Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma what merit his temple-building and sutra-copying had earned. 'No merit whatsoever,' the monk replied. The emperor asked who stood before him. 'I do not know,' said Bodhidharma, and departed across the Yangtze on a reed.
Huike stood through a night of falling snow outside Bodhidharma's cave, then severed his own left arm and presented it to prove his resolve. Bodhidharma accepted him, and when Huike begged to have his mind pacified, the master replied: 'Bring me your mind and I will pacify it' — in that exchange, Huike awakened.
Prajnatara transmitted the dharma seal to Bodhidharma as the twenty-seventh patriarch of the Indian lineage and instructed his student to journey east to China after his death, prophesying that the dharma would flourish there.
Bodhidharma arrived at Shaolin Monastery on Mount Song and sat facing the wall of a cave for nine years in unbroken meditation, a practice later called biguan — 'wall-gazing' — that became the foundational image of Chan Buddhism.
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