Bankei Zen

by Peter Haskel

  53. Tairyō Sokyō (1638–1688), reputed to have been Bankei’s foremost disciple.

  54. That is, at the moment it emerges from the undifferentiated absolute into the world of form. The language of the samurai’s question suggests the metaphysics of Neo-Confucianism, which was frequently taking the offensive against Buddhism, and particularly Zen, at this time.

  55. A quotation from the Analects. “Confucius said: ‘Yu, shall I teach you what knowledge is? To say that you know a thing when you do know it and say that you do not know a thing when you do not know it—this is knowledge.” Yu was Confucius’ pupil, also known as Tzu-lu (542–480 B.C.).

  56. Probably Jingen Jishō (d. 1689), sixth-generation abbot of the Kōdaiji, a Sōtō temple in Nagasaki.

  57. Ch’ang-ch’ing Hui-lung (J: Chōkei Eryō, 854–932). Becoming a monk at age thirteen, he studied under Ling-yun Hui-tsung (J: Reiun Eshū, n.d.) and subsequently visited the Zen Master Hsüeh-feng I-ts’un (J: Seppō Gison, 822–908) and Hsüeh-feng’s heir Hsüan-sha Shih-pei (Gensha Shibi, 835–908). Despite all his studies, however, he failed to resolve his questions about Zen. Even after many years of effort and wearing out seven meditation cushions, understanding still eluded him till, suddenly, raising a bamboo shade, he experienced enlightenment and succeeded to Hsüeh-feng’s teaching.

  58. Unidentified.

  59. Apparently referring to a passage in the Chao-chou lu, the record of the Tang dynasty Zen Master Chao-chou Ts’ung-shen, referred to previously. “Shu-yü remarked: ‘Getting older and older—why don’t you find a place to settle down?’ Chao-chou asked: ‘Where can I settle down?’ Shu-yü said: ‘Getting older and older and he doesn’t even know where to settle down!’”

  60. The monk is probably a follower of the Shingon school, which is especially associated with the Light Mantra. Practice of the mantra is said to endow one with a mystical radiance capable of dispelling all evils and obstructions.

  61. Bankei’s disciple Settei Kiryū (d. 1701).

  62. Tzu-kung (c. 520–450 B.C.) is said to have continually compared the relative merits of persons or of things.

  63. Rōzan Genni (d. 1740). He studied under Bankei and later became a Zen master in Bankei’s line.

  64. These expressions apparently express the dramatic character of the demands that the Zen teacher places on his students as he destroys the deluded self. The expression “burying alive” appears in the Lin-chi lu. “Everywhere else they use cremation,” exclaims Lin-chi, “but here I bury them alive all at once!” (Sasaki, op. cit., p. 29). In Japan, the Sōtō Master Tsūgen Jakuryō (1322–1391) is said to have had a pit dug at the entrance to the monks’ hall before which he would examine students seeking admission to the temple. Those unable to reply he would hurl into the pit, which became known as the “pit where men are buried alive.”

  65. Hsiao p’in (J: kōhin), “To imitate the knitting of the brows.” A Chinese expression referring to Hsi Shih, a famous beauty of the sixth century B.C. who, when ill, knit her brows, enhancing the charm of her face and inspiring the homely women of the village to imitate her in the false hope of making themselves beautiful as well.

  66. Referring to a story in the 24th chapter of the Chuang Tzu. Chuang Tzu tells of a certain plasterer who, finding a speck of plaster on the tip of his nose, would summon his friend, Carpenter Shih, and have him remove it with successive strokes of his adze, an operation which Shih performed without leaving so much as a scratch on the plasterer’s nose.

  67. A hermitage within the grounds of the Ryōmonji. Bankei took up quarters there during the original construction of the temple.

  68. Yawa. An evening lecture delivered by the teacher at a Zen temple.

  69. A now defunct temple founded by Bankei in what is presently the town of Mitsu in Hyōgo Prefecture.

  70. Referring to a passage in the Lin-chi lu. Seeing Lin-chi planting pine trees, his teacher Huang-po asked him: “Why plant all those pines deep in the mountains?” Lin-chi said: “First of all, to provide the temple with a nice setting; secondly, to provide a model for later generations.”

  71. Nothing is known of Hachiroemon.

  Translator’s Notes

  SERMONS

  Apart from occasional letters and a small number of poems, Bankei himself wrote almost nothing in the entire course of his career. The sermons provide virtually our only first-hand knowledge of Bankei’s Zen. The Master, however, reportedly forbade his disciples to record his teachings, and of the many sermons he delivered, only a small portion survive. These consist primarily of two sets of sermons from the year 1690: a series of talks delivered in early autumn at the Marugame Hōshinji, and portions of another series of lectures from the dai kessei, or Great Training Period, held that winter at the Ryōmonji in Bankei’s hometown of Aboshi. For the most part, then, what remains to us is one segment of the sermons Bankei delivered during one year toward the close of his life.

  Various transcripts of the sermons exist, but in general we know nothing of their authors’ identities or of the circumstances in which they were recorded. The sole exception is the so-called Miura MS, a transcript of the Hoshinji sermons by one Miura Tokuzaemon, an otherwise unknown samurai retainer of Bankei’s patron Kyōgoku Takatoyo, the lord of Marugame. According to the foreword to the manuscript, Miura attended Bankei’s sermons at the Hōshinji on behalf of his aged mother, who was bedridden with illness. Interrupting his regular duties at the castle, he beseeched the temple’s priests to allow him a place close to the Master and came faithfully each day to make a record of Bankei’s talks, which he then passed on to his mother. Overall, variations exist among the different manuscripts, but most, like the Miura text, appear to be genuine verbatim notes of Bankei’s sermons, supplemented at times by reconstructions of his talks and of his dialogues with individuals who approached him during the assemblies.

  The sermons have been grouped in two parts, following the Akao and Fujimoto editions, which form the basis for the present translation. Part I consists of two sections, the first recording sermons delivered at the Ryōmonji during the Great Training Period of 1690, the second, sermons delivered at Marugame in the same year. Part II contains materials derived from a manuscript in the possession of the Futetsu-an, a convent established near the Ryōmonji by Ryōun Jōkan (1633–1698), a former haiku poet who became Bankei’s leading female disciple. The sermons in Part II are often quite distinct from those in any of the other Bankei manuscripts, and it has been suggested that they were not delivered on the same occasions as the lecturers in Part I. It is possible, however, that they too belong to the talks delivered at the Ryōmonji in 1690. In her dairy, Jōkan notes that Bankei delivered some sixty sermons at the 1690 training period, and it seems natural to assume that different people recorded sermons delivered on different days, accounting for the variety of sermons in the collections.

  For convenience sake, selections follow the divisions of the texts given by Akao, but it should be borne in mind that such divisions are assigned by the various editors and are absent from the original manuscripts. Certain portions of the text stand out as discrete and coherent units, but at times it is unclear whether a particular passage represents a continuation of the material preceding it or is merely an isolated fragment, drawn from the same sermon or from some other sermon.

  Ellipses of three dots at the opening of selections indicate that foregoing material has been omitted; ellipses of four dots at the close of selections or paragraphs indicate that succeeding material has been omitted. Where entire sections from the Akao text have been removed, three asterisks appear at the close of selections. Although a complete translation of both the Sermons and the Hōgo had been prepared, considerations of space and cost prevented publication of the entire manuscript, and it was thought best to concentrate on particular selections. The captions supplied for these and other materials throughout the book are my own.

  In the Tokugawa period, only one collection of Bankei’s sermons was published, appearing in
1758. This text provided the basis for the version of the sermons edited by D. T. Suzuki in 1942 for the Iwanami bunkō series, but because it contained certain problems, the Iwanami text has since been superseded by two editions of the sermons based largely on manuscripts preserved in the temples founded by Bankei. These appear in the aforementioned Bankei zenji hōgoshū, edited by Fujimoto Tsuchishige, and the Bankei zenji zenshū, edited by Akao Ryūji. The Fujimoto and Akao texts are very similar, and the present translation makes use of both, as well as of the Genshiken ganmokukan, a separate sermon text included by Fujimoto. Page references to the texts used for each selection appear on page 193. In every case, the choice of text was determined by a judgment of which version seemed most natural and most in keeping with Bankei’s regular speaking style. However, as the Akao text contains frequent interpolations from a wide variety of Bankei manuscripts, as well as certain items not found in the Fujimoto work, I have generally followed the sequence of materials in the Bankei zenji zenshü.

  For the most part, I have included Akao’s interpolations from other manuscripts, apart from a few instances where they seemed repetitive, unrelated to or at variance with the text at hand. Although the original draft noted every major interpolation and every case in which the Fujimoto text was used in preference to the version in Akao, it was felt that such a format would be unnecessarily burdensome in a popular edition.

  A word about the language of the sermons: Bankei’s speaking style is simple and informal. He uses the everyday Japanese speech of his period, flavored at times with the dialect of his native province of Harima. Generally, he avoids technical Buddhist terms, except those readily familiar to his listeners, and his manner of expression tends to be relaxed and colloquial. It is important to remember that Bankei’s sermons were spontaneous talks. As such, they have a direct, living quality that lends them their peculiar vigor and charm, but they are not “literature” and were never intended to be read. In placing the sermons into English, I sought to reproduce Bankei’s distinctive tone and at the same time remain faithful to the original, aiming for a smooth translation of Bankei’s words, but not trying to make them sound “better” than they are.

  Ages are given as in the text. According to Japanese custom, one is considered a year old at birth, so that the age reckoned in Western terms is approximately one year less. Chinese names appear in their Japanese readings as Bankei would have pronounced them, as do all names from Indian sources. Only specialized Indian terms like “buddha” or “tathagata” are retained in the original.

  SERMONS: PAGE REFERENCES TO ORIGINAL TEXTS

  (Page references to the original texts employed in the translations follow each entry: BZZ Bankei zenji zenshū, BZK Bankei zenji hōgoshü.)

  Opening of the sermons

  (BZZ:3, BZH:3)

  Listen carefully

  (BZZ:3–6, BZH:4–5)

  Precepts

  (BZZ:6, BZH:205)

  The same old thing

  (BZZ:7, BZH:7)

  I don’t talk about Buddhism

  (BZZ:8)

  Meeting masters: Dōsha and Ingen

  (BZZ:11–12, BZH:172)

  I’m ready to be your witness!

  (BZZ:12–18, BZH12–18, 175–190)

  Growing up deluded

  (BZZ:21–22, BZH:200–202)

  Thirty days in the Unborn

  (BZZ:22–23, BZH:29)

  Ask me and I’ll tell you

  (BZZ:25)

  “The Kappa”

  (BZZ:28, BZH:36)

  Don’t beat sleeping monks

  (BZZ:30–31, BZH:23–24)

  Mind reading

  (BZH:37)

  Moving ahead/sliding back

  (BZZ:31, BZH:37)

  Old wastepaper

  (BZZ:32, BZH:38)

  Self-centeredness

  (BZZ:32–33, BZH:38)

  Bankei’s Kannon

  (BZZ:33)

  Getting sidetracked

  (BZZ:33–34, BZH:129–130)

  Self-power/other-power

  (BZZ:36)

  Dreams

  (BZZ:36)

  Everybody has the Buddha Mind

  (BZZ:37–42, BZH:47–56)

  Being living buddhas

  (BZZ:42–50, BZH:56–67)

  Servants, samurai, husbands and wives

  (BZZ:50–57, BZH:67–80)

  “Buddha” Magoemon

  (BZZ:61–62, BZH:81–83, 87)

  Like little children of three or four

  (BZZ:63–64, BZH:89–90)

  Getting angry

  (BZZ:64–65, BZH:90–92)

  Blindness and the Unborn

  (BZZ:65–66, BZH:92–93)

  Now I’m going to talk to the women

  (BZZ:70–71, BZH:102–105)

  The old nurse from Sanuki

  (BZZ:71–72)

  Nothing to do with rules

  (BZZ:34–35, BZH:106–107)

  Devices

  (BZZ:35, BZH:107)

  Plain speaking

  (BZZ:72–73, 28–29; BZH:107–109)

  Illness and the Buddha Mind

  (BZZ:73–74, BZH:109–111)

  Being free in birth and death

  (BZZ:74–75, BZH:111–112)

  The original face

  (BZZ:75–76)

  Entrances

  (BZZ:76)

  To practice is hard

  (BZZ:76–77)

  The crow and the cormorant

  (BZZ:77)

  Let it be

  (BZZ:77–78, BZH:116–117)

  The lawsuit

  (BZZ:78–81, BZH:117–122)

  Mu

  (BZZ:84–85)

  The crows go kaa-kaa

  (BZZ:85)

  Two-thirds is with the Unborn

  (BZZ:85–86, BZH:132)

  Looking for enlightenment

  (BZZ:86)

  No delusion, no enlightenment

  (BZZ:88, BZH:135)

  Water and ice

  (BZZ:88–89, BZH: 136–137)

  Stopping thoughts

  (BZZ:89)

  The mirror

  (BZZ:90, BZH:137–138)

  Fire is hot

  (BZZ:90–91, BZH:138–139)

  Be stupid!

  (BZZ:94–95)

  Smoking

  (BZZ:95–96, BZH:139–140)

  No such thing as enlightenment

  (BZZ:97–98, BZH:141–143)

  Abide in the Buddha Mind

  (BZZ:98–99, BZH:143–144)

  When thoughts arise

  (BZZ:99, BZH:144–145)

  Letting things take care of themselves

  (BZZ:100–101, BZH:147–148)

  HŌGO (Instruction)

  The Butchi Kōsai zenji hōgo (Dharma Instruction of the Zen Master Butchi Kōsai) is a work in Japanese compiled in 1730 by Itsuzan Sonin (or Sojin, 1655–1734), one of Bankei’s foremost disciples. Itsuzan became a monk at age ten, studying under a succession of Zen masters before coming to Bankei sometime around 1680. In 1683 he became Bankei’s disciple and experienced enlightenment under him the following year. From 1688 till Bankei’s death in 1693, Itsuzan was the closest of Bankei’s personal attendants and in 1697 was made the Dharma heir of Bankei’s successor Setsugai. In later life, he became abbot of the Nyohōji and served a term as abbot of the Myō shiuji, receiving the Imperial title of Shinshō Jōmyō Zenji (“Zen Master of True Nature Pure and Radiant”).

  Unlike the Sermons, the materials in the Hōgo are not verbatim records of Bankei’s teachings but Itsuzan’s recollections of various talks, dialogues and encounters, which he set down in old age as a kind of pious tribute to his late teacher. Because of Itsuzan’s close connection with Bankei, the Hōgo provides a valuable first-hand account of the Master’s teaching during the last decade or so of his career, and, though occasionally verging on hagiography, presents overall a lively and intimate picture of life in Bankei’s assembly. The materials from the Hōgo are accompanied by several selections fro
m the Kōsai zenji gyōgō ryakki (Brief Account of the Activities of the Zen Master Kōsai), a companion collection by Itsuzan.

  “WORDS AND DEEDS”

  During the eighteenth century, a number of accounts dealing with Bankei were compiled by priests in the teaching lines of the various temples he had founded. Ironically, despite Bankei’s insistence on the importance of simple, ordinary Japanese language, these collections were composed entirely in literary Chinese and contain many technical Buddhist and Zen expressions. Aside from their complexity of style, it is often impossible to determine the accuracy of the information provided in these works, and it may be safest to consider them part of the “legend” of Bankei, a reflection of the way in which the Master came to be viewed in the period following his death.

  The selections translated here are drawn primarily from two such collections: the Shōgen kokushi itsujijō (Record of Anecdotes Concerning the National Teacher Shōgen*) by Daitei Zenkei (d. 1788), a Zen Master in Bankei’s teaching line; and the Zeigo (“Redundant Words”) by Bankei’s Dharma heir Sandō Chijō (d. 1749). Although it is doubtful that he ever studied with Bankei, Daitei was a member of the Nakabori family of Shimomura, grandson of the same Sukeyasu Nakabori who had enabled Bankei’s father to establish himself in Hamada and had later assisted the young Bankei when his brother expelled him from the family home. As Daitei tells us, since childhood he had listened to stories about Bankei from his nursemaids and grandparents, and was thus in a unique position to preserve many of the homelier details of the Master’s character and career.

  Sandō Chijō was twenty-six at the time of Bankei’s death and eighty when he compiled the Zeigo in 1747. Sandō records certain interesting episodes not found elsewhere, but his account is marred by vituperative attacks on the other collections and what seems a dogmatic insistence on Bankei’s place in the Myōshinji line, rejecting his enlightenment under Dōsha and stressing his debt to Umpo.

  Other works represented in this section are the Tomi-susanshi, an extensive collection of materials relating to Bankei and the Nyohōji recorded by the temple’s abbot Gottan Sobi (n.d.) in 1798; and the Ryōmonji shiryaku, a history of the Ryōmonji compiled in 1700 by Bankei’s disciple Genmon Eigin (d. 1747), a nephew of Bankei’s friend and patron Sasaki Nobutsugu.