not found in this world. A power that can effectuate such an extraordinary act with the ease of a singel thought. True chan, as established by the Buddhas, is pure power of the true and indestructable Mind, brought forth in full display.

It is a power you do not forget once you have come to stand face to face with its essence . This power alone can free you from the bonds of birth and death. Thus you should not put your trust in anything else but this power. "

[WuWeiTV]

an interesting link:
http://zbohy.zatma.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/7thWorld/c19p1.html