Asceticism and Enlightenment4

Let rest all external ties. 外息諸緣

And do not let the internal heart be out of breath. 內心無喘

The heart must be a wall 心如墻壁

For one to enter the Way. 可以入道

- Jikji, Volume 2 -
* Interpretation
This poem was about Bodhidharma’s teaching the Buddhist monk Hyega about meditation. The first two lines are a lesson about what kind of a mindset one needs to have for meditation. It commands the meditator to let go of all external relations and ties and to stabilize their heart and mind. Through this practice, their heart can become a wall and they can enter the Way. This type of instruction is different from the metaphorical descriptions that Bodhidharma uses in other lessons, such as, “In one flower, five petal blooms, so the results will naturally occur.” The difference of this poem shows that even the same person used different types of teaching techniques depending on the context.

Source: Jeon, Jae-gang (2017)