Core tenet of Zen
The teaching passes mind to mind, outside the scriptures.
Lineage over literature: realization is transmitted teacher to student, face to face.
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held
Zen's founding self-description, attributed to Bodhidharma. The scriptures are not despised — Zen monasteries chant sutras daily — but realization is held to move person to person, teacher to student, the way a flame moves between candles. The texts are the record of the fire, not the fire.
From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited
A special transmission outside the scriptures, not founded on words and letters; direct pointing at the human mind; seeing one's nature and becoming Buddha.
Four-line stanza attributed to BodhidharmaCodified later in the Song dynasty; Zen's charter regardless.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideas
The guru and the lineage.
Hinduism · community
Go deeper →
The flower sermon.
Buddhism · story
Read it in full →
P
Parshvanatha — the one before.
Jainism · figure
Meet them →
T
The matriarchs — Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah.
Judaism · figure
Meet them →
P
Peter — the rock that cracked.
Christianity · figure
Meet them →
Leadership was appointed, not chosen.
Islam
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