Bodhidharma
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Our annual Bodhidharma memorial observance is coming next Saturday, October 6. Bodhidharma Day is typically celebrated on October 5th, regardless of the day of the week it falls. But we are working people and our gatherings must be contained to weekends.
Bodhidharma was quite a rascal. Bearded, protruding eyes, and a wicked clarity of understanding, he was our first Zen patriarch. He came from India to China and really annoyed the Emperor who thought because he built temples and such that he might have gained some "merit" in these gifts. Not so, according to this rascal from the east.
"Vast emptiness" was his proclamation. And he stole away to a cave to sit facing a wall for nine years. Ahhh, the stuff of great legends.
At the conclusion of his cave dwelling, he emerged to teach.
There is something about a person who undergoes such a separation from the greater community. Lots of great religious teachers have done similar things, and in the case of the Jews, the whole nation wandered in the desert for forty years. Trauma serves the same purpose. Anything that shatters our understanding of the basic, shared, social constructs will set us free from them.
When we are free from our society's assumptions, our eyes are open and we see without the distortion of the social mores of our society. Yet, we are still not free.. We must next free ourselves from our own basic assumptions, heck, assumptions in general.
To see without reference to self or others is the key. To see directly what is there. Not a keyboard. Not a cup of coffee or tea. Not a dog. But the original, true nature of these "things".
For Bodhidharma, his eyes saw vast emptiness. A universe of process in process. He saw an infinite verb.
A person who sees in such a way is at great peace. This is true sentience and immortality. So, as a person, a mortal person (a Buddhist Master's reference to a person who is not yet awake) , approaches him for teaching he is able to see clearly and respond in accordance with what he sees. We call this response compassion.
Now, the compassion of a Master might not be what we mortals might understand as our eyes are closed. We understand with our head's and our heart's desire. We might think a compassionate response is to offer food to a hungry person or sit and listen to tales of woe from others. Sometimes this is compassionate. Sometimes it is really far from the mark.
Bodhidharma's first disciple had to cut off his arm and offer it to him before he would be accepted. A stretch? Perhaps. But the various points of stories are not their truth. The truth is under the point. A disciple to be accepted must show the Master his willingness to set himself aside. He must leave what he knows and become ignorant, so to speak.
This is so difficult for us in the west. We approach everything with ideas about the thing we are approaching and in this way never actually see it. We let our memories, our "knowledge base" do our perceiving. How blinding this must be!
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Our annual Bodhidharma memorial observance is coming next Saturday, October 6. Bodhidharma Day is typically celebrated on October 5th, regardless of the day of the week it falls. But we are working people and our gatherings must be contained to weekends.
Bodhidharma was quite a rascal. Bearded, protruding eyes, and a wicked clarity of understanding, he was our first Zen patriarch. He came from India to China and really annoyed the Emperor who thought because he built temples and such that he might have gained some "merit" in these gifts. Not so, according to this rascal from the east.
"Vast emptiness" was his proclamation. And he stole away to a cave to sit facing a wall for nine years. Ahhh, the stuff of great legends.
At the conclusion of his cave dwelling, he emerged to teach.
There is something about a person who undergoes such a separation from the greater community. Lots of great religious teachers have done similar things, and in the case of the Jews, the whole nation wandered in the desert for forty years. Trauma serves the same purpose. Anything that shatters our understanding of the basic, shared, social constructs will set us free from them.
When we are free from our society's assumptions, our eyes are open and we see without the distortion of the social mores of our society. Yet, we are still not free.. We must next free ourselves from our own basic assumptions, heck, assumptions in general.
To see without reference to self or others is the key. To see directly what is there. Not a keyboard. Not a cup of coffee or tea. Not a dog. But the original, true nature of these "things".
For Bodhidharma, his eyes saw vast emptiness. A universe of process in process. He saw an infinite verb.
A person who sees in such a way is at great peace. This is true sentience and immortality. So, as a person, a mortal person (a Buddhist Master's reference to a person who is not yet awake) , approaches him for teaching he is able to see clearly and respond in accordance with what he sees. We call this response compassion.
Now, the compassion of a Master might not be what we mortals might understand as our eyes are closed. We understand with our head's and our heart's desire. We might think a compassionate response is to offer food to a hungry person or sit and listen to tales of woe from others. Sometimes this is compassionate. Sometimes it is really far from the mark.
Bodhidharma's first disciple had to cut off his arm and offer it to him before he would be accepted. A stretch? Perhaps. But the various points of stories are not their truth. The truth is under the point. A disciple to be accepted must show the Master his willingness to set himself aside. He must leave what he knows and become ignorant, so to speak.
This is so difficult for us in the west. We approach everything with ideas about the thing we are approaching and in this way never actually see it. We let our memories, our "knowledge base" do our perceiving. How blinding this must be!
Be well.