Bodhidharma on fasts

“The same holds true for observing a fast. It’s useless unless you understand what this really means. To fast means to regulate, to regulate your body and mind so that they’re not distracted or disturbed. And to observe means to uphold, to uphold the rules of discipline according to the Dharma. Fasting means guarding against the six attractions on the outside and the three poisons on the inside and striving through contemplation to purify your body and mind.”

“Worship means reverence and humility. It means revering your real self and humbling delusions. If you can wipe out evil desires and harbor good thoughts, even if nothing shows, it’s worship. Such form is its real form.”

“The people I meet nowadays are superficial. They think of merit as something that has form. They squander their wealth and butcher creatures of land and sea. They foolishly concern themselves with erecting statues and stupas, telling people to pile up lumber and bricks, to paint this blue and that green.”

-from The Zen of Bodhidharma translated by Red Pine.

Bodhidharma

"I only talk about seeing your nature. I don’t talk about creating karma. Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us. Through endless kalpas without beginning, it’s only because people don’t see their nature that they end up in hell. As long as a person creates karma, he keeps passing through birth and death. But once a person realizes his original nature, he stops creating karma." (Bodhidharma in The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma)

Another monk, this one from Vietnam:

Bodhidharma

“When Bodhidharma arrived in China, in the latter part of the fifth century, there were approximately 2,000 Buddhist temples and 36,000 clergy in the South. In the North, a census in 477 counted 6,500 temples and nearly 80,000 clergy. Less than fifty years later, another census conducted in the North raised these figures to 30,000 temples and 2,000,000 clergy, or about 5 percent of the population.” (Introduced and translated by Red Pine: The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma.)

You can listen to a computer read the book.

“If this is all we know about Bodhidharma, why, then, is he the most famous of all the millions of monks who have studied and taught the Dharma in China? The reason is that he alone is credited with bringing zen to China. Of course, zen, as meditation, had been taught and practiced for several hundred years before Bodhidharma arrived. And much of what he had to say concerning doctrine had been said before—by Tao-sheng, for example, a hundred years earlier. But Bodhidharma’s approach to zen was unique. As he says in these sermons, “Seeing your nature is zen … . Not thinking about anything is zen … . Everything you do is zen.” While others viewed zen as purification of the mind or as a stage on the way to buddhahood, Bodhidharma equated zen with buddhahood—and buddhahood with the mind, the everyday mind. Instead of telling his disciples to purify their minds, he pointed them to rock walls, to the movements of tigers and cranes, to a hollow reed floating across the Yangtze, to a single sandal. Bodhidharma’s zen was Mahayana Zen, not Hinayana Zen—the sword of wisdom, not the meditation cushion. As did other masters, he undoubtedly instructed his disciples in Buddhist discipline, meditation, and doctrine, but he used the sword that Prajnatara had given him to cut their minds free from rules, trances, and scriptures. Such a sword, though, is hard to grasp and hard to use. Small wonder that his sole successor, Hui-k’o, was a one-armed man.“ (op cit)

Bodhidharma: “…when you first embark on the Path, your awareness won’t be focused. You’re likely to see all sorts of strange, dreamlike scenes. But you shouldn’t doubt that all such scenes come from your own mind and nowhere else.”

Recent listening:

It's 30 years since Meeting The Buddhas came out. I listened to the interview of Vessantara on Windhorse. I appreciated that book when I read it long ago, pretty near when it came out, and I'm glad to see it's all back in one book now. It was split up into 3 books for a while.

Fascinating interview of Nagabodhi about his book about Sangharakshita. 

Bhikkhu Bodhi from Chuang Yen Monastery.

Ajahn Chah on Right Samadi. Developing Samadi. 

Hillside Hermitage seems pretty intense.

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma, by Yoshitoshi, 1887

Bodhidharma is thought to have brought Buddhism to China. His teacher was thought to be Prajnatara.

The work Two Entries and Four Practices is attributed to him.

The four practices are as follows:
1. Accept whatever befalls us without complaining about injustice.
2. Adapt to conditions and accept that we are ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.
3. Practice non-craving.
4. Practice the dharma.

I think we can accept circumstances and work towards fighting injustices. As I've said before we can examine the individual system and the larger systems. Practicing non-craving seems impossible to me, the key is to be creative and not reactive and act in your own best interest.

The Essence of Mahayana Practice is also attributed to him.

He is mentioned in The Blue Cliff Record.

He inspired the Daruma doll. "At the end of the year, all the Daruma are brought back to the temple they were purchased from for a traditional burning ceremony." Here is a video (7 minutes). The color means something for types of luck. The legend is that he meditated so much that his legs withered away. They are often weighted so that they always stand up. That led to the phrase, "fall down seven times and get up eight." They supposedly help people recover from smallpox and warn people if someone in the house has smallpox. I don't think this woman burns her Daruma dolls.

This is a 10 minute film about Bodhidharma's stupa, where he supposedly is buried.

Resources:

Who Was Bodhidharma?

Bodhidharma by Lin Sen-shou