stylistic:style_transfer
Two Entrances and Four Practices

Bodhidharma is traditionally seen as introducing a Mahayana Buddhist practice of dhyana (meditation) in China. According to modern scholars, like the Japanese scholar of Chan Yanagida Seizan, generally hold that the Two Entrances and Four Practices (二入四行論) is the only extant work that can be attributed to Bodhidharma and as such, this is the main source for our knowledge of his teaching.

According to this text, Bodhidharma taught two "entrances" to the Dharma. The first is a subitist teaching that directly apprehends the ultimate principle or true nature of reality (buddha-nature). The second entrance deals with four practices: (1) accepting all our sufferings as the fruit of past karma, (2) accept our circumstances with equanimity, (3) to be without craving, and (4) to let go of wrong thoughts and practice the six perfections.

According to Yanagida Seizan, the first "entrance of principle", was a subitist teaching which derives from the sudden enlightenment thought of Tao-sheng; while the four practices are a reworking of the " four foundations of mindfulness ", which were popular in the late Six Dynasties period Buddhist meditation circles.