QuoteProject
If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both.
Bodhidharma
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

True understanding arises from direct experience rather than intellectual analysis.

Bodhidharma's quote highlights the limitations of the mind in grasping the essence of reality. It suggests that purely intellectual study of reality does not lead to real understanding; rather, true comprehension comes from engaging with reality through direct experience, which allows one to see beyond the confines of thought and the mind's limitations.

Themes

MindRealityUnderstandingExperiencePhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a meditation class, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of direct experience over conceptual thinking.

More from Bodhidharma

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
BodhidharmaRead
The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting.
BodhidharmaRead
Buddhas move freely through birth and death, appearing and disappearing at will.
BodhidharmaRead
If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it's the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.
BodhidharmaRead
Freeing oneself from words is liberation.
BodhidharmaRead
The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.
BodhidharmaRead

Similar quotes

Fish," the old man said. "Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?
Ernest HemingwayRead
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Octavia ButlerRead
You die, but most of what you have accumulated will not be lost; you are leaving a message in a bottle.
Umberto EcoRead
We should not have a petty regard for God's gifts, though we may and should despise our own imperfections.
Saint IgnatiusRead
Towns are after all excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have lost themselves.
E. M. ForsterRead
Like dear St. Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.
Oscar WildeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.