Bodhidharma (early 5th c. CE) was a Buddhist monk who is credited with bringing Buddhism to China, and is regarded as the first patriarch of Chan/Zen Buddhism. There are numerous apocryphal stories about him, but very little is known with certainty.

Someone who understands the teaching of sages is a sage. Someone who understands the teaching of mortals is a mortal. A mortal who can give up the teaching of mortals and follow the teaching of sages becomes a sage. But the fools of this world prefer to look for sages far away. They don’t believe that the wisdom of their own mind is the sage. The sutra says, “Among men of no understanding , don’t preach this sutra.” And the sutra says, “Mind is the teaching.” But people of no understanding don’t believe in their own mind or that by understanding the teaching they can become a sage. They prefer to look for distant knowledge and long for things in space, buddha-images, light, incense and colours. They fall prey to falsehood and lose their minds to insanity.

The sutra says, “When you see that all appearances are not appearances, you see the tathagata.”* The myriad doors of the truth all come from the mind. When appearances of the mind are as transparent as space, they’re gone.

Our endless sufferings are the roots of illness. When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they’re full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don’t consider the past. And they don’t worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way. If you haven’t awakened to this great truth, you’d better look for a teacher on earth or in the heavens. Don’t compound your own deficiency.

*‘Tathagata’ is a Pali word, which Shakyamuni Buddha used to refer to himself or to other Buddhas.

Translation Red Pine