A Life of Bankei by John M Evans. Part of the Zen Masters Series.

It is interesting that the issues we now associate with the term “political correctness” arose even in Bankei’s day.

At one public meeting a woman stood up, unintimidated by the eminence of the master. She spoke with some heat: “You know that women are not allowed to climb the sacred mountains,” she said. “And we are not allowed into the precincts either. Why is it said that women have deep karma and that this bars us from such things?”

Bankei sensed he was now in the realm of politics not spirit, so he passed it off with a jest. “You know,” he said to the woman, “that there is a nunnery in Kamakura?” She nodded. “Unfortunately, it’s closed to men!”

Women, he knew, were often treated badly by institutionalized clergy who liked to carve a cosy exclusive niche for themselves. But Bankei was aware that enlightenment was barred to no-one. However, as an administrative problem he could only give a view and hope that it would have some effect on others.

A rather stern, middle-aged monk addressed him from the floor. “In the past,” he began, “great masters like Engo and Daie used koan to lead their students to enlightenment. Why do you not do so?”

Bankei used a stock reply, he was often asked this one. “Did the great masters before the two you name also use koan?” The monk sat down discomfited. It had been a long day, despite the bright weather. Bankei brought the session to a close, thanked the visitors for their efforts in coming to see him and urged them all to take very good care of themselves.

Bankei’s enlightenment eventually came after fourteen years of unremitting labour. In the final days, as did the Buddha before him, he brought himself to the brink of death before nature relented and gave him the vision he had so long sought.

From the day he had been asked to leave his home at the age of eleven, the young Bankei had looked in vain for a competent Zen teacher. In the absence of one, he had tried a number of other options, including the constant repetition of the name of Amida Buddha. This had induced a temporary samadhi, but brought him no nearer to “clarifying his bright virtue”.

Bright Virtue at Last
At last, after years of searching, he found a suitable Zen master. Umpo Zenjo was an abbot of the Rinzai tradition. He recommended a strict programme of training, including zazen, or Zen meditation, and his reputation was formidable. It was said that he “reviled the masters of ‘word-Zen’ infesting the land, crushed them into dust, and promoted the silent, personal, and direct transmission of the first Patriarch, Bodhidharma.”

For three years Bankei studied under Umpo until, at the age of nineteen, he set off on a tour of the country, hoping to meet other enlightened masters. His life now entered the critical period. He was living for the most part in the open and making his way as best he could. Only his youth and strength kept him going. Still the goal eluded him.

When, four years later, he returned to Umpo to confess his failure, his master replied: “It is your desire to find someone to help you that keeps you from your goal.”

The implication was that the answer would not be found outside himself. At that he left the presence of Umpo and resolved that, like Gautama Buddha before him, he would sit down to meditation and not stop until he had achieved enlightenment or died in the attempt. Bankei made himself a rude hut in the country, and arranged for some people living nearby to pass in food through a small aperture, though he often went without for days and weeks at a time.

Not surprisingly, his health deteriorated. He contracted tuberculosis and grew weaker by the day. Most of the time he lived on thin rice broth, hardly enough to keep body and soul together. When his health began to give cause for concern, a doctor was called who immediately gave him up as a hopeless case. The youthful Bankei resigned himself to death.

At this extremity, with his life ebbing away, something stirred within him. There was a turning round in his consciousness and then he saw …

“Suddenly, just at that moment, it came to me. I realized what it was that had escaped me until now: all things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn.” This sounds suspiciously like an intellectual insight rather than an enlightenment experience, but it may well have been accompanied by the “supernatural touch” characteristic of the preliminary stages of enlightenment.

Immediately after this clearly profound incident, Bankei’s health began to improve. New life surged through his limbs and the oppressive weight of “consumption” lifted from his rotting lungs. At the age of twenty-six he had become a Man of the Unborn. He had found Eckhart’s “light in the soul that is uncreated”. Though whether he had fully articulated his own unique philosophy at this stage, is open to question.

It was not long after, that a second enlightenment experience opened, which deepened and verified the first. While washing himself in a stream, the scent of plum blossom wafted towards him on the early morning breeze.

A contemporary account says: “At that instant, all attachments and obstacles were swept from his mind once and for all. The doubts that had been plaguing him ceased to exist.”

Now Read Part 5