Bodhidharma didn’t travel west so that some Zen master later on might say, as for his reason of coming to the west, “Cypress tree in the front of the hall.” Bodhidharma came to the west to point out the true nature that all beings inherently possess so they might awaken to it and put an end to their beginningless suffering. He was a Buddhist ascetic (t'ou-t'o, dhûta in Sanskrit) who saw what the Buddha saw and elected to teach it to people whose minds were stained and defiled by their erroneous knowledge—hopefully, not too much!
Bodhidharma for some Zennists remains an inspiration, even to this day. He was a member of the Lanka School that was named after the Lankavatara Sutra, a most recondite Mahayana discourse of the Buddha which according to one scholar may have hugely influenced Nagarjuna. Bodhidharma told his followers to regard this discourse as "the only translated Sutra which, if followed in conduct, may lead to salvation."
While all this sounds nice it doesn’t erase the mind that is stained and defiled by erroneous knowledge. Such a mind can even read and practice Zen, and still be deluded. We can only verbalize and think about this so much thus leading ourself astray in the process. Eventually, we have to penetrate through the stained and defiled mind to reach its unperturbed, supramundane substance. Reading “Cypress tree in the front of the hall” a thousand times will not help us one jot.
Setting our will to seeing the true nature that Bodhidharma saw is a deadly serious business. Once we decide to start we shouldn’t stop. There are no halfway measures to awakening because such an awakening, in a flash, has to be thorough and complete, encompassing the universe. When the finger points, we see the moon. When the word “Buddha Mind” is spoken, the Zen adept has to see it, directly. Otherwise, it is like looking at the finger unable to see the moon overhead.
Comments