The following are excepts I’ve compiled from the Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (the founder of Zen Buddhism) as translated by Red Pine. What do you think?

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The way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting.

The way has no form or sound. It’s subtle and hard to perceive.

It’s like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is but you can’t tell others.

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The ultimate Truth is beyond words.

Doctrines are words. They are not the Way.

The Way is wordless.

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If you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke Buddhas.

Erudition and Knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness.

Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?

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People, though, are deluded. They’re unaware that their own mind is the Buddha. Otherwise they wouldn’t look for a Buddha outside the mind.

Buddhas don’t ferry Buddhas to the shore of liberation. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.

As long as you seek Buddhas outwards, you’ll never see that your own Heart is the Buddha.

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To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha.

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If you don’t see your nature and run outwards to seek for external objects, you’ll never find a buddha.

The truth is there’s nothing to find.

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If you attain anything at all, it’s conditional.

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Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist.

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All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring.

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A buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect.

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To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature.

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It has never lived or died, appeared or disappeared, increased or decreased. It’s not pure or impure, good or evil, past or future. It’s not true or false. It’s not male or female. It doesn’t appear as a monk or a layman, an elder or a novice, a sage or a fool, a buddha or a mortal. It strives for no realisation and suffers no karma. It has no strength or form. It’s like space. You can’t possess it and you can’t lose it. Its movements can’t be blocked by mountains, rivers, or rock walls….No karma can restrain this real body. But this mind is subtle and hard to see. It’s not the same as the sensual mind.

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Everything that has a form is an illusion.

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Those who hold onto appearances are devils. They fall from the Path.

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All appearances are illusions.

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That which is free of all form is the Buddha.

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Wherever you find delight, you find bondage. 

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I only talk about seeing your nature. I don’t talk about creating karma.

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The buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind has no form or characteristics, no cause or effect, no tendons or bones.

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Detachment is enlightenment because it negates appearances.

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The appearance of appearance as no appearance can’t be seen visually, but can only be known by means of wisdom.

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All practices are impermanent.

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The sutras say, “Go beyond language. Go beyond thought.”

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Basically, seeing, hearing, and knowing are completely empty.

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Your anger, joy, or pain is like that of puppet.

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Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form.

It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab it.

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Whoever realizes that the six senses aren’t real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of buddhas.

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Not thinking about anything is Zen.