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book. These are not his writings, because they don't show any quality of the man. They are notes of scholarly disciples; hence they are bound to have fundamental and essential faults, misunderstandings, misinterpretations. They are not people of no-mind. Their minds are taking the notes; their minds are choosing the words.
Bodhidharma was not a man of words, he was a man of action. There is no possibility of him writing a book. A man who never wanted to be worshiped, a man who never wanted to leave any footprints behind him to be followed, is not going to write a book either, because that is leaving footprints to be followed.
But I have chosen to speak on them because these three small collections are the only writings which for centuries have been believed to be Bodhidharma's. They contain here and there, in spite of the people who were taking the notes, something of Bodhidharma -- something has entered. The task is difficult for any scholar to make a distinction as to which part is Bodhidharma's and which part is the note taker's. It is not a problem for me.
I know from my own experience what can be unpolluted Bodhidharma, and what can be only the mind of a scholar interpreting him. So these are not ordinary commentaries. In a way this is the first effort about Bodhidharma to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
The first statement: MANY ROADS LEAD TO THE PATH. This cannot be said by Bodhidharma. He cannot even say that even a single path leads to the truth; his whole approach was that you are the truth, you are not to go anywhere. You have to stop going, so that you can remain at home where the truth is. It is not a question of following a path; on the contrary it is a question of not following any path, not going anywhere, so you can be here -- so that you can be now, just within yourself. Every path leads astray, that was Bodhidharma's approach. This is a scholarly way.
MANY ROADS LEAD TO THE PATH, BUT BASICALLY THERE ARE ONLY TWO: REASON AND PRACTICE.
It is not possible for Bodhidharma to say that. Certainly not that reason can lead you to the ultimate reality of your being. Reason is part of the mind. And even more
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