Done:

• Bodhidharma, 5th or 6th century, ref: [1] The Zen Teaching of BodhiDharma, translated by Red Pine, 1987
• Huineng / Eno, (638–713), ref: [2] The Sutra of Hui-Neng, grand master of Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary, 1998
• Huineng / Eno, (638–713), ref: [3] Huineng’s Commentary on the Diamond Sutra, translated by Thomas Cleary, 1998 (same book as [2])
• Huangpo / Obaku (?-805), disciple of Baizhang, teacher of Linji, ref: [4] The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the transmission of mind, translated by John Blofeld, 1958

Work in progress:

• Linji / Rinzai (?-866), ref: [5] Three Chan Classics - The Recorded Sayings of Linji, BDK English Tripitaka 74-I, II, III, 1999
• Zhaozhou / Joshu (778–897), ref: [6] The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, translated by James Green, 1998
• Yuanwu Keqin (1063–1135), who compiled the Blue Cliff Record, ref: [7] Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu, translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, 1994

Unsorted quotes (work in progress)

” This mind is the Buddha says the same thing. Beyond this mind you’ll never find another Buddha. To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible. The reality of your own self-nature, the absence of cause and effect, is what’s meant by mind. Your mind is nirvana. You might think you can find a Buddha or enlightenment somewhere beyond the mind, but such a place doesn’t exist.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p9

“Buddhas don’t save Buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see a Buddha. As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you’ll never see that your own mind is the Buddha.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p11

“Don’t use a Buddha to worship a Buddha. And don’t use the mind to invoke a Buddha. Buddhas don’t recite sutras. Buddhas don’t keep precepts. And Buddhas don’t break precepts. Buddhas don’t keep or break anything. Buddhas don’t do good or evil.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p11

“Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha. If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p13

“If you don’t see your nature and run around all day looking somewhere else, you’ll never find a Buddha. The truth is, there’s nothing to find.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p13

“Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha; whoever doesn’t is a mortal. But if you can find your Buddha-nature apart from your mortal nature, where is it? Our mortal nature is our Buddha-nature. Beyond this nature there’s no Buddha. The Buddha is our nature. There’s no Buddha besides this nature. And there’s no nature besides the Buddha.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p16-17

“If you attain anything at all, it’s conditional, it’s karmic. It results in retribution. It turns the Wheel. And as long as you’re subject to birth and death, you’ll never attain enlightenment. To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature. Unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause and effect is nonsense. Buddhas don’t practice nonsense. A Buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect. To say he attains anything at all is to slander Buddha. What could he possibly attain?” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p17

“The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They’re not the Way. The Way is wordless.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p31

“If you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke Buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p35

“Once mortals see their nature, all attachments end. Awareness isn’t hidden. But you can only find it right now. It’s only now.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p35

“Through endless kalpas without beginning, it’s only because people don’t see their nature that they end up in hell. As long as a person creates karma, he keeps passing through birth and death. But once a person realizes his original nature, he stops creating karma.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p41

“The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind has no form or characteristics, no cause or effect, no tendons or bones. It’s like space. You can’t hold it. It’s not the mind or materialists or nihilists. Except for a Tathagata, no one else - no mortal, no deluded being - can fathom it. But this mind isn’t somewhere outside the material body of four elements. Without this mind we can’t move. The body has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.” - Bodhidharma, Bloodstream Sermon, [1], p43

“Delusion means mortality. And awareness means buddhahood. They’re not the same. And they’re not different. It’s just that people distinguish delusion and awareness. When we’re deluded there’s a world to escape. When we’re aware, there’s nothing to escape.” - Bodhidharma, Wake-up Sermon, [1], p51

“When you understand, reality depends on you. When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When reality depends on you, that which isn’t real becomes real. When you depend on reality, that which is real becomes false. When you depend on reality, everything is false. When reality depends on you, everything is true. Thus, the sage doesn’t use his mind to look for reality, or reality to look for his mind, or his mind to look for his mind, or reality to look for reality. His mind doesn’t give rise to reality. And reality doesn’t give rise to his mind. And because both his mind and reality are still, he’s always in samadhi.” - Bodhidharma, Wake-up Sermon [1], p57

“There’s no language that isn’t the Dharma. To talk all day without saying anything is the Way. To be silent all day and still say something isn’t the Way. Hence neither does a tathagatha’s speech depend on silence, nor does his silence depend on speech, nor does his speech exist apart from his silence. Those hwo understand both speech and silence are in samadhi. If you speak when you know, your speech is free. If you’re silent when you don’t know, your silence is tied. If speech isn’t attach to appearances, it’s free. If silence is attached to appearances, it’s tied. Language is essentially free. It has nothing to do with attachment. And attachment has nothing to do with language.” - Bodhidharma, Wake-up Sermon [1], p65

“Without the mind there’s no buddha means that the buddha comes from the mind. The mind gives birth to the buddha. But although the buddha comes from the mind, the mind doesn’t come from the buddha, just as fish come from water, but water doesn’t come from fish. Whoever wants to see a fish sees the water before he sees the fish. And whoever wants to see a buddha sees the mind before he sees the buddha.Once you’ve seen the fish, you forget about the water. And once you’ve seen the buddha, you forget about the mind. If you don’t forget about the mind, the mind will confuse you, just as the water will confuse you if you don’t forget about it.” - Bodhidharma, Wake-up Sermon [1], p67

“Good friends, don’t cling to emptiness when you hear me speak of emptiness. Above all, do not stick to emptiness. If you sit quietly with an empty mind, you are fixated on indifferent voidness. Good friends, the emptiness of physical space contains the colors and forms of myriad things, the sun, moon and stars, the moutnains, rivers, and lang […] - all are within space. The emptiness of the essential nature of people in the world is also like this.” - Huineng [2] p17

“Good friends, ordinary mortals are themselved buddhas, affliction is itself enlightenment. Deluded the moment before, you were an orginary mortal, enlightened the moment after, you are a buddha. Fixation on objects the moment before was affliction; detachment from objects the moment after is enlightenment.” - Huineng [2] p 18

“Rainwater does not come from heaven, but it is produced by the agencies of moisture, causing all living beings, all grasses and trees, all animate and inanimate beings, to be refreshed; the hundred rivers an myriad streams enter the ocean, merging into one body. The insight of prajna in the original nature of living beings is also like this.” - Huineng [2] p 19

“Good friends, as long as they are not enlightened, buddhas are human beings; the moment they are enlightened, human beings are buddhas.” - Huineng [2] p 20

“Enlightenment and ignorance are seen by ordinary people as two, while the wise realize their essential nature has no duality. The essentual nature without duality is the true nature. True nature is not diminished in the ordinary and ignorant, nor is it increased in the wise and the holy; it is not deranged in affliction, and it is not quiescent in meditation concentration. It does not come to an end, nor does it endure forever; it does not come or go, and it is not in the middle or the inside or outside. Unborn and unperishing, nature and characteristics as such, permanent and unchanging - this is called the Way.” - Huineng [2] p 69

“Some people who cling to emptiness repudiate the scriptures, simply saying they don’t need writings. If they say they don’t need writings, then people shouldn’t speak either, because speech has the characteristics of writing.” - Huineng [2] p 71

“Our minds inherently have buddha in them; your own inner buddha is the real buddha. If there were no buddha-mind, where would we look for the real buddha? Your own mind is buddha. Do not doubt any more. There is nothing external that can establish anything - it is all the original mind conceiving all sorts of things.” - Huineng [2] p 78

“Those who are not free of egotistic personality are called ‘beings.’ If you detach from this illness, in reality there are no ‘beings’ to attain liberation through extinction. There it is said [in the Diamond Sutra] ‘When thee is no errant mind, you manifest enlightenment; samsara and nirvana are originally equal.’ What liberation through extinction is there?” - Huineng [3], p94

“If you cultivate practice in accord with the teaching, and there are no subject and object in the mind, this is a good state. If a practitioner has subject and object in mind, this is not called a good state. As long as the sense of subject and object is not extinguished, one will never attain liberation.” - Huineng [3], p96

“Although the blessings of giving away a universe of treasures in charity may be many, there is no benefit in respect to essential nature.” - Huineng [3] p103

“All verbal and literary expressions are like labels, like pointing fingers. Labels and pointers mean shadows and echoes. You obtain a commodity by its label, and you see the moon by way of the pointing finger - the moon is not the finger, the label is not the thing itself. Just get the teaching by way of the sutra - the sutra is not the teaching. The sutra literature is visible to the physical eye, but the teaching is visible to the eye of insight. Without the eye of insight, you just see the literature, not the teaching. If you do not see the teahcing, you do not undertand what Buddha meant. If you do not understand what Buddha meant, then reciting sutras won’t produce buddhahood.” - Huinent [3] p104

Commenting on the Diamond Sutra quote: “Subhuti, the truth realized by the Realized One has neither reality nor unreality.”
“There is no reality in the sense that the essence of things is empty and silent, with no appearance that can be apprehended. And yet there are countless inhetent potencies within it, which are not hidden when put to use; and so it says there is no unreality either.
You may want to say it is real, yet no defining characteristics can be found; you may want to say it is unreal, yet it functions without interruption. Therefore it cannot be said not to exist, yet cannot be said to exist. It can be nothing, yet is not nothing; no words or metaphors can each it - does this not describe true wisdom alone?” - Huineng [3], p 118

“The Great Vehicle is a matter of vast knowledge and wisdom, skillfully able to establish all teachings. The Supreme Vehicle is a matter of not seeing defiled things to reject, not seeing pure things to seek, not seeing living beings to liberatre, not seeing nirvana to realize, not entertaining the idea of liberating livng beings, no entertaining the idea of not liberating living beings, not entertaining the idea of not liberating living beings: this is called the Supreme Vehicle, and it is also called all-knowledge. It is also called acceptance of nonorigination, and it is also called great prajna, insight or wisdom.” - Huineng [3] p 121

Commenting on the Diamond Sutra quote: “Therefore the Realized One says that all things are Buddha’s teaching, Subhuti, ‘all things’ are not all things; therefore they are called ‘all things’.”
“Mentally free from grasping and rejecting anything, and also free from subject and object, he clearly defines all things yet his mind is always empty and silent; therefore he knows all things are Buddha’s teachings.
Lest the delided greedily cling to all things as Buddha’s teachings, in order to eliminate this disease he says that ‘all things’ are not all things. There is no subject or object in his mind, which is silent yet ever aware; stability and insight are equally operative, substance and function are one - therefore ‘they are called all things’.” - Huineng [3] p 127

“Talking about emptyness all day does not say a single word. […]
The Sutra of Vimalakirty says, ‘Real teaching involves no preaching, no giving orders; listening to the teaching involves no hearing and no grasping.’ You realize that myriad things are empty, and all names and words are temporary setups; constructed within inherent emptiness, all the verbal expositions explain that all realities are signless and unfabricated, thus guiding deluded people in such a way as to get them to see their original nature and cultivate and realize unsurpassed enlightenment.” - Huineng [3] p 133

“All beings are originally themselves buddhas; if you say the Realized One liberates beings so they become buddhas, then this is a false statement.” - Huineng [3] p 137

“Those who aspire to enlightenment should see all beings as having buddha-nature, should see all beings as inherently endowed with uncontamined all-knowledge, should believe all beings are originally without afflictions, should believe that the intrinsic nature of all beings is fundamentally without birth or death. Even though they put all knowledge and insight into practice and expediently deal with people and help them, they do not entertain a sense of subject and object.” - Huineng [3] p 143

“If you look upon the Buddha as presenting a pure, bright or Enlightened appearance, or upon sentient beings as presenting a foul, dark or mortal-seeming appearance, there conceptions resulting from attachment to form will keep you from supreme knowledge.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p 31

“The building up of good and evil both involve attachment to form. Those who, being attached to form, do evil, have to undergo various incarnations unnecessarily; while those who, being attached to form, do good, subject themselves to toil and privation equally to no purpose. In either case it is better to achieve sudden self-realization and to grasp the fundamental Dharma.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p24

“If you students of the Way seek to progress through seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing, when you are deprived of your peceptions, your way to Mind will be cut off and you will find nowhere to enter. Only realize that, thgough real Mind is expressed in there perceptions, it neither forms part of them nor is separate from them. You should not start reasoning from there perceptions, nor allow them to give rise to conceptual thought; yet nor should you seek the Ond Mind apart from them or abandon them in your pursuit of th eDharma. Do not keep them nor abandon them nor dwell in them nor cleave to them. Above, below and around you, all is spontaneously existing, for there is nowhere which is outside the Buddha-Mind” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p36

[Dharmakaya and the void] “do not differ from each other, nor is there any difference between sentient beings and Buddhas, or between samsara and nirvana, or between delusion and Bodhi. When all such forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha. […]
This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginnig, as ancient as the Void, subject neither to birth nor to destruction, neither existing nor not existing, neither impure nor pure, neither clamorous nor silent, neither old nor young, occupying no space, having neither inside nor outside, size nor form, colour not sound. It cannot be looked for or sought, compehreneded by wisdom or knowledge, explained in words, contacted materially or reached by meritorious achievement. […]
You cannot use Mind to see Mind, the Buddha to seek the Buddha, or the Dharma to seek the Dharma. So you students of the Way should immediately refrain from conceptual thought.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) pp. 41-42

“Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed. Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes. Every single thing is just the One Mind” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p44

“Regarding this Zen Doctrine of ours, since it was first transmitted, it has never taught that men should seek for learning or form concepts. ‘Studying the Way’ is just a figure of speech. It is a method of arousing people’s interest in the early stages of their development. In fact, the Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts and so the Wa is entirely misunderstood.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p55

“The Way is spiritual truth and was originally without name or title. It was only because people ignorantly sought for it empirically that the Buddhas appeared and taught them to eradicate this method of approach. Fearing that nobody would understand, they selected the name ‘Way’. You must not allow this name to lead you into forming a mental concept of a road. So it is said ‘When the fish is caught we pay no more attention to the trap.’ When body and mind achieve spontaneity, the Way is reached and Mind is understood.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p55

“The arising and the elimination of illusion are both illusory. Illusion is not something rooted in Reality; it exists because of your dualistic thinking.” - Huangpo [4] (The Chun Chou record) p59

“Enlightenment springs from Mind, regardless of your practice of the six paramitas and the rest. All such practices are merely expedients for handling ‘concrete’ matters when dealing with the problems of daily life. Even Enlightenment, the Absolute, Reality, Sudden Attainment, the Dharmakaya and all the others down to the Ten States of Progress, the Four Rewards of virtuous and wise living and the State of Holiness and Wisdom are - every one of them - mere concepts for helping us through samrara; they have nothing to do with the real Buddha-Mind.” - Huangpo [4] (The Wan Ling record) p69

“You have always been one with the Buddha, so do not pretend you can attain to this oneness by various practices.” - Huangpo [4] (The Wan Ling record) p 79

“All phenomena are basically without existence, though you cannot now say that they are non-existent. Karma having arisen does not thereby exist; karma destroyed does not thereby cease to exist. Even its root does not exist, for that root is no root.” - Huangpo [4] (The Wan Ling record) p106

“Therefore it is said: ‘The perception of a phenomenon is the perception of the Universal Nature, since phenomena and Mind are one and the same.’ It is only because you cling to outward forms that you come to ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘feel’ and ‘know’ things as individual entities. True perception is beyond your powers so long as you indulge in these.” - Huangpo [4] (The Wan Ling record) p 118

Beautiful quotes

Talking about the Diamond Sutra, Huineng says: “This one-scroll sutra originally exists in the essential nature of all living beings. People who do not see it themselves just read and recite written letters. If you realize your original mind, you will realize for the first time that this sutra is not in written letters.” - Huineng [4] p86

Pei Hsiu enters Master Huangpo precinct, asking for direction. “But surely there are Zen monks here in this temple, aren’t there? – Yes, replied the monastery administrator, there is one.” - The Wan Ling record, anecdotes [4] p100