Bodhidharma

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

One and the same true nature in all beings, hidden by dust

An impersonal AbsoluteInferred from their doctrine

The only work with any chance of being his, the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices, does not speak of God. It speaks of a «principle» (li) and of a «true nature» that all living beings share and that is hidden only by the adventitious dust of deluded thoughts. Entering by principle means returning from the false to the true through wall contemplation, until silently according with it, without self or other, the ordinary person and the sage being equal. That nature is not someone: it does not know, will or relate to the creature. It is the common, formless ground that Chinese Buddhism called buddha-nature. The closest key is that of an impersonal Absolute, with the proviso that the text never calls it so.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

Beneath deluded thoughts, a shared true nature, without self or other

The Self is the AbsoluteInferred from their doctrine

The Treatise on the Two Entrances, the only work that can be traced to Bodhidharma's circle, does not speak of the self as a soul or a person. It speaks of a true nature that all living beings share and that the adventitious dust of deluded thoughts covers. Whoever abandons the false and returns to the true, steadfast in wall contemplation, is left «without self or other»: the ordinary person and the sage are equal. The text thus joins two statements that seem opposed. The particular self, with its gains and losses, is not what we are; what we are is that common nature, which belongs to no one. The fourth practice, in accord with the Dharma, adds that in the Dharma there is no self, because it is free of the stain of self.

Why do we suffer?

To seek is to suffer; to seek nothing is peace

Craving and attachmentStated explicitly

The Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices answers soberly. The third practice, «seeking nothing», starts from the fact that dwelling long in the three worlds is like living in a burning house: all that has a body suffers. Worldly people, deluded, attach themselves to one thing after another and call this seeking; the sage understands that all seeking brings suffering and that ceasing to seek brings joy. The first practice adds a karmic reading: present pain is the fruit of past deeds, committed over countless lives, and must be accepted without resentment. The second asks one to adapt to circumstances: gain and loss depend on them, and the mind that is not moved by the wind of joy silently accords with the Way.

What happens after death?

Present pain comes from past lives: it is accepted without resentment

Rebirth according to karmaInferred from their doctrine

The Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices does not speak of what happens at death, but it takes rebirth for granted. The first practice, that of «requiting injury», asks the sufferer to consider that, over countless aeons, he has abandoned the essential for the incidental and wandered through all forms of existence, causing hatred and harm; what he suffers now is the ripened fruit of those deeds, not something imposed by heaven or men. This awareness of previous lives serves to accept pain without resentment. The third practice presents the three worlds as a burning house from which only ceasing to seek frees one. The framework is the common Buddhist one; the text adds no doctrine of its own about death.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

Two entrances: by principle, contemplating the wall, and by four practices

Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly

The Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices sums up the path in its first sentence: many are the ways, but in essence they are two, entrance by principle and entrance by practice. The first consists in trusting deeply that all beings share a true nature and remaining steadfast in wall contemplation until silently according with it. The second unfolds in four practices: accepting suffering as the fruit of past deeds, adapting to circumstances without letting gain or loss move the mind, seeking nothing, and acting in accord with the Dharma, practising the perfections without attachment. It is a sober programme, joining a vision and a daily discipline of the mind.

Is a teacher necessary?

He hands over a sūtra and a practice: «you yourselves will be saved»

Helpful but not indispensableInferred from their doctrine

The oldest sources present Bodhidharma as a master with few disciples, Huike and Daoyu among them, according to Tanlin's preface. But what they transmit of him is not the idea of dependence on the master. According to Daoxuan's biography of Huike, when he handed him the four-fascicle Laṅkāvatāra he told him that in the land of the Han there was only this sūtra and that, if they practised it, they themselves would be saved. The Treatise on the Two Entrances adds that, steadfast in wall contemplation, one no longer follows the letter of the teachings: access is inward. The master guides and hands over a text and a method; the work belongs to the disciple. The image of the patriarch transmitting awakening from mind to mind is later.

Is the world real?

Gain and loss depend on circumstances; forms are empty

A web of causes without substanceInferred from their doctrine

The Treatise on the Two Entrances sets out no cosmology, but it shows how it looks at the world. The second practice states that beings have no self and that all that happens to them, gain or loss, honour or disgrace, depends on circumstances: when these are exhausted, it disappears, and there is no reason to rejoice or grieve. The fourth practice calls Dharma the principle of the purity of nature, and says that in it all forms are empty, without stain or attachment, without this or that. The third adds the existential side: the three worlds are a burning house. The world thus appears as a web of conditions without substance, before which the practitioner remains unmoved, neither rejecting nor pursuing it.

What is love?

He does not define love; he practises the perfections for his own and others' benefit

Did not address it

The Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices contains no reflection on love. The closest thing is in the fourth practice, acting in accord with the Dharma: whoever understands that in pure nature there is neither self nor other practises generosity without avarice towards one's body, life or goods, and offers it without attachment, to eliminate delusion, benefiting oneself and others. The other perfections are practised in the same way. The text presupposes the bodhisattva ideal of Chinese Buddhism, in which compassion is central, but its emphasis lies on purifying one's own mind and on equanimity in circumstances, not on the affective bond. Attributing a doctrine of love to it would be forcing it.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

What one suffers is the fruit of the past; how one receives it, a present decision

Karma and choiceStated explicitly

The first two practices of the Treatise on the Two Entrances formulate a very concrete ethics of karma. The first asks that, in the face of suffering, one consider it the ripened fruit of deeds committed in past lives, not something imposed by heaven or men, and accept it without complaint or resentment. The second adds that beings have no self and that everything, gain or loss, honour or disgrace, depends on circumstances, so that when these are exhausted it disappears. The past determines what comes; what remains in the practitioner's hands is not to be moved: the mind neither grows nor wanes, the wind of joy does not move it, and so it silently accords with the Way. Freedom lies in the response, not in the event.

Why meditate or pray?

Contemplating the wall: returning from the false to the true nature

Returning to the source of the IInferred from their doctrine

The meditation associated with Bodhidharma in the oldest sources is wall contemplation (biguan), which Tanlin and Daoxuan present as his method for pacifying the mind. The Treatise on the Two Entrances places it within entrance by principle: whoever trusts that all beings share a true nature, hidden by deluded thoughts, abandons the false, returns to the true and remains steadfast, unmoving, without self or other, until silently according with the principle. The exact meaning of «wall» is debated: it may be the mind firm as a wall or literally sitting before one. What is clear is the direction: not observing phenomena one by one, but returning to the source that thoughts cover.

Can reason know the ultimate?

Steadfast before the wall, one no longer follows the letter of the teachings

The ultimate lies beyond the mindStated explicitly

The Treatise on the Two Entrances does not belittle the scriptures: entrance by principle begins by relying on them to trust in the true nature common to all beings. But the decisive step goes beyond them. Whoever remains steadfast in wall contemplation, without self or other, no longer follows the letter of the teachings, and silently accords with the principle. Ultimate understanding is neither conceptual nor discursive: it is a silent conformity. According to Daoxuan, Bodhidharma handed Huike a sūtra, the Laṅkāvatāra, as sufficient guidance for China, which shows that the written word had its place. Reason and text prepare; the ultimate is realised directly, in the silence of a mind that has stopped moving.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

Seek nothing in a burning house; steadfast before the wall

Withdraw in order to findInferred from their doctrine

The Treatise on the Two Entrances proposes an attitude of distance towards the world. The third practice, seeking nothing, starts from the fact that the three worlds are a burning house in which all that has a body suffers; the sage, unlike deluded people, stops pursuing and clings to nothing. Wall contemplation requires remaining steadfast and unmoving. But the second practice qualifies this: it is not a matter of fleeing circumstances but of adapting to them without letting gain or loss move the mind, and the fourth asks one to practise generosity for one's own and others' benefit. Withdrawal is inward before it is geographical: detachment in the midst of what happens, rather than abandonment of the world.