Bodhidharma Quotes

5111-bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a 5th century Buddhist monk. He is regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. Bodhidharma’s practice and teachings are centered on meditation and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. It is believed that there is an uninterrupted line from Bodhidharma all the way back to the Gautama Buddha himself.

Bodhidharma Quotes:

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.

Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

Your mind is nirvana.

According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.

Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.

Words are illusions.

And as long as you’re subject to birth and death, you’ll never attain enlightenment.

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

To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

People who don’t see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.

To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion.

Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.

Life and death are important. Don’t suffer them in vain.

If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it’s the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.

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.

And the Buddha is the person who’s free: free of plans, free of cares.

As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free.

A Buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.

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

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

All phenomena are empty.

Whoever realizes that the six senses aren’t real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of Buddhas.

Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.

Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help.

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