by Peter Haskel
From the outset, the Great Way knows no distinction
between worldly and
transcendental
Let Buddhism and Confucianism return to the source,
and all differences cease to exist
When you penetrate directly, beyond words and letters
Going forward or backward, whatever you do creates a
refreshing breeze2
(zenshū, p. 497.)
Instructing the Assembly
Mind accords with all circumstances, yet doesn’t arise
or cease
The sages of old praised this, calling it zazen
Blind people wear out their cushions waiting for
enlightenment
Just like trying to make a mirror by polishing a brick
(zenshū, p. 495.)
Instructions to the Layman Gessō3 in Response to his
Questions on the Technique of
the Lance
The Great Function manifests itself without fixed rules
Meeting each situation on its own terms, it’s never too
soon, never too late
Thrusting, retracting, advancing, retreating—it all
takes place beyond the realm of
thought
When you’re in harmony with Mind, arms and legs
operate on their own
(zenshū, p. 496.)
Japanese Poems
The Preaching of Insentient Things
In spring, the cherry blossoms
In fall, the autumn leaves
The various forms of nature, just as they are
All of them, the words of the Law
(zenshū, p. 515.)
Impromptu Poem
Good is awful
Bad is awful
And awful is awful too
Tilings and events
Are only the product of circumstances
(zenshū, p. 516.)
My Meditation Hut
(This poem was probably composed while Bankei was still in his early teens, during the period after his expulsion from home by his elder brother in exasperation at Bankei’s repeated truancy from the local school. Eventually Bankei’s plight attracted the sympathy of an old family friend, Nakabori Sukeyasu, headman of the neighboring village of Shimomura.4 Sukeyasu had befriended Bankei’s father when he first arrived in the area as a masterless samurai, and he now erected a hermitage for Bankei on the mountain overlooking the Nakabori family home, where the young seeker became a frequent guest [see “Words and Deeds,” pp. 145–46]. Besides providing Bankei with a hospitable refuge while he struggled to resolve the questions that had driven him from the village school and into Buddhism, the hut evidently commanded a spectacular view of the Inland Sea and the Ejima Archipelago, which here directly faces the coastline.)
As I glance about
The haze settles:
Here revealed through dense mists
Here through thin
Spring daybreak over the Ejima Islands
(zenshū, p. 515.)
Song of Original Mind (Honshin no uta)
(Bankei is said to have composed this series of verses in 1653 when he was living in retreat in the mountains of Yoshino. Different versions and arrangements of the verses exist, and it is not known which represents the poem’s original form. One text states that Bankei composed the poem as instruction for the local children. Another gives the explanation that to combat a severe drought which afflicted the area, Bankei had the villagers, young and old alike, sing the verses as they danced at the local shrine. The result was a plentiful rainfall, and thereafter the performance of Bankei’s “rain song” became a local tradition. This account explains why the poem is also known as Amagoi-uta, “Praying-for-Rain Song,” and Odori-uta, “Dance Song.” It is, however, unclear why it sometimes appears under the title Usuhiki-uta, or “Milling Song,” a type of song sung while grinding flour.)
Unborn and imperishable
Is the original mind
Earth, water, fire and wind5
A temporary lodging for the night
Attached to this
Ephemeral burning house6
You yourselves light the fire, kindle the
flames
In which you’re consumed
Search back
To the time
When you were born
You can’t remember a thing at all!
Keep your mind as it was
When you came into the world
And instantly this very self7
Is a living “thus-come” one8
Ideas of
What’s good, what’s bad
All due to
This self of yours
In winter, a bonfire
Spells delight
But when summertime arrives
What a nuisance it becomes!
And the breezes
You loved in summer
Even before autumn’s gone
Already have become a bother
When you’ve got money
You despise the poor
But have you forgotten how it was
Back when you were poor yourself?
The money you amassed in life
Amassed with a demonic heart
You’ll watch with horror and alarm
Seized upon by hungry ghosts
Throwing your whole life away
Sacrificed to the thirst for gold
But when you saw your life was through
All your money was no use
Clinging, craving and the like
I don’t have them on my mind
That’s why nowadays I can say
The whole world is truly mine!
Your longing for the one you love
Is for the present time alone
It only exists by reason of
The past before she’d come along
To recall someone
Means you can’t forget
Not to recall them
That you never had forgot
Thinking back over the past
You find it was an evening’s dream
Realize that, and you’ll see
Everything is just a lie
Those who feel embittered by
Life in this floating world of grief
Anguish themselves, distress their minds
Brooding over empty dreams
Since, after all, this floating world
Is unreal
Instead of holding onto things in
Your mind, go and sing!
Only original mind exists
In the past and in the future too
Instead of holding onto things in
Your mind, let them go!
When you don’t attach to things
The floating world will cease to be
Nothing is left, nothing at all
That’s what “living tathagata” means
Having created
The demon mind yourself
When it torments you mercilessly
You’re to blame and no one else
When you do wrong
Your mind’s the demon
There’s no hell
To be found outside
Abominating hell
Longing for heaven
You make yourself suffer
In a joyful world
You think that good
Means hating what is bad
What’s bad is
The hating mind itself
Good, you say,
Means doing good
Bad indeed
The mind that says so!
Good and bad alike
Roll them both into one ball
Wrap it up in paper and then
Toss it out—forget it all!
Mysteries and miracles—
There are no such things!
But when you fail to understand
The world’s full of weird happenings
&nb
sp; This is the phantom
Who deceives
Who makes us take the false world
To be real
Fame, wealth, eating and drinking, sleep
and sensual
delight—
Once you’ve learned the Five
Desires
They become
Your guide in life
Notions of what one should do
Never existed from the start
Fighting about what’s right, what’s wrong
That’s the doing of the I
When your study
Of Buddhism is through
You find
You haven’t anything new
Enlightenment and delusion too
Never existed at the start
They’re ideas that you picked up
Things your parents never taught9
If you think the mind
That attains enlightenment
Is “mine”
Your thoughts will wrestle, one with
the other
These days I’m not bothering about
Getting enlightenment all the time
And the result is that
I wake up in the morning feeling
fine!
Praying for salvation in the world to come
Praying for your own selfish ends
Is only piling on more and more
Self-centeredness and arrogance
Nowadays I’m tired of
Praying for salvation too
I just move along at my ease
Letting the breath come and go
Die—then live
Day and night within the world
Once you’ve done this, then you can
Hold the world right in your hand!
It’s the buddhas I feel sorry for:
With all those ornaments they wear
They must be
Dazzled by the glare!
Still too soon for you to be
A buddha in the temple shrine
Make yourself a Deva King10
Standing at the gate outside!
If you search for the Pure Land
Bent upon your own reward
You’ll only find yourself despised
By the Buddha after all!
People have no enemies
None at all right from the start
You create them all yourself
Fighting over right and wrong
Clear are the workings of cause and effect
You become deluded, but don’t
know
It’s something that you’ve done yourself
That’s what’s called self-centeredness
Grown used to the conditioned world
Grown used to the world of
transience
When you become deluded like this
You’re the one who’s losing out!
The mind that’s not conditioned
Is originally unborn
What is conditioned doesn’t exist
That is why there’s no delusion
Though the years may creep ahead
Mind itself can never age
This mind that’s
Always just the same
Wonderful! Marvelous!
When you’ve searched and found at
last
The one who never will grow old
—“I alone!”11
The Pure Land
Where one communes at peace
Is here and now, it’s not remote
Millions and millions of leagues
away
When someone tosses you a tea bowl
—Catch it!
Catch it nimbly with soft cotton
With the cotton of your skillful
mind!12
(zenshū, pp. 519–522.)
LETTERS
(The following letter from Bankei’s original teacher Umpo (1572–1653), together with Bankei’s reply, was reportedly written while Bankei was studying under Umpo’s heir Bokuō at the Sanyūji in Bizen.)
Having the opportunity to send a message, I am writing you this note. I trust you are keeping well. I myself am the same as ever, while the good people of Kariya and Nakamura1 are untiring in their Zen study. As you know, this old monk stands alone on the summit of a solitary peak,2 and never quotes even a word of the buddhas or patriarchs. However, since you and Akashi3 have shown an earnest desire, I cannot do other than extend a helping hand and offer you some words of teaching, muddying things up with useless talk.
Now that I have twenty or thirty people coming to the temple to practice zazen, I leave them on their own, and that way everyone feels at ease. If those who use “patriarchal Zen”4 and forcibly discipline their students were to hear what I’m doing, I’m sure they would consider mè the enemy of all the buddhas in the three worlds!5 People may say the bright moon is falling into murky water, but if I can save one student or even half a student, shouldn’t I count myself fortunate?
I hope you will be able to return soon.
With sincere regards,
(Umpo)
(Bankei replies:)
Thank you for your letter. Nothing makes me happier than to learn that all is well with you. Everyone here in the temple, from the senior priests to the regular practitioners, is fine, so fortunately there is no need to concern yourself over us. As I learn from your letter, you have lately come down to work shoulder to shoulder with the people of the world in order to save them. This is truly wonderful and praiseworthy.
I plan shortly to come and pay my respects to you.
With sincere regards,
(Bankei)
(zenshū, pp. 319–320.)
(Addressed to Bankei’s childhood friend Sasaki Nobutsugu,6 this letter appears to be the product of a stay in Kyoto circa 1642. School seems to have remained a sore point with the young Bankei, who here professes little enthusiasm for his “academic studies,” which may well have included both Buddhist and non-Buddhist classics.)
Twenty-second day of the fifth month (equivalent to late June in the present calendar)
Lately my time has been completely taken up with work, but allow me to address you this brief message. I trust that all is well with you. I myself am fine. I thought this spring7 I might travel to Edo or perhaps even retire to the mountains; and although I’d already made up my mind to quit my academic studies, everyone said it would be a mistake for me to abandon them now and that at all costs I should go on with my work for another year or so—for the sake of the Dharma, they told me. So, in one way or another, they held me back, and I was obliged to stay on here and keep at my work. I’m doing fine and making good progress, so set your mind at ease. Since I’m already committed to this situation and can’t avoid spending another year or two at my studies, I’d appreciate your putting together some funds to carry me through this period. Next month I’ll have to make my usual journey to Akō to visit Umpo, so I hope you’ll give this matter your immediate attention. Nothing else in particular to add for now.
Your servant,
Yōtaku
(zenshū, p. 527.)
(Bankei’s disciple Yōsen, to whom this letter is addressed, was a sister-in-law of Sasaki Nobutsugu. She would have been about twenty years old in 1656, when the letter was probably composed, and remained a supporter of Bankei throughout his career.)
Allow me to address you this brief message. Concerning your religious practice: as your thoughts haven’t yet stopped, you must make every effort to rouse your faith, completely forgetting all thoughts, of every sort—thoughts of cherishing good and loathing evil, of loving or hating, of worldly affairs, of cherishing buddhahood, of loathing delusion or cherishing enlightenment. If nothing at all remains in your mind, then your religious practice is complete, so if you can come to this quickly, I’ll be able to give you my acknowledgment. By assiduously rousing your faith, you’ll quickly escape these delusions. When you have escaped them, I’ll know it, an
d at that time I’ll be able to give my acknowledgment to that one who has escaped.
Respectfully,
(Bankei)
(zenshū, pp. 527–528.)
(The following is a letter from Bankei to his disciple Rintei (1630–1702), addressed by her earlier religious name Ritei. Like Yōsen, Rintei was a sister-in-law of Bankei’s patron Sasaki Nobutsugu. She became a nun in 1679, settling in a hermitage within the compound of her husband’s home. Bankei’s letter was composed sometime before 1691, when she assumed the name Ritei, and Akao has suggested a date in the early to mid—1660s.)
Having received your letter, allow me to address you this brief message. I hope you are all well. I myself am fine, so please rest assured. You are, I imagine, applying yourself diligently in your religious practice. Your constant strong desire to attain enlightenment right away, however, will make you deluded, so it’s essential that you give up this attitude and just remain without any sort of discrimination or understanding. Don’t hate the arising of thoughts or stop the thoughts that do arise; simply realize that our original mind, right from the start, is beyond thought, so that, no matter what, you never get involved with thoughts. Illuminate original mind, and no other understanding is necessary. However, if you become [attached to] the desire for illumination, then it will become a source of delusion. Only realize that, from the beginning, original mind is beyond thought, and don’t attach to your rising thoughts at all, whether they’re about good or evil, Buddhism or worldly matters, your own affairs or other people’s—whatever they are, just let them arise or cease as they will, and that way you’ll naturally accord with original mind. Thoughts arise temporarily in response to what you see and hear; they haven’t any real existence of their own. You must have faith that the original mind that is realized and that which realizes original mind are not different.
Should you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
Respectfully,
(Bankei)
(zenshū, pp. 530–531.)
(This letter, probably dating from the mid—1670s, is addressed to Lady Naga, daughter of Bankei’s samurai patron KatōYasuoki and wife of Lord Katō’s chief retainer Ōhashi Shigeyoshi. Rikyō, who seems to have been an elderly lady-in-waiting in the Ōhashi family, had apparently sought to meet with Bankei to receive his guidance on how to confront her approaching death. Bankei, unable to see Rikyō, passed on this message to her via Lady Naga. The first part of the letter deals with unrelated material and has been omitted.)
. . . On my way back this time, I won’t have a chance to see anyone, so please convey my heartfelt regrets to Rikyō. Even for one who is young, life is uncertain at best, so for someone like Rikyō who is well-advanced in years it is all the more understandable to feel regret. Since I too am not only old, but ailing as well, it is very unlikely that I will be able to see her again. Nevertheless, since she is sincerely committed to the Dharma and is practicing wholeheartedly, I’m sure she will illuminate the principle of original buddhahood and become the sort of person who does not rely on the power of others. So my leaving for the capital is in no way a cause for such unhappiness on her part. This Dharma isn’t anything you can learn from someone else. Even if she did see me, it would not help. Please convey this message to her from me.