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Imitating Death in the Quest for Enlightenment
Epstein, Ron
Epstein, Ron
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Epstein, Ron
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Buddha
Bodhidharma
Sino-American
Bodhidharma
Sino-American
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Imitating_Death_.pdf
Adobe PDF, 178.97 KB
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Abstract
The bare bones of the story of Bodhidharma, that strange, bearded, wide-eyed fellow who brought the meditation school of Buddhism that we know as Zen to China, are well known. He sailed from India to Canton and then proceeded to the court of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, who asked the Patriarch how much merit he had accumulated from sponsoring the building of temples, the copying of Buddhist scriptures, and the ordination of monks. When Bodhidharma replied, "None," the emperor didn't understand, so Bodhidharma went north, crossed the Yangtse River on a reed, and spent nine years gazing at a wall at Shao-lin Monastery. At the conclusion of those nine years, the tradition relates, a Chinese monk named Shen-kuang (Hui-k’o) became the second Patriarch in China. Yet he was not the first there to recognize the Patriarch's mind. The first was not a person at all; he was a parrot.
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Preprint
Date
1976
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With permission of the license/copyright holder