Editing Bodhidharma (section)

=== Wall-gazing ===
[[File:Bodhidharma, Porcelain, Ming Dynasty (cropped).JPG|thumb|upright=0.8|A [[Blanc de Chine|Dehua ware]] porcelain statuette of Bodhidharma from the late [[Ming dynasty]], 17th century]]
Tanlin, in the preface to ''Two Entrances and Four Practices'', and [[Daoxuan]], in the ''Further Biographies of Eminent Monks'', mentions a practice of Bodhidharma's termed "wall-gazing" (壁觀 ''bìguān''). Both Tanlin{{refn|group=note|{{sfn|Broughton|1999|pp=9, 66}} translates 壁觀 as "wall-examining".}} and Daoxuan<ref group="web">{{cite web |title=''Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō'', Vol. 50, No. 2060, p. 551c 06(02) |url=http://www.cbeta.org/result/normal/T50/2060_016.htm |url-status=live |archive-date=2008-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605003344/http://www.cbeta.org/result/normal/T50/2060_016.htm}}</ref> associate this "wall-gazing" with "quieting [the] mind"{{sfn|Broughton|1999|p=9}} ({{zh|c=安心|p=ānxīn}}).

In the ''Two Entrances and Four Practices'', the term "wall-gazing" is given as follows:

{{blockquote|Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who ''meditate on walls'', the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason.{{sfn|Pine|1989|p=3, emphasis added}}{{refn|group=note|{{sfn|Broughton|1999|p=9}} offers a more literal rendering of the key phrase 凝住壁觀 (''níngzhù bìguān'') as "[who] in a coagulated state abides in wall-examining".}}}}

Daoxuan states, "the merits of Mahāyāna wall-gazing are the highest".{{sfn|Dumoulin|Heisig|Knitter|2005|p=96}} These are the first mentions in the historical record of what may be a type of [[Buddhist meditation|meditation]] being ascribed to Bodhidharma. Exactly what sort of practice Bodhidharma's "wall-gazing" was remains uncertain. Nearly all accounts have treated it either as an undefined variety of meditation, as Daoxuan and Dumoulin,{{sfn|Dumoulin|Heisig|Knitter|2005|p=96}} or as a variety of seated meditation akin to the [[zazen]] ({{zh|c=坐禪|p=zuòchán}}) that later became a defining characteristic of Chan. The latter interpretation is particularly common among those working from a Chan standpoint.<ref group="web">{{cite web |author=Keizan Jokin |translator1=Anzan Hoshin |translator2=Joshu Dainen |title=Denkoroku: Record of the Transmission of Luminosity |publisher=White Wind Zen Community |url=http://www.wwzc.org/translations/denkoroku.htm |archive-date=2006-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901213528/http://www.wwzc.org/translations/denkoroku.htm}}</ref><ref group="web">{{cite web |author=Simon Child |title=In The Spirit of Chan |url=http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/in-the-spirit-of-chan.html |work=Western Chan Fellowship |date=October 2000 |access-date=2007-04-03 |url-status=live |archive-date=2007-01-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070102052620/http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/in-the-spirit-of-chan.html}}</ref>

There have also, however, been interpretations of "wall-gazing" as a non-meditative phenomenon.{{refn|group=note|''viz.'',{{Sfn|Broughton|1999|p=67–68}} where a [[Tibetan Buddhism|Tibetan Buddhist]] interpretation of "wall-gazing" as being akin to [[Dzogchen]] is offered.}} Jeffrey Broughton points out that where Bodhidharma's teachings appear in Tibetan translation among the [[Dunhuang manuscripts]], the Chinese phrase "in a coagulated state abides in wall-examining" (ning chu pi-kuan) is replaced in Tibetan with "rejects discrimination and ''abides in brightness''" (rtogs pa spangs te | lham mer gnas na).<ref>Jeffrey Broughton, The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen, page 67, University of California Press, 1999</ref>{{refn|group=note|Stein Tibetan 710, which is a Tibetan translation of the ''Lengqie shizi ji,'' is an exception to this. It has: "remains in purity and gazes at the wall-surface."<ref>Jeffrey Broughton. Early Ch'an Schools in Tibet, in Studies in Ch'an and Hua-yen, page 59, note 47, University of Hawaii Press, 1983</ref>}} Broughton sees this as a curious divergence, as Tibetan translations of Chinese Chan texts are usually quite literal. He concludes that in early Tibet, "wall examining" did not refer to a literal practice of sitting cross-legged facing a wall.<ref>Jeffrey Broughton, The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen, pages 67-68, University of California Press, 1999</ref>