Twenty-Seven - Following the Light
Therefore the sage takes care of all men And abandons no one. He takes care of all things And abandons nothing.This is called “following the light.”
It is said of Bodhidharma that he believed that the intuitive grasp of the Buddha Mind is within everyone. So the spiritual practice of meditation is 
all that is needed for one to realize the Buddha Nature. The trappings of ritual and doctrine are unnecessary for true spiritual practice. Thus it is that Bodhidharma is connected with the introduction of the Zen koan as a means for breaking through the rigidity of our human intellect. Interestingly, Bodhidharma is also connected with the use of tea in meditation as a means to stimulate the mind. It is said that he once stared at a wall in a cave near the Shaolin Monastery for nine years. After seven years, he fell asleep and was angry with himself; taking a knife he cut his eyelids so this could not happen again. Where his eyelids fell, tea plants grew. Perhaps we need not go so far in “following the light.” But at the very least we can enjoy the stimulation of an excellent cup of tea.
Bodhidharma’s teaching that each of us has within us the means to walk the path to enlightenment is analogous to the teachings of Martin Luther and the protestant movement in Christianity. Central to the protestant reformation is the core belief that we have within us the means to foster a relationship with God that can lead to our salvation. We need not rely on the Pope or his ordained representatives, priests, to get us any further than we can get on our own. Both of these ideas represent the democratization of a spiritual practice - an anti-institutionalism that I find very attractive. In contrast, we can compare the Catholic Church with its Pope as the holy representative of God on Earth and Tibetan Buddhism with its strong appeal to spiritual lineage represented in the transmigration and reincarnation of souls. As a result, I find neither of these traditions especially appealing.