Zen Buddhism – Bodhidharma – The continuous study of the logos!

Bodhidharma was a monk who lived in China in the 5th or 6th century. His teaching and practice focused on Zen Meditation and is the father of Zen Buddhism. The continuous study of the logos.

Student: If we do not depend upon any written word, with what and how do we conceive the mind?

Bodhidharma: When you are asking me, that is your mind. When I am responding to you, that is my mind: From the ancient, beginning-less time, each and every movement in all different times and places is your original mind and also your original God. That is the reason it has been said, the mind in itself is God in himself. Without this mind no one could seek a different God; because it is impossible to find Wisdom outside of the mind.

Our self-nature is fulfilled in truth; it is already neither cause nor effect. Self, as it is, is its own mind; the mind itself is this God.

And, this mind is Enlightenment which is already perfectly radiant and serenely luminous.

Insisting that there should be God or Wisdom outside of the mind would be a critical fault. Where could both God and Wisdom be? How can empty space be held?

Wisdom

Empty space is just a name; no form, no size, so, impossible to hold or drop. As if trying to hold empty space; seeking God outside of the mind would be of no avail. Since Buddha is a product of one's mind, how can it be possible to seek God outside of the mind? Former Buddhas and later Buddhas have spoken the mind only:

Only the mind is God, only God is the mind; God exists not outside of the mind, Mind exists not outside of God.

If God exists outside of the mind, where can it be? If God exists not outside of the mind, from where did the idea of God come?

Without seeing the original mind, and by exchanging false opinions, we stick to the dead substance and thus become un-free beings. If you do not believe this, you are fooling yourself, which is not at all helpful. God does not have any deceptions, rather, confused beings do not realize or understand the fact that one's mind is already God.

Wisdom

If you see God is just your mind, then do not seek God outside of the mind. God cannot liberated by God, and God cannot be seen if sought with the mind; for, that would result only that God must be outside which is caused by ignorance, not knowing that God is not different from your own mind.

And, being God already, do not worship God, or being your mind, do not think of God. God in itself cannot read the scriptures; God in itself cannot violate he precepts; God in itself does not have something to uphold or violate, and God in itself does not cause the good or the bad.

If you truly seek God, you must just see the self-nature, which is God. Without seeing self-nature, no matter how well you recite God, read the scriptures, bow in ceremonies, and uphold precepts, still no benefit will result.

Thinking of God will promise you a happy next life. Reading the scriptures will make you wise and knowledgeable, upholding the precepts will let you be born in heaven. Helping others will result in prosperous fortune; but, God cannot be seen by doing these things.

If you still do not know yourself clearly, you should be awakened to the essence of life-and-death by finding and meeting a Master who already has attained a great awakening.

One cannot be called a Master if he has not yet seen self-nature. So, even if one has studied all sections of the scriptures, he would still, without fail, fall into the sea of life-and-death and karmic cycle in the three different cosmos without freedom from great sufferings.

And, people today believe they can be enlightened by only studying a few scriptures. How terribly wrong they are. Without understanding one's mind, memorizing groundless phrases is useless.

To seek God, see the self-nature! Self-Nature is God!

God is a being in himself; doing-less and creation-less one!

Without seeing self-nature, no matter how hard you look for God, day and night, it is absolutely impossible to see.

Wisdom - Zen Buddhism

God is so calmly fulfilled and powerfully omnipresent that he has never moved at all, yet he melts the iron wheel. But, by what?

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