..續本文上一頁 of these two distinctively Chinese elements: A more strenuous dhyana, and the possibility of a sudden awakening and attainment of enlightenment, with the Indian philosophy of the Mahayana.

　　The next outstanding name, and the one to whom is usually given the chief credit for being the founder of Ch”an Buddhism in China, is Bodhidharma. He was an Indian monk of princely family who must have arrived in South China about 470 A.D., and who lived

　　p. 25

　　and travelled in China for fifty years until about 520. This length of stay in China is much longer than is usually given but it appears to be necessary to account for all that is recorded concerning him. He must have been a most extraordinary man, a great personality, stubborn, taciturn, gruff and positive, but withal, honest, straightforward and clear minded. There are two incidents in his life that will bear repeating. Emperor Wu of Liang was very favorably inclined toward Buddhism; he founded temples, supported monks, and translated scriptures, but when he asked Bodhidharma during an interview what credit he had earned, the gruff old monk replied, "None whatever, your majesty." To the question, "What is the first principle of the holy doctrine

　　" Bodhidharma replied, "Vast emptiness, and there is nothing in it to be called ”holy,” Sire."

　　"Who is it, then, that confronts me

　　" asked the Emperor.

　　"I do not know, Your Majesty."

　　There is a famous poem that refers to the above incident, that has for these present times a deep significance:

　　"I don”t know," replied Bodhidharma,

　　Baffled by the classical speech of the Imperial Court;

　　But if the Emperor had been a man of insight and spirit

　　He would have chased after Bodhidharma,

　　Over the desert sand to Tien-mu."

　　Bodhidharma, finding in the North no interest in his presentation of Buddhism, returned to the South and shut himself in his own monastery of Shao-lin, to

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　　which few disciples ever came and where, tradition says, he practised for nine years a kind of concentrative dhyana that came to be called, "wall gazing." It consisted in an honest and earnest effort to definitely realise the oneness of one”s true Buddha-nature with Universal Buddhahood, by the single method of mind-concentration on Mind-essence. To Bodhidharma, books, logical ideas, study, ritual, worship were useless; only simple but "seeking" and tireless "wall-gazing" was sufficient. All distinctions of self and not-self, comfort or discomfort, joy or suffering, desire or aversion, success or failure, and mental discrimination of all kinds must be ignored and left behind, in the sole effort to merge oneself with Mind-essence which alone is reality, Inasmuch as one”s own inner conscience is Mind-essence, why seek for it elsewhere

　　 This "treasure of the heart" is the only Buddha there ever was, or is, or ever will be. "There is no Buddha but your own. thoughts. Buddha is Tao. Tao is dhyana. Dhyana cannot be understood by the definitions of the wise. Dhyana is a man”s successful seeing into his own fundamental nature." "I have come from India only to teach you that Buddha is thought. I have no interest in monastic rules, nor ascetic practises, nor miraculous powers, nor merely sitting in meditation."

　　In Bodhidharma”s distrust of scriptures and intellectual knowledge, he made an exception of the Lankavatara Sutra. The reason for this exception was because that Sutra alone taught the doctrine of the Self-realisation of the Oneness of all things in Mind-essence. When at last after nine years of "wall-gazing" he gained one disciple who understood him, Hui-k”e

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　　[paragraph continues] (486-593). Bodhidharma gave him certain instruction that could only be transmitted from mind to mind, and gave him his begging-bowl and his robe and his copy of the Lankavatara Sutra, whi…

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