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少室六門

(lit.: Six Gates of Shaoshi)

Six short Chan treatises that tradition ascribes to Bodhidharma, though modern scholars doubt that he wrote any but one.

by Bodhidharma59 passages held

  • Chinese, the original language
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Overview

Tradition ascribes these six short treatises to Bodhidharma, the Indian monk Chan honours as its founder, and modern scholars doubt that he wrote any but one. Shaoshi is the mountain of the Shaolin monastery; by the tradition's account, Bodhidharma sat facing a wall near it for nine years. An editor whose name is lost gathered the treatises under the mountain's name as six gates: verses on the Heart Sutra, "Breaking Through Appearances", "Two Entrances", "Pacifying the Mind", "Awakening to the Nature" and "The Bloodstream". What binds them is one claim, pressed hard: the Buddha is nothing but one's own mind, so there is nowhere outside it to look. "Breaking Through Appearances" turns that claim on the pious works of its day. Asked why the scriptures tell people to build monasteries, cast images, burn incense and keep fasts, it answers that each is a figure for work on the mind: the true monastery is a body and mind cleared of greed, anger and delusion, and the true image is cast with the body as furnace, the teaching as fire and wisdom as the craftsman. The scholarship has taken the book apart piece by piece. Only "Two Entrances" — a brief outline of entering the way by insight and by practice, with a preface by the monk Tanlin — is widely accepted as an early record of Bodhidharma's teaching. Yanagida Seizan, the leading Japanese historian of early Chan, assigned "Breaking Through Appearances" to Shenxiu, the rival of Huineng in the Platform Sutra. Most scholars date "Awakening to the Nature" to the middle of the Tang dynasty and take it for the work of Chan monks who wanted their own teaching to carry Bodhidharma's authority. That treatise had already reached Japan in the ninth century, carried home by the Tendai monk Enchin.

Key concepts

What is wall-gazing?

Wall-gazing, biguan, is the meditation that 'Two Entrances' names for entering the way by insight: the mind held still and steady like a wall, unmoved by the passing confusion that covers it. In that stillness, the text says, there is no self and no other, and ordinary person and sage are one. It is not the same as the legend of nine years facing a wall: the wall here describes the mind.

What is the "guest dust" that covers the true nature?

Guest dust is the Buddhist image for confused thoughts and passions: they arrive and settle on the mind like dust on a surface, but they are visitors, not the mind itself. 'Two Entrances' says every living being has the same true nature, only covered by guest dust and false thinking, so practice removes a covering rather than building something new.

What are the three poisons?

The three poisons are greed, anger and delusion, the Buddhist roots of every harmful act. 'Breaking Through Appearances' makes them its key: like one root that puts out countless branches and leaves, these three minds contain every evil. That is why it can reread every pious work as a cure for them; the true monastery is a mind cleared of the three.

What are the four practices in "Two Entrances"?

They are the four parts of entering the way by practice: accepting suffering as the fruit of past wrongs; following conditions, so that neither gain nor loss moves the mind; seeking nothing, since all seeking is a form of craving; and acting in accord with the teaching, which means practising giving and the other perfections without any thought of a self that gives.

What does the title "The Bloodstream" mean?

The bloodstream, xuemai, is the lineage through which awakening passes, as blood passes from parent to child. The treatise opens by saying that all three realms return to one mind, and that earlier and later Buddhas hand on the mind by means of the mind, without relying on written words. Belonging to the bloodstream means seeing one's own nature, not holding a title.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The Buddha Is Your Own Mind

If the Buddha is nothing but one's own mind, there is nowhere outside it to look. What remains of worship, scripture and seeking once that claim is pressed all the way is the question the six treatises share.

The verse at the end of 'Breaking Through Appearances' says it in one line: whoever wants to seek the Buddha should seek only the mind, for this very mind is the Buddha. 'The Bloodstream' draws the hard consequences. The Buddha does not recite sutras, keep precepts or break them; one cannot use the Buddha to bow to the Buddha, nor the mind to call on the Buddha. Seeing one's own nature is the whole of it, and anyone who does not see it is not helped by any amount of pious effort.

  • mind
  • buddha-nature
  • seeing nature
  • awakening
  • nonduality
  • emptiness
  • perception

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Temples Built in the Body

The scriptures tell people to build monasteries, cast images, burn incense and walk round stupas. Whether such acts have any worth, if the mind is all that matters, is what 'Breaking Through Appearances' is asked.

The treatise does not reject the pious works; it translates them. The image is cast with the body as furnace, the teaching as fire and wisdom as craftsman; the ever-burning lamp has the body for its stand, the mind for its wick and wisdom for its flame; walking round the stupa means circling one's own body and mind without pause. Even the milk the Buddha drank before his awakening was not cow's milk but the pure milk of the teaching. Taken literally, it warns, the acts bring more harm than good.

  • ritual
  • precepts
  • six perfections
  • religious practice
  • three poisons
  • self-discipline
  • skillful means

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Two Ways In

There are many roads to the way, 'Two Entrances' says, but they come down to two: insight and practice. How a person should meet suffering, good fortune and desire on the second road is set out in four plain practices.

Entering by insight means trusting that every living being shares one true nature, covered by passing confusion, and resting in wall-gazing where self and other, ordinary and holy, are equal. Entering by practice has four parts: accept suffering as the ripening of old wrongs, without complaint; take good fortune as conditions that will pass; seek nothing, because fortune and misfortune always travel together; and act in accord with the teaching. Of the six pieces, this one is widely accepted as an early record of Bodhidharma's teaching.

  • karma
  • rebirth
  • liberation
  • nonattachment
  • afflictions
  • wisdom

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Within this work

passages held
59
distinct concepts
91
by passages held, corpus-wide
#625

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “emptiness” and “nonduality”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 28 pairings. 72 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
emptinessnonduality8
awakeningbuddha-nature7
emptinessnonattachment7
awakeningmind5
buddha-naturemind5
buddha-naturenonduality5
emptinessliberation5
emptinessmind5
mindnonduality5
awakeningemptiness4
awakeningnonattachment4
awakeningnonduality4
buddha-natureemptiness4
buddha-natureliberation4
buddha-naturenonattachment4
liberationmind4
meditationmind4
meditationnonduality4
mindnonattachment4
awakeningmeditation3
emptinessmeditation3
buddha-naturemeditation2
liberationnonattachment2
meditationnonattachment2
awakeningliberation1
liberationmeditation1
liberationnonduality1
nonattachmentnonduality1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. Treatise on No-Mind (無心論)

    Found at Dunhuang in a single copy, this dialogue is ascribed by tradition to Bodhidharma, and modern scholars doubt that he wrote it.

     ZH
  2. 少室六門 you are here ZH
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