by Peter Haskel
As a rule, handkerchief paper that had been used once was not used over. [The Master] instructed that it should be disposed of. Even for toilet paper, new [paper] was always used. . . .
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 447.)
Bankets natural method
Over thirteen hundred people participated in the [Master’s] training periods, not including those monks and laymen from outside the temple who came daily to join the assembly. The participants divided themselves among the halls, where they practiced either zazen or chanting. Without setting up any rules, each person just naturally pursued his own activity, practicing diligently and quietly so that it seemed as if there were no one in the room.
These days, the Zen monasteries everywhere crowd together three or five hundred monks, regulating their schedule down to the minute, restricting their area of movement, virtually binding them hand and foot so that it’s just like going into a jail. If anyone commits even the slightest infraction, they beat him and throw him out, never showing the smallest forgiveness. Their prying and bullying are worse than a government official’s! The result is that, when the training periods finish, some people become ill, while others find themselves completely debilitated. Thus, the seedling is blasted before it can sprout, causing resentment among teachers and parents.
This, then, is the sort of activity carried out nowadays by those who style themselves experts in the teaching of Zen. Alas! Feckless monks, bending whichever way the winds of fashion blow, unable to rise above the common herd—how pitiful they are! The men of old set up the barrier of death, opened the pit where [students] are buried alive.64 All these things, without exception, were done with a particular purpose in mind, but now people imitate them blindly in the false hope of producing the same result.65 If a clumsy workman seizes the adze of the [man of] Ch’u, a lot of people are going to lose the tips of their noses!66
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 435.)
Bankei’s night sermon
When the Master was in his middle years and staying at the Chikurinken,67 he delivered a sermon one evening68 to two or three Zen monks. When his talk was finished, everything became quiet and still. Suddenly, with a shriek, a wild boar sprang from behind a mulberry tree. The Master laughed aloud. The monks were thoroughly startled.
(Zeigo, zenshū, p. 307.)
The old tree
The Master erected the Kaiganji69 on the site of an abandoned temple. While clearing the area, an old pine tree was found to be blocking construction. Everyone wanted to cut it down and remove it. The Master said: “The temple can be set up again [elsewhere, but] this old tree did not easily grow so tall and wide. Let it live and don’t cut it down!”
Alas! The true meaning of the Master’s love for what is old is not to be understood by clever monks. The worthies of long ago planted pine trees to beautify the temple grounds.70 As the saying goes: “The charming sights at a Zen temple: old monks and aged trees.”
Let descendants in later generations take a lesson from [the Master’s] deeds and seek to emulate them!
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 426.)
Bankei and the blind man
In Harima, in the town of Himeji, was a blind man who by hearing people’s voices could discern their innermost thoughts. . . . Once, hearing a man passing along a nearby street, singing as he walked, he remarked: “For someone without his head, he sings well.”
The man’s wife and servants all laughed. “The mouth is in the head,” they told him, “so that proves you’re wrong!”
“Just wait a while,” the blind man said.
Singing again, the man returned. Suddenly there was the sound of a head being cut off. The attacker declared: “I was going to cut him down before, but I saw he was on a mission for his lord, and so I waited.”
This blind man always said: “In people’s words of congratulations, there is invariably a trace of sadness. In their expressions of condolence, there is always a note of delight. It’s the same with everyone. Yet when I hear Master Bankei’s voice, its tone never changes: with gain or loss, blame or praise, high or low, young or old, it’s always the same, peaceful and calm. He has surely freed himself from ordinary vulgar mind!. . . .”
(Itsujijō, zenshū, p. 431.)
Hachiroemon
During the Master’s middle years, there lived in his native village, amid the dusts of the world, a farmer by the name of Hachiroemon.71 He was on close terms with the Master and was a regular visitor at the temple. Wildly eccentric in his behavior, he was looked down upon by the local people. Yet the outlandish way he conducted himself with the Master utterly amazed them all.
One day, the Master set out from town, and on his way, the two met. Hachiroemon said: “Your Reverence, where are you off to?” The Master replied: “I’m on my way to your village.” Hachiroemon asked: “Aren’t you taking medicine for stomach pains?” The Master said: “Yes, I am.” Hachiroemon stretched out his palm and said: “I beg you for money to buy medicine.” The Master spit into his hand, and they both laughed heartily and went off. Their usual exchanges were of this sort. People were unable to tell just how much Hachiroemon knew.
When the farmer was about to pass away, he pillowed his head in the Master’s lap. “I am dying on the battlefield of Dharma,” he said, “so I suppose you haven’t any sort of word for me.” The Master told him: “Just pull down the defender!” Hachiroemon asked: “Your Reverence, do you approve my attainment?” The Master replied: “I find nothing wrong.”
Weeping, his wife said: “My husband, you are a buddha! Won’t you hurry and redeem my own poor ignorance?”
The farmer told her: “Through all my activities I’ve manifested it fully, in speech and silence, movement and stillness—there’s nowhere I’ve failed to point out to you this essence of Mind. What can I do if you don’t understand?”
(Zeigo, zenshū, p. 293.)
NOTES
SERMONS
PART I
1. “Beneficent Enlightened Wisdom,” an honorary title bestowed on Bankei by the Imperial Court in 1690.
2. Bankei’s headquarters temple, located at his hometown of Aboshi, in present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. It was founded in 1661 by Bankei’s childhood friend Sasaki Nobutsugu and his brother Naomori (the reading of the names is uncertain), members of a wealthy merchant family of Aboshi and lifelong supporters of Bankei’s activities. Banshū is the on, or Chinese-derived reading for the old province of Harima, now included in Hyōgo Prefecture. Though the temple’s name is often read Ryūmonji, Ryōmonji is the pronunciation given by the nun Yōshō-in (see below, fn. 67) in a letter, and I have therefore adopted this as being closest to the original reading.
3. Zen temples regularly observe two ninety-day periods of intensive practice known as kessei or ango, the first in the spring and summer months, the second extending from fall to midwinter. Reference here is to the second of these, the winter retreat or tō-ango.
4. 1690 according to the Julian calendar.
5. The roster of monks participating in the training period.
6. The Sōtō and Rinzai schools, founded during the Kamakura period (1192–1333), are the two principal sects of Japanese Zen. Though a Zen master of the Rinzai school, Bankei numbered many Sōtō monks among his followers.
7. Japanese schools of Buddhism outside Zen: The Ritsu school, introduced during the Nara period (646–794), stressed observance of the Vinaya, or Buddhist precepts, the two hundred and fifty commandments obligatory for monks and nuns; the Shingon, or “mantra” school, was the school of Esoteric Buddhism founded by Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi, 774–835); the Tendai school, founded by Kūkai’s contemporary Saichō (767–822), advocated the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, but was also deeply influenced by Esoteric Buddhism. Both the Pure Land (Jōdō) school, founded by Hōnen (1133–1212), and the True Pure Land (Montō) school, founded by his disciple Shinran (1173–1262), are based on belief in the saving grace of the Buddha Amitābha (J: Amida), one of the “eternal” buddhas of the Mahayana pantheo
n. Because of Amitābha’s vow that he will aid all those who call his name to be reborn in the Pure Land, a kind of Buddhist paradise in the western heavens, both sects emphasize sincere repetition of the nembutsu, the invocation to Amitābha—Namu amida butsu! (“Praise to the Buddha Amitābha!”); the Nichiren school, like the Tendai, gives prime importance to the Lotus Sutra, but combines this with a militant belief in the messianic role of the school’s founder, Nichiren (1222–1282).
8. The hōza or lecture seat in a Zen temple, generally placed in the hōdō, or Dharma hall.
9. Teacher of Men and Devas is one of the ten epithets of the Buddha. Devas are divine beings, and the category includes, among others, virtuous men, sages and bodhisattvas (see below, fn. 51).
10. A title of the Buddha, tathagata signifies a fully awakened being.
11. Another name for the Zen school, implying that it transmits not scriptural teachings but the Buddha Mind itself.
12. That is, the idea of “buddha,” of an enlightened being, belongs to the relative world of concepts.
13. See below, fn. 14.
14. A common expression in Buddhism, describing the original, eternal, unalterable nature of ultimate reality, which is not born and does not perish, and which can neither be created nor destroyed.
15-16. According to certain Buddhist theories, the history of the Dharma, the Buddha’s teaching, is divided into three periods. In the first, the period of the true teaching following the Buddha’s death, the Dharma is perfectly upheld in all respects; in the second, the period of the approximate teaching, only the outward forms of the Dharma are maintained—men practice but no longer have the capacity to realize enlightenment; in the last, the degenerate period of the teaching, which includes the present age, neither practice nor enlightenment remain but only the teaching itself. There are different calculations for the length of each period. Generally, the first is said to last five hundred years, the second, five hundred to two thousand years, and the last, ten thousand years.
17. Another name for the Zen school. A “clear-eyed” man is one who has realized enlightenment.
18. That is, even during the degenerate age.
19. Hōjōjū, a synonym for perfect enlightenment.
20. The Ritsu school, mentioned above (see fn. 7).
21. Inspirational Buddhist tales, generally containing supernatural elements.
22. According to traditions probably evolved during the Tang dynasty (618–906), Zen (CH: Chan) is said to have had six Chinese patriarchs.
23. A corruption of the word jikitotsu, meaning a monk’s robe. The jittoku was a half-length robe originally popular in the Heian period (794–1191) among lay Buddhist practitioners and priests living in seclusion. In Bankei’s day, it was also adopted by artists, doctors, haiku poets and various other groups whose members shaved their heads without being priests.
24. Umpo Zenshō (1572–1653), Bankei’s original teacher. See Introduction, p. xxiv.
25. The Ming Zen Master Tao-che Ch’ao-yüan (J: Dosha Chōgen, d. 1662). See Introduction, p. xxi. Nan-yüan-shan (J: Naninsan) was the site of Tao-che’s original temple, located in present-day Fukien province.
26. For Yin-yüan (J: Ingen), see Introduction, p. xxi. Bankei is probably referring here to Yin-yüan’s disciple Mu-an Sheng-t’ao (J: Mokuan Shōtō, 1611–1684), rather than to Yin-yüan himself. Bankei’s biography shows he was in Mino at the time of Yin-yüan’s arrival in 1654 but had returned to Tao-che’s assembly when Mu-an landed at Nagasaki in the following year to join his teacher. Fujimoto suggests the mention of Yin-yüan may have been an error by the editor or copyist. While it is possible that Bankei met Yin-yüan on his second visit to Tao-che in 1655, no firm evidence for this exists, and Bankei may simply have confused the teacher and his disciple in recalling events that had occurred some thirty-five years before. See Fujimoto Tsuchishige, Bankei kokushi no kenkyü (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1971), p. 168.
27. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Nagasaki (capital of present-day Nagasaki Prefecture) was the only port of entry for foreigners—limited to Dutch and Chinese nationals—and the only city in which they were permitted to settle and establish businesses.
28. Actually, Sugawara, an adopted name Bankei’s father received when he moved to the town of Hamada in present-day Hyogo Prefecture.
29. A masterless samurai. Rōnin were a common phenomenon in this period due to the dislocations following the victory of the Tokugawas in 1600.
30. One of the five large islands that compose the Japanese archipelago. Bankei’s father and mother were both originally members of the Miyoshi clan of Awa, an old province included in present-day Tokushima Prefecture.
31. Bankei is speaking at the Ryōmonji in Aboshi. Hamada, where Bankei was born, presently constitutes a district within Aboshi, now a ward of the city of Himeji in Hyōgo Prefecture. In Bankei’s day, the three apparently comprised separate communities.
32. Originally a chapter of the Book of Rites (Li chi) the Great Learning became a cornerstone of the Chu Hsi brand of Sung Neo-Confucianism that constituted a kind of official orthodoxy in Tokugawa Japan. Because it was the shortest and among the easiest of the Confucian texts, students generally began their education with the Great Learning. The emphasis was on copying and recopying sections of the work, combined with what was known as sodoku, blind repetition and memorization of particular passages, reading off the characters without understanding the meaning of the text.
33. The opening lines of the Great Learning. The complete passage reads: “The Way of the Great Learning lies in illuminating the Bright Virtue, in loving the people and abiding in the highest good.”
34. That is, the Confucian Classics.
35. Literally, seated meditation. Zazen is practiced in most schools of Buddhism, but is a practice particularly identified with the Zen school.
36. See above, fn. 7. At times, the nembutsu has been used by Zen monks as a form of meditation practice.
37. A thin, soft paper produced in Bankei’s native province of Harima.
38. The spherical fruit of a large deciduous tree found throughout Japan.
39. By Western reckoning, Bankei was sixty-eight when this sermon was delivered, having experienced the realization he describes at age twenty-five.
40. Bankei’s mother, who became a nun with the religious name Myōsetsu, died in 1680 at the age of ninety-one.
41. Umpo. See above, fn. 24.
42. An old province now included in Gifu Prefecture.
43. Gudō Tōshoku (1579–1661), one of the leading Rinzai Zen masters of the early Tokugawa period. Gudō was a member of the same teaching line as Bankei’s teacher Umpo, a line that leads to the famous eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1769).
44. The old name for Tokyo, which replaced Kyoto as Japan’s capital during the Tokugawa period.
45. See above, fn. 2.
46. Kotsuzui. The pith or heart of the matter, the inner core of one’s being. Here, Bankei implies that the teachers won’t be able to judge the true depth of his enlightenment experience.
47. Bankei was in his late sixties when he delivered this sermon and was suffering, as he mentions here, from failing health, possibly a form of pulmonary tuberculosis.
48. This statement recalls a passage in the 14th chapter of the Chuang Tzu: “. . . Why all this huffing and puffing, as though you were carrying a big drum and searching for a lost child! The snow goose needs no daily bath to stay white; the crow needs no daily inking to stay black. . . .” (Translated by Burton Watson in The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 163.
49. Spanish and Portuguese missionaries had introduced Christianity to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century. After a brief period of success, however, the new religion aroused the suspicion of the government and was brutally suppressed. Many converts were killed, others apostatized or went into hiding. The Shogunate’s determined efforts to root out covert Christians continued throughout the Tokugawa pe
riod and assumed something of the character of a witch-hunt.
50. It is unclear precisely what Bankei means by this remark, as he was born in Hamada, the site of the Ryōmonji, where this sermon is being delivered. Forty years previously, in 1650, Bankei had returned to the area after his unsuccessful trip to Mino to consult Gudō Tōshoku. At this time, he restored the hermitage at Nonaka, where he had experienced enlightenment, and “forty years” possibly refers to Bankei’s first teaching efforts in his native district, leading to the founding of the Ryōmonji in 1661.
51. Buddhism frequently distinguishes ten different realms of existence. These are (in descending order) the realms of: buddhas—“enlightened ones”; bodhisattvas—potential buddhas, those who aspire to enlightenment, not for their own sake, but so that they may enlighten others; pratyeka buddhas and śrāvakas—classes of practitioners for whom enlightenment is realized primarily for oneself and not communicated to others; devas (see above, fn. 9); men—sentient beings whose acts can determine their entry into any of the other realms; asuras—fighting spirits, demonic beings drawn from Hindu mythology; beasts—a joyless state of existence characterized by blind stupidity, a world ruled entirely by desire and lust where even parents and children will inflict harm on one another; hungry ghosts—beings condemned by their evil deeds to suffer constant hunger and thirst; and hell dwellers—the worst offenders, those whose evil deeds condemn them to lasting torment in any of a series of grotesque hells said to lie beneath the earth. The first four constitute the world of enlightenment, transcending the round of death and rebirth; the remaining six constitute the world of illusion through which the ignorant are condemned to transmigrate according to their good or evil karma—the accumulated fruits of their activities in this and previous lives. The last three, considered particularly odious, are known collectively as the Three Evil Paths, and are often combined with the asuras realm as the Four Evil Paths. While Bankei’s interpretation of the evil realms is often literal, he frequently treats them as psychological states as much as objective realities.