The mind’s capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind. At every moment, where language can’t go, that’s your mind.

The sutras say, “A tathagata’s forms are endless, and so his ability to distinguish things, whatever their movement or state, is the mind’s awareness. But the mind has no form and its awareness no limit. Hence, it’s said, “A tathagata’s forms are endless, and so is his awareness.”

A material body of the four elements is trouble. A material body is subject to birth and death. But the real body exists without existing, because a tathagata’s real body never changes. The sutras say, “People should realize that the buddha-nature is something they have always had.” Kashyapa only realized his own nature.

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature. This nature is the same as the mind of all buddhas. Buddhas of the past and future only transmit this mind. Beyond this mind there’s no buddha anywhere. But deluded people don’t realize that their own mind is the buddha. They keep searching outside. They never stop invoking buddhas or worshipping buddhas and wondering “Where is the buddha?”

Don’t indulge in such illusions. Just know your mind. Beyond your own mind there is no other buddha. The sutras say, “Wherever you are, there’s a buddha. Don’t use a buddha to worship a buddha.”

Even if a buddha or a bodhisattva should suddenly appear before you, there is no need for reverence. This mind of ours is empty and contains no such form.

Those who hold onto appearances are deluded. They fall from the Path. Why worship illusions born of the mind? Those who worship don’t know, and those who know don’t worship. By worshipping you come under the spell of illusion. I point this out because I am afraid you’re unaware of it. Don’t embrace it and don’t fear it, and don’t doubt that your mind is basically pure.

Where could there be any room for any such form? Also, at the appearance of spirits, demons, or divine beings, conceive neither respect nor fear. Your mind is basically empty. All appearances are illusions. Don’t hold onto appearances.

If you envision a buddha, a dharma, or a bodhisattva and conceive respect for them, you relegate yourself to the realm of the mortals. If you seek direct understanding, don’t hold on to any appearance whatsoever, and you’ll succeed.

I have no other advice. The sutras say, “All appearances are illusions.” They have no fixed existence, no constant form. They’re impermanent. Don’t cling to appearances, and you’ll be of one mind with the Buddha. The sutras say, “That which is free of all form is the buddha.”

Buddha is Sanskrit for what you call aware, miraculously aware. Responding, perceiving, arching your brows, moving your hands and feet, it’s all your miraculously aware nature. And this nature is the mind. And the mind is the buddha. And the buddha is the path.

And the path is Zen. But the word Zen is one that remains a puzzle to both mortals and sages. Seeing your nature is Zen. Unless you see your nature, it’s not Zen.

Bodhidharma (440-528)

Excerpted from The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma translated by Red Pine (1987)

This piece is profoundly deep and vast in its scope. It’s as if all the true essentials of Buddhism and Zen are laid out right before us.

Since the Buddha taught to a wide array of people, there are many entrances to Buddhism depending on where each one can enter. There is truly something for everyone in it; however, as is with all teachings, the deepest ones, like in the Diamond Sutra, are just beyond what most can do anything “practical” with.

Whether you can embrace that Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature, or not, what if you just tried on how experiencing life from this state would impact how you view and feel what is present here? Approach it like a koan or exercise in martial arts, where you stay with the implications of this for long enough to feel its impact?

A cursory reading will never reveal the depth of any teaching. There is an ancient Chinese saying, “Read a text a thousand times, and its meaning will naturally reveal itself.”

What I am alluding to here begins with the readings, but to truly understand, one must find a way to put into practice the treasures before us.

Pressing closer with you,
Elana, Scribe for Daily Zen