Bodhidharma- Buddhist HeroHero"First Patriarch of Chan"

The Blue-Eyed Barbarian

Chan tradition traces an unbroken lineage of mind-to-mind transmission from Shakyamuni Buddha himself: the Buddha held up a flower before his disciples and said nothing; only Mahakasyapa smiled, and in that wordless exchange the dharma passed beyond scripture. Twenty-seven patriarchs later, the teaching reached Bodhidharma, a prince of the Pallava dynasty in South India who had renounced his royal inheritance to become a monk. His master Prajnatara, the twenty-seventh patriarch, instructed him to carry the teaching to China.

Bodhidharma undertook the sea journey across the Indian Ocean, around Southeast Asia, and up to the coast of southern China, a voyage of roughly three years. He arrived around 520 CE with piercing blue eyes and a fierce, foreign appearance that earned him the nickname "Blue-Eyed Barbarian." Chinese painters gave him a heavy beard, an earring, and a penetrating gaze. He looked nothing like the serene Buddhas on the temple walls.

The Meeting with Emperor Wu

Emperor Wu of Liang had built numerous temples, sponsored countless monks, and copied sutras prolifically. When Bodhidharma appeared before him, the emperor asked: "I have built many temples and ordained many monks. What merit have I earned?" Bodhidharma replied: "No merit whatsoever." The emperor asked: "What then is the highest meaning of the holy truths?" Bodhidharma answered: "Vast emptiness, nothing holy." Finally the emperor demanded: "Who are you standing before me?" Bodhidharma said: "I don't know."

The exchange is preserved as the first case of the Blue Cliff Record. Unable to penetrate the monk's meaning, Emperor Wu let him depart. Later traditions say Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River standing on a single reed, a miracle that became one of the most painted subjects in East Asian ink.

Nine Years Facing the Wall

After leaving Emperor Wu, Bodhidharma traveled northward to Shaolin Temple on Mount Song in Henan Province. There he sat in meditation facing a cave wall for nine years. The practice was called "wall-gazing," sitting in silent accord with the dharma, as immovable as a wall. Four lines, attributed to him, became the foundation of Chan: "A special transmission outside the scriptures; no dependence on words and letters; direct pointing at the human mind; seeing one's nature and becoming Buddha."

During these nine years, legend says, his legs withered from disuse. Another legend holds that he cut off his own eyelids to prevent sleep during meditation, and where they fell, tea plants grew.

Huike and the Transmission

The story of Bodhidharma's first Chinese disciple dramatizes the intensity required for awakening. A Confucian scholar named Shenguang came to the cave, desperately seeking instruction. Bodhidharma ignored him completely. Shenguang stood in the snow outside the cave for days, the drifts rising to his waist, but the master gave no acknowledgment. Finally, Shenguang cut off his own arm and presented it to Bodhidharma, crying: "My mind has no peace. Please pacify it, master." Bodhidharma replied: "Bring me your mind and I will pacify it." Shenguang searched but could not find his mind anywhere. "There," said Bodhidharma, "I have pacified your mind." In that instant, Shenguang achieved enlightenment and became Huike, the Second Patriarch of Chan.

The Two Entrances

The earliest text reliably attributed to Bodhidharma is the Erru Sixing Lun, the "Two Entrances and Four Practices," preserved in the Dunhuang manuscripts and recorded by his disciple Tanlin. Two paths to awakening: entrance through principle and entrance through practice. The first is sudden, direct recognition that all sentient beings share the same true nature, obscured only by defilements and discriminating thought. A practitioner enters through principle by wall-gazing, abandoning all distinctions between self and other, ordinary and sacred.

The second path comprises four disciplines: accepting adversity as the fruit of past karma without resentment, adapting to conditions without attachment, seeking nothing, and acting in accord with the dharma. No special ritual, no textual mastery. Only the courage to look directly at one's own mind.

Shaolin and the Daruma Doll

Legend credits Bodhidharma with founding the martial arts tradition of Shaolin Temple. Finding the monks too weak for the rigors of prolonged meditation, he taught them exercises derived from Indian yoga and combat techniques, which evolved over centuries into kung fu.

In Japan, he lives on as Daruma, immortalized in the round, red, legless doll modeled after a monk whose legs withered because he would not stand up. The doll rights itself when knocked over. Its blank white eyes are filled in one at a time: the first when setting a goal, the second when it is achieved.

The One Sandal

The legends surrounding Bodhidharma's death are characteristically strange. One account says he was poisoned by jealous monks. Another says he simply announced his death and passed away at the age of 150 at the banks of the Luo River. But the most famous story describes an official named Song Yun who, returning from a journey to India three years after Bodhidharma's burial, encountered the master walking through the mountains of Central Asia, carrying a single sandal. When Song Yun reported this in China, he was told that Bodhidharma had died and been buried years before. The monks opened his tomb and found it empty except for one sandal.