We have a new scroll of Bodhidharma hanging in the hallway. I thought I would use this occasion of hanging the scroll to say a few words about Bodhidharma and how he is depicted in the scroll. You are all probably familiar with the story of Bodhidharma. He is considered the first Chinese patriarch of Zen. The story goes that he trained under Prajnatara in India, and when he was already old, he made a long journey to China to transmit the Zen dharma. Buddhism had already traveled to China and the emperor apparently considered himself the great patron of Buddhism, so when this great sage from India arrived in China, the Emperor immediately summoned him to his court in order to meet him and to honor him.
The story goes that the Emperor, in greeting Bodhidharma, wanted to impress him with how much he had done in patronage for Buddhism. He wanted to tell him about all the temples he had endowed and all the monks he had supported. He asked Bodhidharma to comment on all the merit that he, the emperor, must have accumulated through these good works. In some sense, the traditional Buddhist notion maintained that good work yielded good karma, and the Emperor was asking the sage to confirm that. Bodhidharma quite rudely said, No merit whatsoever. The emperor was quite taken aback and asked what happened with all those good deeds and holy acts. Bodhidharma again replied that there is only vast emptiness, there is nothing holy about it. These words disappointed and mystified the emperor. Bodhidharma left, went by himself to Shaolin temple, sat there for nine years facing the wall, waiting for a true disciple to show up, which brings me to the way that Bodhidharma is pictured in this scroll, the way in which he is typically pictured, which is very fierce and very stoic.
Nowadays, teachers, when they take their pictures for magazines or backs of their books, all seem to have a big smile, right? Nobody dares look like Bodhidharma or else they won't sell any book [laughter]. It is interesting that Bodhidharma is considered the prototype of Soto Zen, just sitting. You know the difference between Rinzai and Soto Zen comes to the fact that Soto students face the wall and Rinzai students face the center.
One of Dogen's basic things about sitting is that it in itself is a complete expression of enlightenment. It is not a means to an end, it is not a technique to become enlightened. Rather, it is an expression of enlightenment. Now we really don't like to think the way Bodhidharma looks in that scroll is the picture of enlightenment. You practice for years and then end up looking like that? I think we have to understand that scowl of Bodhidharma has the same function for us as his words had for the emperor. It is the killing sword of Zen. It not only cuts off delusion but all ganing ideas whatsoever. Bodhidharma's penetrating eyes and fierce scowl cut through anything that we think we are accomplishing or have accomplished in our practice.
All of us are more or less like the emperor. We have a lot more in common with the emperor than we do with Bodhidharma. We may not think that we have accumulated great karmic benefit by our sitting, or it is going to help us get a favorable rebirth. That's not an idea most of us claim to have, but we all, one way or another, think that we are accomplishing something by this. It is going to turn us into a certain kind of person who is going to be admirable in some way. Our practice ought to be clear and honest about qualities we share with the emperor, not try to imitate Bodhidharma, but be honest about the ego and gaining ideas that inevitably suffuse our practice.
Although it's always easy in one of these stories to identify with the wise teacher, it is much more productive to identify with the other guy in the story with whom we have the most in common, the straight guy, right? The teacher gets all the good lines in the story but where is the other guy? So that is the scowl of Bodhidharma. I think that is one place we can say this practice in itself has a means to an end: It's the sword that cuts off, right? That's the expression of compassion. We like to think of compassion as being the smiling face, the helping hand, but compassion in Zen is also the sword to kill, to try to bring about the great death which steals away everything we have and leaves us completely empty. Bodhidharma looks at us with a scowl: Who do you think you are?