Bankei Zen

by Peter Haskel

  “I can tell you something about this matter of women’s Buddha Mind. I understand that women feel very distressed hearing it said that they can’t become buddhas. But it simply isn’t so! How is there any difference between men and women? Men are the Buddha Body,76 and women are the Buddha Body too. You shouldn’t entertain any doubts of this sort. When you thoroughly grasp the Unborn, then, in the Unborn, there’s no difference whether you’re a man or a woman. Everyone is the Buddha Body.

  “You women, listen closely now. While, in terms of physical form, men and women are obviously different, in terms of the Buddha Mind there’s no difference at all. Don’t be misled by appearances! The Buddha Mind is identical; it makes no distinction between men and women.

  “Let me prove this to you. There’s quite a crowd of people here at this meeting, but when they hear the sound of a drum or a gong outside the temple, do you suppose the women mistake the sound of the gong for that of the drum, the sound of the drum for that of the gong? Do you really think there’s any difference between the way the men are hearing these things and the way the women hear them? There’s absolutely no difference at all. Now, everyone, is this true only for ‘men and women? In this hall we have young people and old, monks and householders, men and women, all here mingled together; but when it comes to hearing the sound of the gong or the drum, can you say the old people hear it this way, the young ones hear it that way? Can you tell the difference in the way the monks hear it, the way the lay people hear it, the way the men hear it, the way the women hear it? The fact that there’s no difference at all [proves that what’s involved] is none other than the One Identical Buddha Mind that everyone intrinsically possesses. So this talk about ‘men’s and women’s’ is nothing but names of traces produced by your thoughts. Before these traces get produced, in the realm of the Unborn, there’s nothing about ‘men’ or ‘women.’ And since that’s how it is, as there’s no difference between men’s Buddha Mind and women’s Buddha Mind, you shouldn’t harbor any such doubts.

  “Suppose you are staying continually in the Unborn, abiding in the Buddha Mind just as it is and forgetting any distinctions between men and women, when suddenly you see or hear something [disturbing], someone says nasty things about you, or thoughts of clinging and craving arise and you attach to them: you’ll carelessly switch the Buddha Mind for thoughts, and then claim it’s because you’re only a wretched woman, or some such thing. Without being deluded by your physical form, thoroughly grasp this One Way of the Unborn, and [you’ll see that] not only men and women, but the buddhas of the past and those of the future are all the identical One Buddha Mind. There’s no reason that women should be a special case and not be able to realize buddhahood too.

  “If there really were some reason that women couldn’t become buddhas, just what do you think I would have to gain by deceiving you all, lying to you and insisting they can, misleading everyone in this big crowd? If it were a fact that women couldn’t realize buddhahood, and I told you that they really could, deceiving every person here, I’d be sure to land in hell well before all of you! Just because I longed to realize buddhahood, from the time I was young I engaged in hard and painful practice; so now do you suppose I’d want to get punished for lying to you all and land up in hell? What I’m telling you is no lie. I want you ladies to grasp it clearly and, from here on, feeling fully assured, pass your days in the Unborn Buddha Mind. . . .

  “Even in evil people, the Unborn Mind isn’t missing. When you reverse their evil mind, it’s none other than Buddha Mind. Let me tell you how even an evil person has the Buddha Mind: Suppose two men are traveling together from here to Takamatsu. One of them is evil and the other is good, but both of them, without thinking of good or evil, just walk along, chatting with one another about this or that as they go. If there’s something along the road, without either of them deliberately trying to see it, whatever there is on either side appears to both the eyes of the good man and to those of the bad. Suppose some horses or cows should come toward them: both the good man and the bad would move aside and make their way around. Even though they hadn’t anticipated doing so, as they go along chatting together, both of them simply move aside to get through. If there’s some spot they have to leap across, both of them will take a leap; if there’s a river, they’ll both ford it. Even though he hadn’t planned to do so, the good man, as you’d expect, moves aside and makes his way past whatever obstacles he encounters. But while you might expect that the evil man wouldn’t do exactly the same as the good one—ducking out of the way of things, leaping ditches and fording streams without any anticipation—what he does is, in fact, no different from what the good man does.

  “I’ve told you this as an example of how even an evil person is endowed with the Unborn Buddha Mind. Each of you too, up till now, has been an evil person, consumed by every sort of clinging and craving, preoccupied with anger and rage, transmigrating and switching your Buddha Mind for fighting demons and hungry ghosts. But now that I’ve explained this Unborn Buddha Mind to you today, if you grasp it clearly, your own mind of clinging and craving, anger and rage will instantly become the Unborn Buddha Mind, and you’ll never lose this Buddha Mind, not in ten thousand kalpas. Since you’ll be abiding in this Buddha Mind, from today on you yourselves will be living tathagatas. But make no mistake; if you lose out on the Buddha Mind now, you won’t attain buddhahood in ten thousand or even one hundred thousand kalpas, so you’d better grasp things clearly!

  “Even if your previously ingrained bad habits should lead you to attach to things that come your way, so that thoughts temporarily arise, the man who is secure in his faith will neither attach to nor reject these thoughts—in the twinkling of an eye he’ll easily go right back to the buddhahood of the Unborn! Even with the buddhas and patriarchs, it wasn’t that they were completely without thoughts from the start. But since they didn’t get involved with them and, just like little children, didn’t continue them any further, it was the same as if the thoughts didn’t arise. That’s why they remained free from thoughts.

  “Now, when thoughts don’t arise, the marvelously illuminating dynamic function of the Buddha Mind won’t manifest itself, so the arising of thoughts is, in fact, the dynamic function of the marvelously illuminating Buddha Mind. Both my explaining these things to you and your taking them in, too, are all due to everyone’s having that which is marvelously illuminating within the Buddha Mind. Isn’t this a direct and precious thing? To take something so precious, arouse all kinds of thoughts and with them create the Three Evil Realms of hell-dwellers, beasts and hungry ghosts, so that even right in this life you’re pulled along by that [evil] karma—it’s really pitiful to think how people suffer like this, morning to night. So grasp this clearly, realize once and for all that dealing with everything by stirring up thoughts only makes you suffer; and, without switching your One Buddha Mind for thoughts that are not innately yours, pass your days always in the Unborn Buddha Mind.

  “I’ll be going back inside now. Everyone please take your time leaving.”

  Servants, samurai, husbands and wives

  “ . . . When you observe the world at large, if there’s someone with a certain skill in which he excels, no matter what it is, everyone will praise him: ‘He’s really talented!’ they’ll declare. But the bigoted person, on hearing this, will say: ‘Well, he may be good at this particular thing, but he’s also got such-and-such bad points. . .’ thus managing to denigrate even his abilities. There’s no two ways about it: that’s the bigotry of the arrogant evildoer, isn’t it? With people like this, if someone they’re partial to has a little talent, even if it’s talent no one else has ever heard of, they’ll stand up alone and praise him to the skies. ‘Bravo!’ they exclaim, ‘Well done! A real virtuoso!’ You find lots of people like this. Isn’t that sort of thing terribly wrong? We should join gladly in praising those whom others praise, and, hearing of another’s happiness, we should rejoice just as if the happiness were our own. This is the way th
ings ought to be. Such a person is an illumined man who doesn’t obscure the Buddha Mind. But if, in response to what you see and hear, there’s any arrogance or bigotry, you change the Buddha Mind with which you’re endowed for a hell-dweller. . . .

  “When you leave behind your anger, clinging, craving and self-centeredness, even when it comes to your servants, you won’t treat them harshly but will show them kindness. Just because you hire someone and pay him a salary is no reason to beat him or make him do unreasonable things! Even with your servants, you shouldn’t think of them as separate or unrelated to you. Suppose right now your own son were being disobedient. If instead of your son disobeying you it had been an outsider, how incensed you’d be! But since you realize it’s your own son, you manage to put up with it, right? What’s more, whatever sort of nasty thing you’d tell your own son to do, since it’s in the family he probably wouldn’t resent it too much; but with a servant, who is unrelated to you, his resentment is bound to be different from your son’s. Scolding people heedlessly, flying into a rage—till now it’s all been a great mistake. Till now, you didn’t understand the principle behind this, so you just went along thoughtlessly, believing that anger and rage were the natural way of things in the human world. But now that you’ve heard about the Unborn Buddha Mind each of you has innately, from here on you’d better keep from doing it any harm.

  “It may seem to you somehow that I’m speaking like this at the request of the servants—but it really isn’t so! Even when it comes to a rude servant, no matter how bad he is, what I’m telling you all is not to lose your temper senselessly and harm the Buddha Mind. . . .

  “In the world, one finds certain kinds of men who do things halfheartedly. Unlike men, however, women are sincere. It’s true they’re also more foolish than men in some ways. But when you tell them that by doing evil you fall into hell, they don’t doubt it in the slightest; and when you teach them that, while doing evil will land you in hell, doing good will make you a buddha, they wholeheartedly resolve to become buddhas, and their faith deepens all the more. When they hear what I’m teaching about the Unborn, their faith is roused, and that’s why women, being sincere, will realize buddhahood more readily than men with their phony cleverness. So make up your minds that you’re going to become buddhas now!

  “Everyone is probably thinking: ‘Here he is just telling us, “Watch out all the time—don’t lose your temper! don’t be greedy!” But if we were doing this and someone came along and remarked, “Why, what big fools these people are!” we surely couldn’t bring ourselves to tell him, “Certainly, we are fools!” ‘

  “Of course, such things do happen; but a person who calls another a fool, even when he’s not, is a fool himself. So with people like this, just let it go and don’t bother about it any further.

  “However, if a samurai were being addressed with such disrespectful talk, there’d be no question of his tolerating it. Let me give you an example. Nowadays there are lots of people who own high-priced ceramics—flower vases and Korean teabowls.77 I don’t own anything of this sort myself, but when I see the people who do, they take the ceramics and wrap them round and round with soft cotton and crepe and stick them in a box, which makes good sense. If a costly ceramic strikes against something hard, it’s sure to break, so to keep these ceramics from breaking by wrapping them in cotton and crepe is surely a judicious measure. The samurai’s mind is just like this. To begin with, samurai always place honor above all else. If there’s even a single word of disagreement between them, they can’t let it pass without calling it to account—such is the way of the samurai. Once a single word is challenged, there’s no going back. So a samurai always keeps the ‘hard’ parts of his mind under wraps, swathed in cotton and crepe, and from the start takes the greatest care to avoid ‘striking against’ abrasive people. Everyone would do well always to be careful about this. Once anyone has challenged his words, the samurai is bound to kill him. You’d better grasp this clearly.

  “Then there’s the sort of killing that occurs when a samurai throws himself before his lord and cuts down an attacker. This serves to destroy evildoers and pacify the realm and constitutes the regular vocation of the samurai, so for a warrior this sort of thing is not considered to be murder. But to kill another simply scheming for your own personal ends, stirring up selfish desires as a result of self-centeredness—this is murder indeed. It shows disloyalty to your lord, unfiliality to your parents, and changes the Buddha Mind for a fighting demon. On the other hand, in circumstances when one must die for one’s lord, to fail to die, to run away and behave like a coward, is switching the Buddha Mind for an animal. Birds and beasts don’t have the sort of intelligence people do, so they can’t understand the proper way to act; they don’t know the meaning of honor and simply flee from place to place trying to stay alive. But when a samurai, similarly, fails to understand the meaning of honor and runs away, not even showing shame before his fellow warriors, that’s just like being an animal.

  “In Edo, I also have a temple,78 located in Azabu on the edge of the city. There was once a servant who’d been with me for quite some time and had developed a certain religious feeling. I suppose that as he constantly watched the behavior of the monks, this sort of thing had naturally occurred. It happened that one day, toward dusk, this man was sent on an errand by some of my students. His route led through the outskirts of the city, past certain areas with homes and others that were totally uninhabited. In these desolate spots, swordsmen would often lie in wait to test their blades on unsuspecting travelers,79 and with no one about after dark, it wasn’t safe to be there. But when the others tried to stop him, pleading, ‘It’s dangerous, don’t go!’ he refused to listen, and went off, telling them, ‘I’ll be back.’

  “On his way home, the sun had gone down, and one of these streetcorner assassins happened to be waiting in his usual spot. He pushed deliberately into the servant, drew the sword at his side and exclaimed: ‘You touched me with your sleeve! I won’t let you by!’

  “The servant replied: ‘My sleeve did not touch you.’

  “And then, without even thinking, he prostrated himself three times. Whereupon, strange to tell, the samurai sheathed the sword that was already poised to kill, and said: ‘Well, you’re a peculiar fellow! I’ll let you off. Go on!’

  “Thus, he managed to escape disaster.

  “Meanwhile, a merchant who just then chanced to be passing saw what was happening and ran for safety into an adjacent tea shop, taking furtive peaks at what was going on. As he waited there wondering, ‘Is he killing him now? Now is he going to kill him?’ the servant appeared before him.

  “‘You really had a narrow escape!’ said the merchant. ‘How’d you ever happen to think of bowing like that?’

  “The servant told him: ‘I live in a temple, and the people there are always making three bows. Just now, I decided, “Well, if he’s going to kill me, let him kill me!” And, without even thinking, I just automatically made the usual three bows. “You’re a peculiar fellow,” he said, “I’ll let you off. Go on!” And I was able to continue on my way.’

  “That’s what the servant told me.

  “‘Even this,’ I said to him, ‘even your escape from an inescapable predicament, when you come right down to it, was because you always kept your faith.’ And having heard how the heart of even a brutal wayside assassin was moved, I’m sure there isn’t anyone who can doubt the Buddhadharma.

  “As I travel about everywhere, I come across all sorts of different things. I also have a temple at ōzu in Iyo,80 and I generally go there and spend some time each year. The ōzu temple is nothing like this. It’s a huge structure. When I’m there, throngs of visitors pack the temple, and there’s one hall reserved for women and another just for men. In Ōzu, we have four ushers—two for the women and two for the men—who give directions so there won’t be any unseemly scrambling, and everyone listens respectfully. All the local country people come from two or three ri81 around.

/>   “Once there was a fellow from ōzu who gave his daughter in marriage to a man whose home was in the countryside some two ri away. His mother lived with them, and a son was born, but the couple always got on badly and never ceased quarreling. Eventually, they had a terrible row, and the wife walked out, handing their only child to her husband and announcing that she was returning to her parents.

  “But the husband, clutching the child in his arms, declared: ‘If you go back to your parents, I’ll throw this child in the river!’

  “The woman said: ‘Fine! He’s your child, and now I’m letting you have him, so go ahead and throw him in the river, get rid of him if you want to—I don’t care!’

  “Then, the husband told her: ‘You may be going home to your parents, but you’re not taking back so much as a scrap of clothing or household belongings!’82

  “She replied: ‘Once I’m out of this house, I don’t care about that clothing and household stuff!’ And so saying, she left and set off for ōzu.

  “Just then, she happened to notice a group of people on their way to hear my sermon, so instead of continuing to her parents, she joined the crowd and came to my temple. She listened carefully to what I said that day. Well, when my talk was over, everyone dispersed, and on the way home, this woman happened to meet a man who was a neighbor of her parents.

  “‘What’s brought you here?’ he asked her.

  “She told him: ‘This morning my husband and I had a fight. I’d come this far when I noticed a crowd on their way to the temple. It looked as if there would be a sermon, and the happy thought came to me that this was a good opportunity and I ought to join them. So, instead of proceeding to my parents, I went along to the temple. Everything in the sermon today applied to me personally. I feel so terribly ashamed! My leaving my husband’s house today was due to my own wrongmindedness. My husband didn’t want me to go. He tried saying all kinds of things to me and, together with my mother-in-law, attempted to stop me, but I persisted in my senseless outrage and finally outraged my husband and mother-in-law as well. However, the sermon today made me see how wrong I was, so I won’t be going back to my parents after all. From here, I’ll return home to my husband and beg forgiveness for the wrong I’ve done, humble myself before them both and also tell them about this wonderful sermon; for unless I encourage them as well to take an interest in salvation, my having heard it won’t be truly worthwhile.’