A Life of Bodhidharma by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

A number of legends surround this period of Bodhidharma’s life. He is reported, for example, to have founded the Chinese boxing style known as Kung Fu, partly as a response to the flabby condition of the scribe-monks, and partly as a spiritual exercise in the Taoist tradition, where bodily practices play as important a role as mental ones. Simple self-defence may also have been a motive as monks travelling in wild country were particularly vulnerable to attack. The story goes that the Patriarch observed a variety of animals in combat, especially a crane and a snake, and devised the motions of his system from the elegant, unpremeditated actions of the crane, which rose directly from the unborn Buddha-mind.

At the time of Bodhidharma, Buddhism had been established in China for more than five hundred years. The Emperors were said to approve of it because the monks were basically peace-loving and did not involve themselves in local politics as some Taoists did. The ordinary people of the empire were attracted to the character of the Bodhisattva figures, who represented a goal and an ideal to which even those at the lowest end of the social scale could aspire. To the Chinese of all classes, Buddhism meant peace and a kind of spiritual egalitarianism not to be found elsewhere.

Taoism
At the outset, the pragmatic Chinese noticed the similarities between their native Taoism, particularly the thought of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and the deepest insights of Buddhism. Some even went so far as to claim that Buddhism arose as the result of an Indian conversion to the ideas of Lao Tzu. As the great classics of India were systematically translated into Chinese, many Taoist terms were used to denote Sanskrit and Pali words. The result was that Chinese Buddhism took on the tone and flavour of Taoism itself, and many of the scriptures were seen as a continuation of such works as the I Ching (Book of Changes).

Confucianism also had its say in the new incarnation of Buddhism. During the translation process, any scriptural sentiment incompatible with the social and family values of traditional Confucianism, were silently deleted.

The final compendium as it emerged in China was a fresh interpretation of the words of the Buddha in accordance with the psychological make-up of a practical and pragmatic people. Many of the soaring flights of fancy of Indian Buddhist thought failed to take root and were ignored in favour of a direct assault on the portals of enlightenment. Buddhism was regenerated as a force for liberation for anyone who wanted it, from the Court of the Emperor down to the lowliest peasant.

The man who was to become the second Patriarch of Ch’an, Hui K’o, was allowed to become a disciple in typical Bodhidharma fashion. The youth, reputedly a Confucian scholar, was so determined to receive instruction from the sage that, after a first rebuff, he waited for days in heavy snow outside Bodhidharma’s residence.

So far this sounds only like the sort of treatment a student receives in Japan today when seeking to enter a Zen monastery. The technical term is niwazume, or “being kept waiting in the courtyard”. It is akin to the character-building cold shower and cross-country run treatment of an English Public school.

However, more was in store for poor Hui K’o. When the great man noticed his presence, he asked him why he believed he had what it takes to undergo the Buddhist training. The applicant took out a sword and cut off his own arm. “I ask only for your instruction on the doctrine of the Buddhas,” he said.

“This cannot be obtained outside yourself,” replied Bodhidharma, true to form.

“Please, I beg you, pacify my mind,” the younger man persisted.
“Bring your mind forth and I shall pacify it,” commanded the Patriarch.
“But I have sought it for many years and cannot find it.”
“There,” said the sage, “I have pacified your mind.”

Hui K’o was upon the instant enlightened — according to traditional sources.

Here is the master at his most trenchant and typical. “Produce your mind!” he barks, knowing that there is nothing to produce. His most characteristic technique is to force the pupil into a dead-end of hopelessness. He has no mind. Where does he go from here? In a flash he sees into the nature of his own beingness, the unborn Buddha-mind. The mind he has been searching for all these years is nothing other than a series of thoughts, a “conceptual reconstruction of experience”. The old system of meditation, of mind seeking mind, was a deadend leading only to further delusion. Buddha-mind was there all along instead of the vast black hole that most of us fear.

Go to Part Six.