The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (Red Pine)

Buddhadharma Butchery

[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” translated by Red Pine.]

I have been studying, practicing, and teaching Buddhism (including Zen) for forty years. In this time I’ve read dozens of Zen books, and “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” is perhaps the worst of the bunch. This is the case because Red Pine is perhaps the worst writer on Buddhism I’ve encountered. His incompetence is such, that in my (two-star) review of his Lankavatara Sutra, I describe him as “a butcher with large thumbs.” And “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” is another example of his “Buddhadharma butchery.”

If you want a good introductory Zen text, read Alan Watts’ “The Way of Zen” (see my four-star review); if you are interested in early Chinese Zen (or Ch’an) teachings along the lines of “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma,” read “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po” (see my five-star review) and “The Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening” (see my four-star review). If you want a unique, scholarly text on Zen, read “Tracing Back the Radiance” (see my five-star review), and if you’re interested in texts on modern Zen, I suggest one on Soto Zen, “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind” (see my four-star review), and one on Rinzai Zen, “The Three Pillars of Zen” (see my four-star review). But if “butchered Zen” is your Zen cup of tea, then get “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma.”

In the book’s Introduction, Red Pine inform us that the teachings (or sermons) of Bodhidharma, might not even be Bodhidharma’s, and that some question if Bodhidharma ever existed. Red Pine himself does not seem enamored with the teachings. He writes: “Bodhidharma’s sermons seem somewhat alien and bare”; that is to say, they are early, primitive Ch’an teachings, and not even close to the Dharma level one finds in texts such as John Blofeld’s “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po” and “The Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening.”

This text’s fatal flaw is Red Pine’s failure to capitalize “mind” when it is clearly necessary. The human “mind” is not the timeless, universal “Mind” (or Awareness), but because Red Pine fails to make this necessary distinction, the book, sad to say, is almost incomprehensible.

For example, Red Pine writes, “mind” is Buddha.” No it’s not. If it were, then your ordinary, discursive “monkey mind” would always already be in the enlightened State of Bodhicitta; and it’s not. It is Mind, not mind, that is Buddha. Likewise, Red Pine fails to differentiate between self-nature and Self-nature, never capitalizing self-nature when appropriate. The phenomenal self is not the noumenal Self, but because Red Pine fails to differentiate between the two, we are led to believe that one’s samsaric self-nature equates to Buddhahood.

Here’s a typical example of Red Pine’s writing:

“Everything that appears in the three realms comes from mind. Hence Buddhas of the past and future teach mind to mind without bothering about definitions.”

Everything that appears in the three realms is a manifestation of the One Mind (Consciousness-Energy or Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya), and NOT a projection of individual (human) minds. The universe and the existents that comprise it exist independently of one’s mind (or thought-forms).

The text is replete with contradictions, and sometimes it is difficult to ascertain if this is because of poor Dharma or poor writing.  For example, consider the following three staements from the book:

“The mind is the buddha, and buddha is mind.”

“The buddha is a product of your mind.”

“If you don’t use your mind to look for buddha, you won’t see the buddha.”

If mind and buddha are synonymous, how can buddha be a “product of your mind” when, according to these teachings, it is your mind? And if buddha is your mind,  then why would you use your mind to “look for buddha”? Elsewhere, the text says, “To see no mind is to see the buddha.” If buddha is mind, then why would seeing no mind amount to seeing buddha?

Here’s another example from the text: “Whoever sees his nature is a buddha.” If a murderer sees his “nature” (evil karma), does this make him a Buddha? Hardly. If Red Pine could write a lick, he’d have, properly, used the term “True Nature” or “Buddha-nature.” Here’s another example of Red Pine’s poor writing: “Your mind is basically empty.” A competent writer would have have it: “The essence of your mind is emptiness.”

Here’s yet another example of Red Pine’s poor prose:

“If you’re walking, standing, sitting, or lying in the stillness or darkness of night, and everything appears as though in daylight, don’t be startled. It’s your mind about to reveal itself.”

This writing is so bad, it’s almost laughable. Your mind reveals itself with every thought you have. I’ve never read a worse description of the state immediately preceding Enlightenment.

This book is teeming with hogwash. For example, it states, “It is only because you cling to this material body that things like hunger and thirst, warmth and cold, and sickness appear.” Zen masters experience these things, just like everybody else. In fact, one great Zen master famously declared, “When I’m hungry I eat.”

The book states: “When the mind stops moving it enters nirvana. Nirvana is an empty mind.” Gautama Buddha made it explicitly clear that the empty-mind experience or state is not equivalent to Nirvana.  Nirvana is the “end of becoming,” which is tantamount to Being, which is Consciousness-Power (or Siva-Shakti, or Cit-Ananda).

Bodhidharma, or whoever wrote these sermons, didn’t have a clue about the Trikaya, or Triple Body (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and the Nirmanakaya). According to the book:

“Buddhas have three bodies: A transformation body, a reward body, and a real body. The transformation body is also called the incarnation body. The transformation body appears when mortals do good deeds, the reward body when they cultivate wisdom, and the real body when they become aware of the sublime.”

Contrary to the author of this sermon, the three bodies of a Buddha are timeless Awareness (the Dharmakaya), Clear-Light Energy (the Sambhogaka), and the human form (the Nirmanakaya) wherein the three bodies are realized as One.

In summary, “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” is the most overrated Zen book I have encountered, and I do not recommend it.Â