Overview
Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices is a Buddhist instructional work attributed to Bodhidharma, the traditional first patriarch of Chan/Zen. In its extended “Long Scroll” form, it is best understood as a collection of teachings ascribed to Bodhidharma and his circle, presented as a master’s sayings gathered by students. Its doctrinal center is the short treatise known as The Two Entrances and Four Practices. The work is not a narrative, biography, or systematic philosophical treatise; it is a compact guide to entering the Dharma, organized around two complementary modes of practice and four concrete ways of training the mind in ordinary life.
The Two Entrances
The title refers to two “entrances” into the Dharma: the entrance by principle and the entrance by practice. The first is inward and realization-oriented; the second is active and conduct-oriented. The text does not set them against each other but presents them as two aspects of a single path.
Entrance by Principle
The entrance by principle is described as realizing the essence through instruction and believing that all living beings share the same true nature. That nature is not apparent because it is obscured by sensation and delusion. The practitioner turns from delusion back to reality, practices “wall contemplation,” and sees the absence of self and other and the oneness of mortal and sage. Such a person remains unmoved even by scriptures and enters by principle “without moving, without effort.”
The text’s phrase “wall contemplation” is terse and is not given a detailed explanation. It points toward a stable, non-discriminating contemplation, often associated with inner stillness and the refusal to be pulled apart by conceptual distinctions. The emphasis is not on acquiring something new but on recognizing a true nature that is already present yet obscured.
Entrance by Practice
Under the entrance by practice, the text sets out four practices. These are not separate rituals or techniques for producing extraordinary states; they are ways of reorienting conduct and attitude in daily circumstances.
- Practice of the retribution of enmity. When suffering arises, the practitioner accepts it as the fruition of past actions and does not respond with enmity or complaint. Hardship is reframed as karmic consequence and as an occasion for patience rather than resentment.
- Practice of the acceptance of circumstances. When good fortune arises, the practitioner remains unmoved and does not cling to it. Prosperity, praise, and pleasure are recognized as transient. This practice balances the first: suffering is not met with resentment, and good fortune is not met with attachment.
- Practice of the absence of craving. The practitioner cuts off craving, which the text identifies as the source of suffering. This is not merely suppressing desire but turning away from the habitual pursuit of objects and recognizing the futility of grasping.
- Practice of accordance with the Dharma. The practitioner eradicates wrong thoughts and practices the six perfections, yet does so “without having any practice.” That is, ethical and meditative disciplines are undertaken without grasping at them as achievements or as possessions of a separate self. The practice is carried out in a non-attached, non-dual spirit.
Manner and Scope
The work is terse, practical, and hortatory. Its language is often paradoxical and non-dual: one enters “without moving, without effort,” and one practices the Dharma “without having any practice.” These formulations are meant to prevent the practitioner from turning the path itself into a new object of craving or self-affirmation.
The Long Scroll’s extended form includes additional sayings and instructional material attributed to Bodhidharma and his disciples, but its core doctrinal identity remains the Two Entrances and Four Practices. The text does not develop a full metaphysical system, a ritual program, or a biographical account of Bodhidharma. Its scope is soteriological and practical: how to turn from delusion to reality, how to accept suffering and good fortune without attachment, how to abandon craving, and how to practice the Dharma without grasping.
The book’s teaching is held together by a reciprocal correction between insight and conduct. The entrance by principle describes a recognition that is not manufactured, while the entrance by practice describes that same recognition under ordinary conditions. The four practices are therefore not a ladder leading away from principle; they are the test of whether principle has become another object of grasping. Suffering, success, craving, and disciplined activity are the places where non-attachment is either enacted or turned into a pose. The text’s non-duality is practical rather than metaphysical: it refuses to separate the moment of understanding from the way one meets conditions.
Its significance lies in this reorientation of basic Buddhist categories—karma, suffering, the six perfections, non-self—toward a single soteriological task. The book does not supply a complete doctrine of mind, a ritual program, or a speculative account of reality. It treats the path as something to be understood in its non-grasping, not as a possession to be accumulated. Because terms such as “wall contemplation” remain compact and unexplained, the text’s authority is orientational rather than definitional. It asks the reader to notice where attachment, resentment, and craving arise and to meet them without adding a new self-affirming project. In that sense its scope is complete within its own aim: it presents the Two Entrances and Four Practices as a sufficient frame for turning from delusion to reality while deliberately refusing to overdescribe the reality to which one turns.
