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

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Another disciple was concerned about his wandering mind. He could not concentrate on the Unborn all the time without his mind sloping off to other thoughts. Bankei insisted, however, that he was never separated from the Buddha-mind. If you were, he said, you would not be asking this question now. Your mind is not really somewhere else. It is just that you have not yet learned correctly about it. You do not know your own self. Instead of just dwelling in it, you change and distort it into other things. When you are in this state, your mind is at a low level of efficiency and you cannot absorb information or function at your maximum potential. You are not absent-minded, just tying up part of your mind by making it do things which it would not normally do.

The psychological aspect in Bankei’s teaching is paramount. This is because he laid so much stress on practice and actually living in the Unborn. Theory, theology and metaphysics take a back seat in the exposition of Unborn Zen. Even the psychology is narrowed down and sharply focused: “Your self-partiality is at the root of all illusions. There aren’t any illusions when you don’t have this preference for yourself.” And, of course, without illusions one lives in the Unborn as an enlightened Buddha.

The Buddha-mind has wonderful illuminative wisdom, he constantly taught. All past experiences and actions are fully reflected in it. It is good spiritual practice, therefore, not to fix onto these reflecting images. If you do, you are creating illusion. Originally, these thoughts had no substance, so the prudent way of dealing with them is to ignore them, whether they are rising or stopping. Then, no matter how many thoughts there are, it is the same as if none had arisen. The tyranny of memory and past conditioning is broken, and with it, neurotic behaviour patterns and other psychological problems.

Brushing off thoughts which arise is just like
washing off blood with blood. We remain impure because
of being washed with blood, even when the blood that
was first there has gone — and if we continue in this
way the impurity never departs. This is from ignorance
of the mind’s unborn, unvanishing, and unconfused
nature. If we take second thoughts (normal thinking)
or an effective reality, we keep going on and on
around the wheel of birth and death. You should
realise that such thought is just a temporary mental
construction, and not try to hold or to reject it.

A close examination of most religions reveals a hefty weight of self-partiality, myth, and dubious authority; so much so that the underlying impulse to reveal God/the Unborn is lost in a welter of forms and ceremonies. The absolute makes an appearance only in distorted or anthropomorphic terms, rarely in its suchness.

The impression left after a reading of Bankei’s talks is that of religion, philosophy, and psychology, merged and distilled down to the finest essence, until all that remains is the bare, ungarnished truth of the non-dual Unborn, fully revealed in the consciousness of each individual.

The conscious act of steadfastly being in the Unborn, is the basis of many Japanese art-forms and activities, including Zen archery, flower arranging, landscaping and gardening, the tea ceremony and brush drawing and calligraphy. The practitioner, by concentrating his mind, submerges himself in the Unborn, where the seer, the seeing and the seen, subject and object, dissolve one into the other and into effortless, non-dual activity.

Dr. D.T. Suzuki, who trained in the Rinzai Zen school, wrote this about Japanese artistic expression: “How does a painter get into the spirit of the (subject)? The secret is to become the (subject) itself…The discipline consists in studying the (subject to be painted) inwardly with his mind thoroughly purified of its subjective, self-centred contents. This means to keep the mind in unison with the emptiness or suchness (of the subject)…and transform himself into the (subject) itself.”

The result is an elegant, artless performance, devoid of ego and self-partiality, in which the Buddha-mind expresses itself with perfection as the True Man of the Way.

Bankei always claimed that he was the only master to give proof that the Unborn Buddha-mind was, as he declared, the sole ground of human consciousness.

The Unborn Mind
Listen, he would say, did you hear that dog barking? When the audience nodded, he would continue, did you hear that crow just now? Again assent. But you didn’t expect to hear them. You had no intention of hearing them. Nor did the lack of intention prevent you from distinguishing between dog and crow. Since your “normal” mind was not involved in the hearing and distinguishing procedure, the whole business was carried on by the marvellous illuminative wisdom of your unborn Buddha-mind. The mind that we think of as ours is really a distortion of the Buddha-mind, born into our consciousness (the world of birth and death), by our failure to let it be as it is in the face of circumstances. When we allow our Buddha-mind to just be, however, as when we unexpectedly hear a dog or a crow, it remains in the Unborn and functions effortlessly and with total precision. This mind, being unborn, is not subject to death.

A similar case could be made out using the myriad biochemical reactions which take place in the body every second. Some million or so of these processes occur every second of life. It would be absurd to believe that the intellect, like some controlling computer, regulated the whole procedure. This, Bankei would have said, is done by the illuminative wisdom of the Unborn, beyond normal consciousness.

A further elaboration of Bankei’s enlightenment teaching came during the Korin-ji retreat of 1684. One morning in the zendo, a monk, Itsuzan, had an enlightenment experience. Later, he reported the matter to the master. I have placed all my trust in you, Itsuzan said. But it seemed as if he had been deceived. Then, suddenly, a full and direct satori opened up to him, and everything was exactly as Bankei had been repeating each day of the retreat. It was impossible to express in words. Bankei knew exactly how it was. The monk pressed on, reminding him rather critically that he had always said there was no great final enlightenment, just an awakening with no-one there to feel wonderful about it. The monk did not agree. He castigated Bankei’s statement that each person had to grasp the opportunity for himself, and disagreed with the story he had told of Rinzai, who had asked Huang Po three times about the Buddha-mind. Each time Huang Po had struck him. But when he had gone to another master, just one word was enough to enlighten him. His comment had been: “There isn’t very much to Huang Po’s Zen.” The monk did not agree with the understatement of this tale. He felt wonderful about his satori and wanted everyone to know.

You should not think, Bankei stressed, that just because they are old masters, there is anything special about them. They are just like you and me. Rinzai’s satori was his entrance into enlightenment. If you stop there you will be contenting yourself with a small attainment.

“Unless you are very careful after you experience the first satori, it is extremely difficult for you to fully perfect your Dharma eye.”

Itsuzan, however, was clear. He did not dispute what the master said, but had not a shadow of doubt about the Dharma. It was impossible for him to gain any more strength than he had right at that moment. Bankei knew the feeling, he had after all gone down the same road himself until he had met Dosha.

It is easy, he insisted, to dispel all doubts as you have done. But enlightenment is very deep and wisdom vastly profound. The more you go into it, the deeper it gets. Bankei could only think about the long path ahead of Itsuzan.

In the year 1693, aged 71, Bankei was travelling back to the Ryumon-ji in what was an unusually hot summer. He was suddenly taken ill and rushed back to the temple without making the expected teaching stops along the way. On arrival, he confided to one of his followers that he would be dead within two months. When he saw the dismay on the faces of his faithful disciples, he rebuked them.

“How do you expect to see me, if you look at me in terms of birth and death?” He died after refusing to compose a death verse. He had resisted convention all his life, and was not going to start conforming now.

On his death, it is reported that he left more than 670 personal disciples, including 270 nuns, together with over five thousand laymen and women who counted themselves his students. Nearly fifty years afterwards, he was posthumously awarded the title of National Teacher by the Emperor. But his true legacy lives on in Japan today, deeply embedded in its culture and way of life, and increasingly around the world, where modern people are beginning to perceive the attractions of “living in the Unborn.”