Osho Quotes on Bodhidharma

 

 

I have a very soft corner in my heart for Bodhidharma. That makes it a very special occasion to speak about him. Perhaps he is the only man whom I have loved so deeply that speaking on him I will be almost speaking on myself. That also creates a great complexity, because he never wrote anything in his life. No enlightened being has ever written. Bodhidharma is not an exception, but by tradition these three books that we are going to discuss are attributed to Bodhidharma.

 

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Bodhidharma was born fourteen centuries ago as a son of a king in the south of India. There was a big empire, the empire of Pallavas. He was the third son of his father, but seeing everything -- he was a man of tremendous intelligence -- he renounced the kingdom. He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs, in trivia. His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end.

 

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Bodhidharma got initiated by a woman who was enlightened. Her name was Pragyatara. Perhaps people would have forgotten her name; it is only because of Bodhidharma that her name still remains, but only the name -- we don`t know anything else about her. It was she who ordered Bodhidharma to go to China. Buddhism had reached China six hundred years before Bodhidharma. It was something magical; it had never happened anywhere, at any time -- Buddha`s message immediately caught hold of the whole Chinese people.

 

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Bodhidharma took Zen from India to China. He planted the seed of Zen in China. He started a great phenomenon on its way. He is the father and, of course, Zen has carried the qualities of Bodhidharma all these centuries. Zen is one of the most absurd religions -- in fact, a religion has to be absurd because it cannot be logical. It is beyond logic.

 

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Although there were two million Buddhist monks in China, Bodhidharma could find only four worthy to be accepted as his disciples. He was really very choosy. It took him almost nine years to find his first disciple, Hui Ko.

 

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Bodhidharma was the first enlightened man to reach China. The point I want to make clear is that while Gautam Buddha was afraid to initiate women into his commune, Bodhidharma was courageous enough to be initiated by a woman on the path of Gautam Buddha. There were other enlightened people, but he chose a woman for a certain purpose. And the purpose was to show that a woman can be enlightened. Not only that, her disciples can be enlightened. Bodhidharma`s name stands out amongst all the Buddhist enlightened people second only to Gautam Buddha.

 

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Bodhidharma, for nine years while he was in China, sat facing a wall, gazing at a wall. He was known in China as the man, the ferocious man, who gazed at the wall for nine years. It is said that his legs withered away -- sitting and just looking at the wall. People would come and they would try to persuade him, `Look at us. Why are you looking at the wall?` And he would say, `Because you are also like a wall. When somebody comes who is really not like a wall, I will look.` Then one day his successor came. And the successor cut off his hand and gave it to Bodhidharma and said, `Look this way, otherwise I am going to cut off my head.` He turned, immediately about-turned, and said. `Wait! So you have come. I was waiting for nine years for you.

 

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The way Bodhidharma created tea cannot be historical but is significant. He was meditating almost all the time, and sometimes in the night he would start falling asleep. So, just not to fall asleep, just to teach a lesson to his eyes, he took out all his eyebrow hairs and threw them in the temple ground. The story is that out of those eyebrows, the tea bushes grew. Those were the first tea bushes. That`s why when you drink tea, you cannot sleep. And in Buddhism it became a routine that for meditation, tea is immensely helpful. So the whole Buddhist world drinks tea as part of meditation, because it keeps you alert and awake.

 

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Bodhidharma was poisoned by some disciple as a revenge, because he had not been chosen as the successor. So they buried him, and the strangest legend is that after three years he was found by a government official, walking out of China towards the Himalayas with his staff in his hand and one of his sandals hanging from the staff -- and he was barefoot

 

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Bodhidharma was not a man of words, he was a man of action. There is no possibility of him writing a book. A man who never wanted to be worshiped, a man who never wanted to leave any footprints behind him to be followed, is not going to write a book either, because that is leaving footprints to be followed.

 

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Bodhidharma is absolutely strict. That`s why he is painted as a ferocious looking man. It does not mean that he was like that. He was a prince, and I don`t think that the way he has been painted down the centuries is his actual photograph. It is rather the experience of those who had to deal with him -- he was ferocious. And he was ferocious because he would not say any consolatory words, he would simply say the naked truth. If it hurts you, good. Perhaps you need to be hurt and only that will awaken you. You don`t need any consolation, because that will put you into a deeper sleep.

 

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Bodhidharma is right when he says that even suffering has to be gratefully accepted, because it is the very seed of buddha. If there was no suffering, you would never search for the truth. It is suffering that goes on impelling you to go beyond it. It is anguish and agony that finally compels you to seek and search for the path that goes beyond suffering and agony, to find a way that reaches to blissfulness and to eternal joy.

 

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Bodhidharma is saying: Don`t be antagonistic to suffering; even feel grateful to suffering. That is a great idea. Feel grateful to pain, suffering, old age, death, because all these are creating the situation for you to search for truth. Otherwise you would fall asleep; otherwise you would be so comfortable, you would become a vegetable. There would be no need .... Suffering creates the need for a search.

 

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Bodhidharma has insights which are unparalleled. There have been many disciples of Gautam Buddha who have attained to enlightenment, but nobody has shown such great insightfulness. Either they have remained silent or they have spoken, but neither their silence nor their speaking has reached to the heights and to the depths of consciousness. Perhaps the reason is that Bodhidharma is unafraid of what he is saying. He knows no fear. He has no concern with what people will think about his statements. He does not take into account anybody else when he is speaking. It is almost as if he is speaking to himself.

 

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Bodhidharma was also poisoned. Although the people who poisoned him thought that he was killed, he was not. He was made of a different kind of matter. He simply went into a coma and in the night disappeared, leaving one of his shoes in the tomb and the other shoe hanging on his staff.

 

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Except for Bodhidharma, nobody else has been able to make these kinds of statements for the simple reason that they are so strange, they look so illogical, irrational. But existence is illogical. It is irrational. If you are only thinking in the mind, then it is one thing, but if you are experiencing the process of mud transforming into a lotus flower, you will understand Bodhidharma without any difficulty. You will rejoice in his strange statements.