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Posted: 29 Mar 2023

Taken: 28 Mar 2023

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Figure 10 ~ Bodhidharma

Figure 10 ~ Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma was the legendary Indian patriarch who brought Chan Buddhism to China. After an unsuccessful audience with the Chinese emperor Liang Wudi (r. 502–49), Bodhidharma “broke off a reed, crossed the Yangzi River, and proceeded to the Shaolin Temple [on Mount Song in Henan Province].”

This painting is signed by Li Yaofu, whose name appears only in Japanese records, and is inscribed by Yishan Yining, the renowned Chinese missionary who went in 1299 to Japan. There, Yishan served as abbot of temples in Kamakura and Kyoto until his death. The inscription reads:

Crossing rivers and deserts he came.
Facing the emperor he confessed, “I don’t know”;
Unsuccessful, he moved on,
His feet treading the water.

While mainstream painters followed the style of Li Gonglin (ca. 1049–1106)—that of baimiao, or “white drawing,” executed with a controlled line of uniform thickness—the Chan painter employed a more flexible brush style that combined fine lines with graduated ink-wash strokes in a free expressive manner. Here, the subtle rendering of the face records the holy man’s foreign features and captures the essence of spiritual concentration.


www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40515
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
By the Song dynasty, when Ma Duanlin wrote, the Zen tradition of that other schools of Buddhism and later even Daoist movements began to imitate its lineage trick. But it was not easy to invent such a colorful transmitter figure as Bodhidharma, who not only was credited with having brought the Buddha’s original teaching from India to China floating on a reed and having sat for nine years facing a wall but even with having, as Kaempfer excitedly reported, cut off his eyelids to avoid falling asleep (see figure 10) He threw them away -- and behold, the next day two tea shrubs had grown at the exact spot where they had hit the ground. This Bodhidharma became the invertor and patron saint of tea. . . . In the Song period the “successors of Bodhidharma” began to use ‘konas’ in the training, and en entire literature grew around these poignant “Sen presentations offered as a Zen challenge. One of the mot famous ‘konas’ features a simple question: “Why did the patriarch [Bodhidharma] to from India to China? Twenty years ago, during a pleasant research group party, an aggressive Japanese university suddenly shouted this question in a shrill voice at Professor Seizan Yanagida. terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/YanagidaSeizan.html He calmly replied: “Watakushi no tame” (Because of me” ~ Page 251

The Birth of Orientalism
14 months ago. Edited 14 months ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
掃眉は、化粧。慈烏は、烏の一種、成鳥となれば母鳥に哺｛ほ｝を反｛かえ｝すという伝説がある。『事文類聚』禽類、張華注に「慈烏、孝鳥と曰う。長ずれば哺を其の母に反す」。また、白居易の「慈烏夜啼」詩に「慈烏、其の母を失う、唖々として哀音を吐く」。

花園大学図書館蔵、今津文庫本『荊叢毒蘂』の書き入れに「烏返哺ノ孝ヲセヨウト思ウタガ、晩方ニカヽアカヽアト泣テイルト、却テ祖師門下ノ大事デ、ケハナシタ」。

Bodhidharma is the semi-legendary figure said to have brought the Zen teachings from India to China, and honored as the First Patriarch of Chinese Zen. The inscription refers to the following story about him:

From afar Bodhidharma saw that this country (China) had people capable of the Great Vehicle, so he came by sea, intent on his mission, purely to transmit the Mind Seal, to arouse and instruct those mired in delusion. Without establishing written words, he pointed directly to the human mind (for them) to see nature and fulfill buddhahood.... Emperor Wu had put on monk’s robes and personally expounded the Light-Emitting Wisdom Scripture; he experienced heavenly flowers falling in profusion and the earth turning to gold, he studied the Path and humbly served the Buddha, issuing orders throughout his realm to build temples and ordain monks, and practicing in accordance with the Teaching. People called him the Buddha Heart Emperor.
When Bodhidharma first met Emperor Wu, the Emperor asked, “I have built temples and ordained monks; what merit is there in this?” Bodhidharma said, “There is no merit”.... [The Emperor then asked,] “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma answered, “Empty, without holiness”....The Emperor did not awaken; instead, because of his notions of self and others, he asked another question, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma’s compassion was excessive; again he addressed him, saying, “I don’t know.” At this, Emperor Wu was taken aback; he did not know what Bodhidharma meant. (Thomas and J. C. Cleary, The Blue Cliff Record; pp. 2-4)

iriz.hanazono.ac.jp/hakuin/rekihaku/index.html
14 months ago. Edited 14 months ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Huike says to Bodhidharma, when finally given a chance to speak to him directly, “My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.”

To which Bodhidharma replies, “Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it..

Huike says, “Although I sought it, I cannot find i.t”

Bodhidharma then say, “There, I have pacified your mind” ~ Page 93

ADVICE NOT GIVEN
14 months ago. Edited 6 weeks ago.

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