Bodhidharma stands in Chan memory as the figure who crystallized its defining orientation toward direct, meditative realization. He is portrayed as re-centering Buddhist life around rigorous seated meditation, including the famous image of “wall-gazing,” which symbolizes turning away from conceptual elaboration toward an immediate, non-discursive awareness of mind. This emphasis helped distinguish Chan from approaches that leaned more heavily on ritual performance or extensive scriptural study. The image of a fierce, ascetic meditator—independent of courtly favor and institutional comfort—became an archetype for the school’s self-understanding as uncompromising and practice-centered.

Equally important is the doctrinal contour associated with his name. Later Chan tradition summarizes his teaching as a “special transmission outside the scriptures, not relying on words and letters, directly pointing to the human mind, seeing one’s nature and becoming Buddha.” This formula expresses a radical confidence that awakening is found by recognizing the mind’s inherent Buddha-nature, rather than by accumulating merit or mastering texts. In this view, practice does not manufacture enlightenment but removes obscurations from a mind that is originally pure and identical with Buddhahood. Stories such as his encounter with Emperor Wu, where external good works are dismissed as “no merit” compared with realizing true nature, dramatize this shift in values.

Bodhidharma is also remembered as the First Patriarch of Chan, the starting point of a lineage that runs through figures such as Huike and Sengcan and onward to later masters. This lineage model provided Chan with a distinctive identity within Chinese Buddhism, grounding its authority in a “mind-to-mind transmission” that is said to trace back to the Buddha. The combination of austere meditation, direct pointing to mind, and a clearly articulated patriarchal succession gave Chan both a spiritual style and an institutional framework. Even though many biographical details are wrapped in legend, the figure of Bodhidharma serves as a powerful symbol of what Chan takes to be its essential task: direct insight into one’s own mind, beyond reliance on words, forms, or external achievements.