by Peter Haskel
Also, it keeps skipping my mind, but as Rikyō is old and prepared [to meet death] at any time, secure [in her faith], I think she should be sure to sew herself a seven-piece kesa,8 so that when death comes she’ll be ready with it. They say: “When you [return] to your native place, deck yourself out in brocade.”9 Well, there’s no amount of brocade that can compare with wearing the kesa, so please tell her when she goes back to her native place to have on a seven-piece kesa. I think it’s wonderful that a woman is able to prepare a kesa for herself.
If I go to the capital now, I probably won’t have the chance to see Rikyō again, so please give her this message from me: At the time of death, there’s no need for any special state of mind. Just meet your end with the ordinary mind of zazen. Everybody’s mind is the Buddha Mind, which is originally enlightened, so it’s not something that is “born” or that “dies”; it neither comes nor goes, but is eternal, unalterable buddhahood. Thus, it’s not a matter of your becoming a buddha now for the first time since you’ve been a buddha right from the start. That’s why, instead of following other people’s spiritual guidance, it’s best to look to your own ordinary straightforward mind. Please tell her this for me. And since it’s the same for your Ladyship, and anyone else as well, don’t think that this is only for Rikyō.
Respectfully,
Bankei
(zenshū, pp. 533–534.)
Instructions for the Layman Gessō, given at his request
(Bankei composed the following instructions on the art of combat for his disciple and patron Katō Yasuoki, daimyo of Ōzu and an expert in the use of the yari, or Japanese lance. Although not specifically a letter, it has been included here.)
In performing a movement, if you act with no-mind, the action will spring forth of itself. When your ki10 changes, your physical form changes along with it. When you’re carried away by force, that is relying on “self.” To have ulterior thoughts is not in accordance with the natural. When you act upon deliberation, you are tied to thought. The opponent can then tell [the direction of] your ki. If you [try to] steady yourself by deliberate effort, your ki becomes diffuse, and you may grow careless. When you act deliberately, your intuitive response is blocked; and if your intuitive response is blocked, how can the mirror mind appear?11 When, without thinking and without acting deliberately, you manifest the Unborn, you won’t have any fixed form. When you are without fixed form, no opponent will exist for you in the whole land. Not holding on to anything, not relying onesidedly on anything, there is no “you” and no “enemy.” Whatever comes, you just respond, with no traces left behind.
Heaven and earth are vast, but outside mind there is nothing to seek. Become deluded, however, and instead this mind becomes your opponent. Apart from mind, there is no art of combat.
(Tomisusanshi, zenshū, p. 940.)
“WORDS AND DEEDS”
(Miscellaneous Materials)
Bankei’s childhood
From the time he started his schooling, the Master was occupied studying the Confucian classics at the Daigakuji.1 This was not to his liking, and he was always returning home early. His elder brother Tadayasu2 rebuked him for this time and again, but the Master would not listen. On his way home, he had to cross the Ibo River.3 Tadayasu commanded the ferryman: “If he comes back early, don’t take him across on any account!” One day, the Master was returning early, and the ferryman followed Tadayasu’s orders. The Master declared: “At the bottom of the river there must be solid ground!” He plunged right to the bottom, and, gasping for breath, managed to gain the opposite bank.
One day, he said to himself: “I have no wish to study the Confucian classics, and when I go back to the house my older brother will only scold me again. Better for me to die—why should I cling to life?” Thereupon, he swallowed some poison spiders which were known to be absolutely lethal to men, filling his mouth with them, and, secluding himself in a small stone shrine,4 quietly awaited death. However, his luck still had not run out, and when dawn arrived, he emerged again.
On the fifth day of the fifth month it was the time-honored custom for all the local boys to divide into teams that were spread out along the opposite banks of the river, letting fly a hail of pebbles to see which side would win. If the Master were on one side, his opponents on the opposite bank would scatter to escape his attack. He would never retreat until victory was his.
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 411.)
The priest’s Fudō
The Fudō Hall [of the Ryōmonji] is situated to the right of the temple gate. During the Kanei era,5 the abbot Jukin of the nearby Saihōji6 owned a small statue of Fudō that had been carved by Kūkai.7 Its length was scarcely four inches, and it was possessed of an exquisite spiritual presence. At this time, the Master was still very young. “How I wish I could have that!” he thought to himself. Jukin, however, prized the image highly and would not part with it.
One day, the Master reflected: “If I pray, surely it will come to me. If my prayers have no effect, then Buddhism isn’t worth believing in, and even if I realized [the Dharma], what use would it be?” So, setting aside a period of thirty days, he worshipped with great devotion, praying single-mindedly for divine assistance. But the twenty-ninth day arrived without any result. Evening came, and a friend happened by to visit. During the course of their conversation, the Master explained the reason for his activities, and told his friend straight out that he could not believe in Buddhism. He had scarcely finished speaking when suddenly Jukin came and knocked at the door. The Master was surprised to see him there and greeted him, saying: “Why have you troubled yourself to visit me at this late hour?” Jukin said: “I am going to entrust to you this precious image. I felt a strong urging in the depths of my heart, and so [decided to come] immediately without waiting till morning.” He then drew the statue from his robe and gave it to the Master. In the Master’s mind, there arose an extraordinary feeling of determination, and he finally resolved to become a monk.
(Ryōmonji shiryaku, zenshū, pp. 587–588.)
At the post station
During the Master’s angya,8 he passed through the post station at Seki9 in Mino. His feet exhausted, he hired a post horse to ride; but just then a valuable load of merchandise arrived, and the pack horse driver, seized with greed, pulled the Master rudely from the saddle and, setting the load of goods on top, went off. The Master sat down cross-legged beneath the eaves of the station, looking somewhat despondent. Attempting to console him, the dispatcher approached and said: “Monk, are you angry?”
The Master replied: “For the sake of the One Great Matter10 I went against my parents’ wishes, left my native place. And now I’ve got upset over one trifling thing! How I repent it!” He then rose and left.
“From that moment on,” the Master used to say, “I severed the roots of anger.”
Afterward, when the Master was teaching, whenever he passed through this post station all the local people would flock to pay him homage. At the station was a man named Seishitchi,11 who erected a hut for the Master and welcomed him there with offerings. Its traces remain to this day. . . .
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 419.)
Bankei faces death
When the Master was on angya, he boarded a ferry at the town of Yamada in Ōmi.12 No other passengers were aboard. The boatman steered the ferry to the riverbank, and began to load on stacks of firewood. His movements were furtive, like a thief’s. The Master said: “Did you pay for that?” The boatman muttered: “Monk!” “Are you stealing it?” the Master asked. “Shut up!” the boatman told him. The Master said: “If you’re going to steal it, then kill me and steal it, but I can’t allow you to be a thief.” And so saying, he stopped the boatman, prepared to die if necessary.
Ignorant though the fellow was, he yielded to reason, and, unable in the end to carry out his intention, pushed off the boat. . . .
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 417.)
Among the beggars
On his return from Kaga,13 the Master
passed through Edo. Stopping at the Komagata shrine,14 he mingled with the throngs of beggars, cultivating his mind and disciplining himself in religious practice as he nurtured his enlightenment. It happened at that time that the officer in charge of Lord Matsuura Shigenobu’s15 stables was leading a horse, when it broke away. The horse charged through the streets, and crowds of people scrambled to stop it, but without success. Seeing this, the Master remarked: “The reason that horse won’t be held is simply that the man and the horse are separate.”
On his return, the officer reported these words to Lord Matsuura, who said: “I hear that Yōtaku16 has come to these parts. Who else but he could have uttered these words!”
He promptly sent someone who knew the Master to investigate, and, just as he had expected, it was he. [Lord Matsuura] then invited the Master to his mansion, and, erecting the Kōtō-an,17 installed him there. . . .
(Itsujijō, zenshū, pp. 417–418.)
The missing coins
At one time, the Zen Master Bankei was living in cruelly straitened circumstances at Seki-no-yama, in Mino.18 The villagers thereabouts, moved by his destitute condition, came to his aid and found him lodgings. At that time, the village headman discovered he was missing some ten ryō19 from his money purse and immediately suspected Bankei of the theft. [Thereafter, assistance to Bankei] began to dwindle away.
Over a year passed, when, visiting the home of his son-in-law, the headman found that the missing money had been stolen in desperation by a woman. He then summoned Bankei and explained what had happened, expressing repentance and offering his apologies. Bankei calmly replied: “Very good, very good. However, this had nothing to do with me. Whether it was your suspecting me or my being under suspicion—right from the start, there was nothing to it. The whole thing just arose from notions.”
(Zoku kinsei sōgo, zenshū, p. 477.)
The Confucians
When the Master was visiting the Sanyūji in Bizen, all the local Confucians opposed Buddhism. They abominated the Master’s religious name and sought to humiliate him, coming to see the Master and debating with him for nearly three months.
At the conclusion of the debate their ringleader, a certain Nakagawa, ended by calling Śākyamuni a parasite on the world.
The Master asked: “How is it according to the Confucians?”
[Nakagawa] replied: “Order the kingdom and instruct the people.”
The Master said: “I have heard that he who would illuminate the Bright Virtue in the kingdom should first put his [own] household in order. He who would put his household in order should first cultivate himself. He who would cultivate himself, should first straighten his mind. He who would straighten his mind should first make his intention sincere.20 Now, in your case, what sort of intention is it you’re seeking to make sincere, and with what mind are you doing this?”
The fellow was dumbfounded. The Master laughed and said: “If you haven’t yet understood the writings of [the sage of] Ro21 in the east, how can you possibly grasp the meaning of [Bodhidharma’s] coming from the west?”22
[Nakagawa], totally flustered, withdrew.
Thereupon, each of the Confucians, bringing with him his disciples, came to study Buddhism with the Master, even attending the Master’s zazen practice.
One of them presented the Master with a poem:
“The kite soars through the sky
The fish sports in the sea—”
The Patriarchs’ Zen!23
The Master said: “How about your own Zen?”
The Confucian could not reply.
(Tomisusanshi, goroku, p. 139.)
The rich man’s wife
For certain reasons, the Master broke off relations with his elder brother Tadayasu. Tadayasu was on close terms with my great-grandfather Sukeyasu,24 and the two were just like relatives. Sukeyasu constructed a hermitage on the mountain above our family home, and, inviting the Master, had him settle there. Here, the Master had a place where he could carry on his meditation practice. The Master himself wrote out the name of the hermitage and placed it outside the entrance. Thus, he was a frequent visitor at our family home, which was just like his own house. After he became a priest, my family would often arrange vegetarian feasts and invite him.
The wife of a certain rich man from Ikaba in Shisō25—whose name cannot be revealed here—was possessed by vicious greed and would take any advantage of others in her craving for wealth. Her appearance was like that of a yaksha.26 Her family remonstrated with her over this, but failed to sway her. All of them urged her repeatedly to attend the Master’s sermons, and finally she gave in and set off for Aboshi.
That day the Master had accepted an invitation to a vegetarian feast at our family home, and when the feast had ended, he delivered a public sermon. This woman came and joined the meeting, listening reverently. The sermon had not yet finished when her expression grew soft and gentle, and it seemed as if she were a different person. Before the close of the sermon, she had transformed herself and become a buddha. She tearfully expressed her contrition, and the sins of her past melted away like frost and dew. She immediately had her name entered in the temple register, becoming a nun and living as one the rest of her days. In the devout remainder of her life, she has built herself a simple retreat, making offerings to the monks and nuns and remaining active to this day.
My grandparents, my nursemaid and others personally witnessed these things and never tired of repeating them to me. “The Master’s room was narrow,” they declared, “but it was no different from the [site of the] sermon at the Vulture Peak!”27
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 415.)
The wolf
Toward evening, the Master was returning to Aboshi from Shisō. A wolf stood in the roadway, and, spreading its jaws, confronted the Master. Looking into the wolf’s mouth, he saw that a large bone had become lodged in its throat, and, inserting his hand, removed it. Overjoyed, the wolf submissively drooped its ears, wagged its tail and scurried off. Thereafter, when the Master traveled on this road, the wolf would always come and escort him to wherever he was going. . . .
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 416.)
The steward’s invitation
When the Master was in Ōzu, he received an invitation from a certain Fujioka,28 a minor official in the Stores Department. The date had been set, but on the day in question, another invitation arrived, this time from the daimyo of the province. The Master excused himself on account of his previous engagement. People were afraid of the daimyo’s [reaction]. But the Master said: “How can I divide my mind between high and low? Isn’t this all the more so when a minor official has invited me? For days now he’s been anxiously concerning himself about this, personally seeing to the cooking and cleaning and other preparations. His intentions reveal a deep kindness. The daimyo can manage [such things] at a moment’s notice, so why does it have to be just today?”
When the daimyo learned of these words, he was greatly impressed. The words were the Master’s, the admiration, the daimyo’s. The daimyo was his Lordship Katō Yasuoki, a great man and a past master of the military arts, before whom even Yui Shōsetsu29 stood in awe.
(Itsujijō, zenshū, pp. 438–439.)
Heaven and hell
Once the Master was asked by a monk: “Your Reverence always teaches that the worlds of paradise, heaven and hell, hungry ghosts and fighting demons are all in the mind and don’t exist outside, etc. But in the Sutra, [the Buddha] says that if you travel westward across a billion buddha lands, there’s a region called Paradise, which is the manifestation of the Buddha Amida.30 Does that mean the Buddha is lying?”
The Master said: “Who decided on that direction?”
(Zeigo, zenshū, p. 298.)
From your own mouth
A certain fellow asked about the words of the old masters.
The Master said: “Understanding one phrase, puzzling over another, [and so on for] ten million words—there’s never an end to it. If you truly realize what I’m teaching, then
from your own mouth wonderful words and marvelous phrases will come forth. Otherwise, what use are such things in [studying] the Way?”
(Tomisusanshi, goroku, p. 138.)
Genshin’s thousand buddhas
The Master visited Katada31 and paid his respects at the “thousand buddha” altar.32 The buddhas were carved by the High Priest Genshin of the Eshinin.33 [The people of] this area gained their livelihood by fishing. Genshin began by erecting a hall and placing within it an image of Bud dha. He instructed the people, saying: “If all of you repeat [the name of] Amida34 with your mouths, then when you haul in the nets with your hands you’ll be sure to get plenty of fish.” Now, even after all this time, things have remained unchanged, and this has become a local custom. When the Master returned to Yamashina,35 he said: “Genshin had the tremendous compassion of an Icchantika bodhisattva.36 He is truly worthy of admiration.” Everyone exclaimed: “The Master is indeed a kindred spirit of Gen-shin born into another age!”