Owlseyes ’s Reviews > The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma > Status Update

90. Vairocana. The Great Sun Buddha, who embodies the dharma-self or
true body of the Buddha. As such, Vairocana is the central figure in the pantheon of five dhyani buddhas, which includes Akshobhya in the East, Ramasambhava in the South, Amitabha in the West, and
Amogasiddhi in the North.

42. Shakyamuni. Shakya was the Buddha's clan name. Muni means saint.
His family name was Gautama, and his personal name was Siddhartha. The exact dates given for him vary, but the consensus is from 557
to 487 B.C. or thereabouts

36. Zen. First used to transliterate dhyana, the Sanskrit term for medi-
tation. Bodhidharma is credited with freeing zen from the meditation
cushion, using the term instead in reference to the everyday, straight-
forward mind, the mind that sits without sitting and that acts without
acting.

32. Kashyapa. Also called Mahakashyapa, or the Great Kashyapa. He
was one of the Buddha's foremost disciples and is credited with becoming the first Zen patriarch in India. When the Buddha held up a flower, Kashyapa smiled in response, and the transmission of the zen
mind began.

14. (CONT.)
According to Nagarjuna, "That which is, when subject to karma, samsara, is, when no longer subject to karma, nirvana." (Madhyamika Shastra, Chapter
25, Verse 9)

14. Nirvana. Early Chinese translators tried some forty Chinese words
before finally giving up and simply transliterating this Sanskrit word,
which means absence of breath. It's also defined as the only calm.
Most people equate it with death, but to Buddhists nirvana means the
absence of the dialectic that breath represents.

9. Buddhas. Buddhism doesn't limit itself to one buddha. It recognizes
countless buddhas. After all, everyone has the buddha-nature. There's
a buddha in every world, just as there's awareness in every thought.
The only necessary qualification for buddhahood is complete aware-
ness.

RELEVANT NOTES

2. Walls. After he arrived in China, Bodhidharma spent nine years in
meditation facing the rock wall of a cave near Shaolin Temple. Bodhidharma's walls of emptiness connect all opposites, including self
and other, mortal and sage.

"And they don't know enough to be ashamed. How will they ever become enlightened? They see something tangible and instantly become attached. If you talk to them about formlessness, they sit there dumb and confused.
Greedy for the small mercies of this world, they remain blind to the great suffering to come "