Shaolin Temple as the birthplace of Zen and Kung Fu

However he got there, the story continues as follows: Bodhidharma arrives in China at a time when Buddhism is in great demand. The Emperor Wu Di is himself a keen Buddhist, and Bodhidharma meets with him in the southern capital, Nanjing. They have a brief and rather fruitless conversation. The emperor asks how much merit he has acquired for all the benefits he has bestowed on the Buddhist community—earning merit is a Buddhist tradition that brings good karma—and Bodhidharma tells him bluntly, ‘no merit.’ The emperor asks who does Bodhidharma think he is, and Bodhidharma replies that he has no idea. With this, Bodhidharma leaves for the northern capital of Loyang.

This style of enigmatic conversation is typical of the Bodhidharma legend, and, like the famous Zen koans (riddles), is meant to stimulate thought and enquiry rather than be taken at face value. When the emperor asks about achieving merit, Bodhidharma disdains the childish notion that good deeds can somehow notch up points towards good fortune. To him, an enlightened being acts with infinite compassion expecting nothing in return, seeking neither praise nor blame, and finding happiness in good fortune and bad. In the second exchange, Bodhidharma claims not to know himself. This illustrates one of the principle aims of Zen, which is to rid the practitioner of the illusion that we exist as separate entities from the world around us. Click to learn how Chinese medicine treats Chronic Gastritis.

Bodhidharma ends up at the Shaolin monastery, where he stays for nine years. Much of his time is spent meditating in a cave, where he faces the wall and, legend has it, his gaze is so powerful that it bores holes in the rock. (The term ‘wall-gazing’ is often heard in Zen, and implies meditation and introspection, rather than staring pointlessly at a blank wall.)