The
Blessed One simply took the flower and held it in his hand, but
said no word. No one in the whole assembly could tell what he
meant. The venerable Mahahasyapa alone smiled. Than the Blessed
One said to him, 'I have the wonderful thought of Nirvana, the
eye of the Right Law, which I shall now give to you.'[25] Thus
was ushered in the doctrine of thought transmitted by thought."
After twenty-eight patriarchs had taught the doctrine of contemplation,
the last came into China in A.D. 520, and tried to teach the Emperor the
secret key of Buddha's thought. This missionary Bodhidharma was the
third son of a king of the Kashis, in Southern India, and the historic
original of the tobacconist's shop-sign in Japan, who is known as
Daruma. The imperial Chinaman was not yet able to understand the secret
key of Buddha's thought. So the Hindu missionary went to the monastery
on Mount Su, where in meditation, he sat down cross-legged with his face
to a wall, for nine years, by which time, says the legend, his legs had
rotted off and he looked like a snow-image. During that period, people
did not know him, and called him simply the Wall-gazing Brahmana.
Afterward he had a number of disciples, but they had different views
that are called the transmissions of the skin, flesh, or bone of the
teacher.
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