Quotes by Bodhidharma

• Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher's help.
• The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting.
• The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included.
• The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind.
• The mind is always present. You just don't see it.
• The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.
• The essence of the Way is detachment.
• Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.
• The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.
• People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking.
• Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.
• Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.
• 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.
• To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature.
• To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.
• To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.
• To have a body is to suffer.
• To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.
• Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist.
• 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.
• Words are illusions.
• Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.
• You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.
• Your nature is the Buddha.
• Once you see your nature, sex is basically immaterial.
• Your mind is nirvana.
• As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha.
• Not suffering another existence is reaching the Way.
• A Buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.
• According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.
• All phenomena are empty.
• All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions.
• 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.
• As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.
• Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.
• Buddhas don't practice nonsense.
• Buddhas move freely through birth and death, appearing and disappearing at will.
• But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.
• But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.
• Freeing oneself from words is liberation.
• 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 look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha.
• 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.
• If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure.
• Life and death are important. Don't suffer them in vain.
• Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.
• Many roads lead to the path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice.
• And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.
• The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.
• Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.
• Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit.
• Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
• Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.