This is exactly the meaning of nirvana. Your small flame of the ego, your small flame of the mind and its consciousness, is preventing the whole universe from rushing into you; hence the word nirvana – blow out the candle and let the whole universe penetrate you from every nook and corner. You will not be a loser. You will find, for the first time, your inexhaustible treasure of beauty, of goodness, of truth – of all that is valuable. Hence, mind cannot be said to reach nirvana; only no-mind is equivalent to nirvana. No-mind need not reach to nirvana. No-mind is nirvana.
Bodhidharma says – I’m correcting him:
When the no-mind reaches nirvana, you don’t see nirvana.
Because you are not separate from nirvana. You can only see something which is separate from you. You are one with it; hence there is no possibility of seeing it.
Because the no-mind is nirvana. If you see nirvana somewhere outside the no-mind, you are deluding yourself.
In short, the mind is the world and the no-mind is freedom from the world. The mind is misery and no-mind is the end of misery and the beginning of ecstasy.
Every suffering is a buddha-seed.
This is a very important assertion on the part of Bodhidharma.
Every suffering is a buddha-seed. Because suffering impels to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is buddhahood.
Bertrand Russell, in his autobiography, has a very profound statement. He says, “If misery in the world ends, all the religions will end of their own accord. It is misery that is keeping religions alive.” He is speaking from a very different angle. He was an atheist; he wanted all religions to disappear.
I am not an atheist. I also want all the religions to disappear but for a different reason. He wants religions to disappear because he thinks religions have been detrimental to the evolution of man. I want religions to disappear so that religiousness can have the whole space that is being occupied by religions. Religions have been detrimental to the progress of religiousness, and to me, religiousness is the highest flower of evolution.
Bodhidharma is right when he says that even suffering has to be gratefully accepted, because it is the very seed of buddha. If there was no suffering, you would never search for the truth. It is suffering that goes on impelling you to go beyond it. It is anguish and agony that finally compels you to seek and search for the path that goes beyond suffering and agony, to find a way that reaches to blissfulness and to eternal joy.