Bodhidharma's Encounter with the Emperor

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Wayfarer
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Bodhidharma's Encounter with the Emperor

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I stumbled upon an alternative translation of the famous story concerning the encounter between Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma, which is given in a very peremptory fashion in many collections such as Zen Flesh Zen Bones. It is worth reading, because I think it adds more depth to the famously terse responses usually attributed to Bodhidharma.
Emperor Wu had founded a large monastery, cast numerous Buddha images, erected a pagoda, copied numerous sutra scrolls, and was thinking to himself, "We have done meritorious works. Let us now show them to some competent monk and get his approval." He then made inquiry as to whether there was in the country at that time any wise and devout sage, and was informed that a sage had recently crossed from India. His name was Bodhidharma and he was wise, devout, a supreme sage.

Emperor Wu was glad to hear this. "We shall summon this man," he thought, "show him the monastery, buddhas, and sutras, get his approval on these, and when he also hears of my noble acts he will judge my accomplishment even more meritorious."

Accordingly he had preceptor Bodhidharma sent for, and in response to the summons the preceptor duly presented himself. Then after taking him through the monastery and showing him such things as hall, pagoda, buddhas, and sutras, Emperor Wu addressed this question to Bodhidharma: "When I build hall and pagoda, convert people, have sutra rolls copied, Buddha images cast, is there any merit in this?" To which great-teacher Bodhidharma replied, "No, this is not meritorious." Then Emperor Wu thought, "When the preceptor saw the layout of my temple, I certainly expected him to express approval, but if he so thoroughly disapproves, how unwise of him to say so!"

And he asked another question, "In what sense, then, is it unmeritorious?" To which great-teacher Bodhidharma replied, "In such building of pagoda temples we may mean to be performing meritorious acts, but being a temporal matter it is in no true sense meritorious. True merit as such resides in the pure buddha, the seed of salvation within us which by inner revelation becomes true merit. Measured against that, these things can only be evaluated as transitory."

Now when Emperor Wu heard this he was displeased. What use was such talk as this? "When we are convinced of having performed incomparably meritorious acts, it is presumption so to discredit them," he thought, and under a misapprehension his majesty banished the great teacher.

When banished, the great teacher trudged with priest's staff for cane to a place called Liang mountain. There he met a man called meditation-master Hui-k'o. To this man he imparted the buddha doctrine complete. Later on, great-teacher Bodhidharma died in that place, and the monks his disciples laid Bodhidharma in a coffin and carried it to the grave.
S. W. Jones, trans., Ages Ago: Thirty-Seven Tales from the Konjaku Monogatari Collection [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959])
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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Dan74
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Re: Bodhidharma's Encounter with the Emperor

Post by Dan74 »

Hi Wayfarer :hi:

I guess more commonly the story goes like this:
Bodhidharma was welcomed into the court of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, who ruled
southern China at the time. The emperor was a great devotee and benefactor of Buddhism. Chinese Zen Masters Lecture 1, Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale, p.3
Emperor Wu eagerly asked the great master:
“I have established monasteries, printed sutras, and decreed the ordination of countless
monks. What merits have I attained from all these deeds?”
Bodhidharma answered, “No merit.”
Confused, the emperor asked, “What, then, is the highest truth in Buddhism?” “Emptiness. Nothing holy.”
“Who is it that faces me?”
“Don’t know.”
Emperor Wu could not comprehend Bodhidharma’s teaching.
Legend has it that Bodhidharma then sailed across the Yangtze River “on a single blade of
grass,” and sat facing a wall in a cave near Shaolin Monastery for nine years.
http://ctzen.org/sunnyvale/download/enC ... erLec1.pdf

But there is a detailed scholarly article by Andy Ferguson about Bodhidharma that is worth a read:

http://www.southmountaintours.com/pages ... dharma.pdf
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Re: Bodhidharma's Encounter with the Emperor

Post by Wayfarer »

It's clearly the same story, but it's just that the rendition that I quoted has a different kind of tone to it - provides more of a rationale for why Bodhidharma was dismissive of the Emperor's efforts. The minimalist version that is often quoted sounds rather nihilistic to me - 'nothing matters' - whereas the longer version gives the reasoning behind it.

Will read the PDF with interest, thanks.
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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