Below is Bankei's autobiography.
Bankei is an interesting character. He's pretty much the only Japanese teacher who gets any play on r/zen and every now and then he comes up for discussion, especially as to "Why Bankei but not Dogen?"
I don't really have a good objective answer (besides Dogen's glaring disqualifications, that is), though I think the most obvious approach is to compare what Bankei said to what the original Zen Masters said, and that will yield an answer. Acknowledging that however, my personal opinion is that Bankei "got the message" so I'm just rolling with that for the rest of this OP.
When I first got into Zen, I really enjoyed Bankei for the simplicity of his presentation of "the Unborn". Now that I've studied the Chinese Masters more thoroughly though, I can definitely see the difference; where Bankei falls short in some ways.
That said, the thing that still strikes me--and the main impetus for making this OP--is how much Bankei's story is similar to our story, here in the 21st century, and even on r/zen more specifically. (Not to mention that "the Unborn", the core of Bankei's teaching, is a good arrow on the mark).
Bankei had a thousand pieces of misinformation and false teachings confusing his mind ... and no one who had seen all the way through to guide him. But Bankei was a sincere seeker and he pushed himself and pushed himself until something clicked.
And based on the way he describes that "breakthrough", it seems to me that he must have had access to the sayings of the Chinese Masters but could never find a teacher who thoroughly saw through, so he had to search and search until his bucket dropped out and then still confirm that this was "it".
It's no easy task!
And it's basically the situation we face today.
You can study and study but at some point you have to decide if you've gotten the message or if you still need to keep trying. And if you decide that you've gotten it, there is no one in the whole universe who can literally "confirm" it for you ... when Masters talk about "confirmation" ... they mean someone that you think "gets it" for you to compare yourself to ... but in the end, it's you deciding what "getting it means."
And if you have such an exemplar, you can test your understanding by trying it out on them.
Without such a person though, the leap of faith is much larger; the doubt that one is mistaken is deeper and darker.
I've seen some people say that they think Bankei is arrogant for the way he speaks (e.g. "You people are lucky to have me here!") but I think he's just being "real" ... he's talking from his own experience, and he means it: meeting a person who sees clearly and can continue to point for you is an immense gift; a crucial advantage.
Besides one rather (in)famous monk in particular, I think r/zen in general represents such a guiding teacher. Regardless of any individuals here with "clear eyes", collectively, the combination of modern scholarship and digital resources means the jungle has been mapped out; some of the trails already blazed; there are enough resources to "plug the holes" such that, even without a singular person to guide you, collectively, the community and the availability of texts are enough (IMO) to give you the exemplar necessary for personal confirmation.
Like what Bankei was saying: if you know the struggle of having no guidance, you also understand the preciousness and value of such guidance for those coming after you, if it happens to be available, that is.
Bankei had enough access to something that left him unconvinced of the inadequate teachers around him. He had a nagging doubt that he was not being told the real message.
So he pushed himself to the brink until he found it, and even then, he did not rest until he had confirmed it for himself.
That's the sort of example I wanted to discuss and share in this OP.
I think Bankei doesn't compare well to the Masters in that he is explicit; he literally "teaches". In essence, there is something Bankei is missing ... or at least, seems to be missing. Actually, in terms of what the Zen Masters talked about, Bankei seems to have mastered the "function" but not the "essence." (Though, maybe you could say it's the other way around). Which is to say, he got the "gist" extremely well, but he lacked the subtle art of blending in with the currents and waves; "essentially", the art of talking about the Dharma without talking the Dharma.
Bankei's "fault" is similar to the fault of many on r/zen, including mine, which is talking about Zen directly. The true "mastery" of the Zen Masters was their ability to talk about it directly while still not talking about it explicitly.
And it's possible that Bankei did comprehend that as well and just chose to "lecture" simply because that's what he needed to do at that point in time. Personally I think it was a blend which is, unfortunately, to say that Bankei's understanding as incomplete. Still, IMO, Bankei got it where "it counts" and his lectures are very helpful for Zen students.
In addition, his thorough-going dedication to his quest and his general narrative arc reminds of the words of FoYan:
Those who claim to be Zennists must trust in what people who know say before they will attain it.
If you do not believe, you make all talk useless. If you just listen without believing to the talks of people who know, how can you be called Zennists?
Real Zennists understand it all when the grass bends in the breeze, when dust rises in the wind; they discern immediately before any signals have occurred, before falling into trains of thought, before anything stirs. Only then can one be called a Zennist.
Why?
This thing is used against birth and death, so you have to be someone who’s not far off in order to get it.
Haven’t you read how Yunyan studied with Baizhang for twenty years without clarifying this matter? His elder brother Daowu bit his finger to the quick out of concern for him. See how that man of old still did not worry even though he hadn’t clarified this matter, saying he did not understand. His will never gave out, and he didn’t go chasing after verbal expressions either.
And how about master Xuefeng, who went to Touzi three times and Dongshan nine times!
When he was at Touzi’s school, one day he rolled up the screen and entered the hermitage. When Touzi saw -him coming, he got off his bench and stood. Xuefeng hesitated, searching for something to say; Touzi pushed him out. Xuefeng could only cry.
Later, when he went to Dongshan, he was still unable to understand. Then, when he went to Deshan, he asked, “Has the student a part in the enlightenment of the sages of time immemorial?”
Deshan hit him and exclaimed, “What are you saying!”
At that, Xuefeng’s mind opened up, like a bucket with the bottom fallen out.
When he got to Tortoise Mountain, however, he said he still had some doubt.
See how that man of old would not rest until his mass of doubt had been broken up?
So it is said, “The task done, the mind rests; this actuality, after all, is everywhere you find it.”
Nowadays most Zen students create interpretations based on words, arbitrarily assuming mastery, or else they take stories of the ancients’ awakenings and look at them, calling this “gazing at sayings.”
What relevance is there?
When Xuefeng went to Touzi three times and Dongshan nine times, do you suppose he did it for the sake of words?
You should simply step back and study through total experience.
How do you step back?
I am not telling you to sit on a bench with your eyes closed, rigidly suppressing body and mind, like earth or wood.
That will never have any usefulness, even in a million years.
When you want to step back, if there are any sayings or stories you don’t understand, place them in front of you, step back and see for yourself why you don’t understand.
And now, without further ado, the story of Bankei, in his own words:
(Bankei Zen: Translations from the Record of Bankei, P. Haskel)
All of you right now are extremely fortunate.
When I was young, either there were no enlightened teachers about, or else, if there were, I just wasn't lucky enough to meet them, and being from youth exceedingly thickheaded, I suffered unimaginable hardships.
How uselessly I struggled!
I can't forget those wasted efforts, which have left a deep impression on me. I had to learn the hard way, from experience. That's why, in my desire to have all of you attain complete realization of the Dharma in perfect comfort, at your ease, and without any useless struggle, I do my best to come out like this every day and urge you on.
All of you should consider yourselves fortunate! Where could you ever find this sort of opportunity?
Although I didn't intend to tell you about this — how when I was young I struggled uselessly thanks to my own thickheadedness — if among the young people here there's anyone who struggles as I did, thinking it's impossible to attain complete realization of the Dharma without doing so, why then I'll be to blame.
So, although I didn't intend to tell you, you young people listen carefully!
Since, without struggling as I did, you can attain complete realization of the Dharma, first of all let me tell you about my own struggles, and that way you'll realize that you can attain complete realization without going and doing as Bankei did.
While you listen, I want you to keep this in mind.
Well, then, I'll begin, so pay close attention!
My father, whose original family name was Suga, was a ronin from Shikoku and a Confucian. He came and settled in this area, where I was born, but died while I was still a small child, leaving my mother to raise me.
I was, according to her story, a naughty boy, and as leader of all the children in the neighborhood would get into mischief. However, my mother told me that from the time I was two or three I'd already developed a horror of death: when I cried, if someone made believe he were dying, or if I was told about someone's having died, I'd instantly dry my tears and even give up any mischief I happened to be engaged in.
Gradually I grew up. At the time I was young, Confucianism was very popular hereabouts, and my mother sent me to a teacher to learn to read the Great Learning aloud by rote. But when I came to the passage that states, “The Way of the Great Learning lies in illuminating the Bright Virtue,” I couldn't make out what this Bright Virtue was, and, beset by doubt, puzzled over it for some time. At one point, I went and questioned some Confucian scholars, “What sort of thing is this Bright Virtue?” I asked, “Just what is the Bright Virtue, anyway?” But there wasn't one of them who knew.
However, one of the Confucian scholars told me: “Difficult matters like this are the kind of things Zen monks understand, so go and ask a Zen monk. Even though with our mouths we can talk endlessly about the meaning of the words and letters in the Classics, when it comes to just what sort of thing the Bright Virtue is, we really have no idea.”
“Well,” I thought, finding myself still in the dark, “so that's how things are!”
But since there were no Zen monks hereabouts then, I had no chance to ask anyone.
Nevertheless, then and there I resolved that somehow I'd realize the meaning of this Bright Virtue and tell my aged mother about it before she died. Even before realizing it myself, I wanted above all to communicate it to my mother who, being old, might die at any time.
Hoping to resolve this matter of the Bright Virtue, I floundered about desperately, scurrying all over. A talk here, a lecture there—whenever I learned there was a sermon, no matter where it was, I hurried right off to hear it. Returning home, I reported to my mother anything significant I might have heard, but my question about the Bright Virtue was still unresolved.
Next, I made up my mind to visit a master of this Zen school. When I asked him about the Bright Virtue, he told me: “If you want to understand the Bright Virtue, do zazen and the Bright Virtue will be understood.”
As a result, after this I immediately took up the practice of zazen.
Here, I'd go into the mountains, eating nothing for seven or even ten whole days; there, I'd find some cliffs, and, seated on a pointed rock, pull up my robes, with my bare backside right against the stone, determined to meditate to the very end, even if it killed me, and refusing to leave my seat until I simply tumbled down.
Since there was no way I could even ask anyone to bring me food, I often didn't eat for days. But all I cared about was resolving the Bright Virtue, so I didn't mind that I was faint from hunger, and refused to let it bother me.
Despite it all, though, I still couldn't settle my question about the Bright Virtue.
After this, I returned to my native area, built a small hut for myself and went into retreat. At times, totally absorbed in practicing the nembutsu, I wouldn't lie down, night or day. So I floundered about desperately, trying in every way, but my question about the Bright Virtue was still unresolved.
Without much care for my life, I'd driven my whole body so mercilessly that the skin on my backside had become torn, with the result that I could only sit with the most painful difficulty.
However, as I look back on it now, in those years I was still in fine fettle, and, in spite of everything, wouldn't lie down to rest for even a day. All the same, since I was suffering from the torn flesh on my backside, I had to sit on bundles of Sugihara paper that I'd spread under me and replace one after another.
Despite this precaution, blood issued constantly from my backside, and with the pain, it became difficult to sit, so that I sometimes had to spread wads of cotton and whatnot underneath me. Even with all that, I could pass an entire day and night without ever lying down.
The strain of those years finally caught up with me, and I became gravely ill. Without having settled my question about the Bright Virtue, I'd struggled with it tirelessly for a long time, enduring bitter hardship. My illness gradually worsened now, my body grew weak, and when I'd bring up phlegm, there'd emerge thumb-size gobs of bloody sputum that rolled along congealing into balls.
Sometimes when I'd spit against the wall, the sputum was so heavy it rolled right down.
At this time, everyone concerned about me said: “This simply won't do! You've got to rest and nurse yourself back to health.” So, following their advice, I retired to my hut, taking on a manservant. But gradually my illness reached a critical point, and for a full seven days I was unable to swallow any food and could get nothing down apart from some thin rice gruel.
Because of this, I realized I was on the verge of death. “Ah, well,” I said to myself, “there's nothing to be done.” But really I had no particular regret other than the thought that I was going to die without realizing my long-cherished desire.
Just then, I had a strange sensation in my throat, and when I spit against the wall, I noticed the sputum had congealed into a jet-black lump like a soapberry, rolling down the surface.
After that, the inside of my chest felt curiously refreshed, and that's when it suddenly struck me: “Everything is perfectly managed with the Unborn, and because up till today I couldn't see this, I've just been uselessly knocking myself out!”
Finally I saw the mistake I'd been making!
My spirit now felt clear and buoyant, my appetite returned, and I called to my servant: “I want to eat some rice gruel. Go and prepare it!'
My servant, meanwhile, thought this a strange request indeed for a man who until then had been on the very brink of death. “Thank heavens!” he exclaimed, delighted, and hurried right off in confusion to prepare the gruel.
In his hurry to feed me something, he promptly served the rice gruel, but what he fed me hadn't all been fully cooked. I didn't even care, and went right ahead and devoured two or three bowlsful without any ill effects.
After that, I gradually got well again and have lived to this day.
So I realized my cherished desire after all, and explained things to my mother too before she passed away.
Ever since I realized that everything is perfectly managed with the Unborn, there hasn't been a person in the land who could refute me. If only, when I was desperately floundering, there had been some man of realization who could have just told me right at the start, the way I'm doing now for you, I might have been spared my useless struggles; but there wasn't any such person to be found, and with no one to tell me, I struggled long and hard, driving myself beyond all endurance.
That's why, even today, I'm still a sick man and can't come out to meet with you as much as I would like.
At all events, once I realized the fact that everything is perfectly managed with the Unborn, I wanted to try to talk this over with someone. And while I was wondering whom to meet and discuss this with, my teacher told me: “In Mino, there's a teacher named Gudo, who's said to be a good man. He may be able to confirm your experience, so you'd better go try to speak with him.”
Hoping to meet Gudo and speak with him, I followed my teacher's instructions and set out to visit him in Mino, only to find that he wasn't at home, being just then in Edo. So, as it turned out, we never met, and I hadn't any chance to talk with him.
Having come all this way and not spoken to anyone, I decided that, rather than just going back with nothing accomplished, I'd visit the Zen teachers in the area.
"I'm a Zen monk from Banshu,” I said when I met them, “snd I've come here solely in hope of meeting you and receiving your teaching.”
When the teachers had presented their instruction, I took the liberty of putting in a word myself. “I realize it's impertinent of me,” I told them, “but please excuse me when I say that, while I'm not ungrateful for the instruction you've given, I get a feeling as if someone were trying to scratch an itchy spot through my shoe. Unless you reach right in and scratch, you won't get to my real bones and marrow, and things won't be settled through and through.”
Like the honest teachers they were, they told me: “Yes, it's just as you say. Even though we're teaching others, all we do is memorize the words in the sutras and records and teach people what the old masters said. But, shameful though it is, we haven't actually realized enlightenment ourselves, so when we speak, our teaching is indeed like trying to scratch an itchy spot through your shoe—naturally, it's never satisfying. You understand us well,” they said, “you can't be just an ordinary man!”
So, without having managed to get anyone to confirm my experience for me, I returned home and went into retreat, shutting my door to the world.
As I was observing the needs of the people then, considering the means to present my teaching and help to save them, I learned that [the Zen priest] Dosha had come from China, having arrived at Nagasaki, where he was staying. On my teacher's instructions, I went to see Dosha, and when I told him what I'd realized, he declared: “You are a man who has transcended birth and death!”
So, only at Dosha's did I finally receive some small confirmation of my enlightenment.
At that time, it was hard to find anyone who could testify with certainty to my experience, and I had quite a lot of trouble. That's why, thinking back now over what it was like for me, I come out like this every day to meet with all of you, ailing though I am.
If there's anyone here now who's experienced enlightenment—whoever he is—the only reason I've come out like this is so that I can be your witness. You people certainly are lucky!
Since you have someone who can testify to your experience through and through, if there's anyone here who's been enlightened or who thinks he's understood this matter, step forward and let's hear from you. I'm ready to be your witness! However, if there's no one who's understood yet, listen to what I have to say, and realize conclusively.
Now, about what it means to realize conclusively that what is unborn and marvelously illuminating is truly the Buddha Mind: Suppose ten million people got together and unanimously declared that a crow was a heron. A crow is black, without having to be dyed that way, just as a heron is white—that's something we always see for ourselves and know for a fact.
So even if, not only ten million people, but everyone in the land were to get together and tell you a crow was a heron, you still wouldn't be fooled, but remain absolutely sure of yourself.
That's what it means to have a conclusive realization.
Conclusively realize that what is unborn is the Buddha Mind and that the Buddha Mind is truly unborn and marvelously illuminating, and everything will be perfectly managed with the Unborn, so that, whatever people try to tell you, you won't let yourself be fooled by them. You won't accept other people's delusions.
At the time I was young and first began to teach this true teaching of the Unborn, no one was able to understand. When they heard me, people seemed to think I was some sort of heretic or Christian, so they were frightened off, and no one would go near me. But in time they realized they were wrong and saw that what I was teaching was the true Dharma itself.
Now, instead of my original situation where no one would even go near me, I'm swamped with people coming to see me, anxious to meet me and listen to my teaching, after me continually, so that they don't leave me in peace even a single day!
Things come in their own due time. From time to time in the forty years I've been here, I've taught others this true teaching of the Unborn, and as a result this area has produced lots of people who are superior to teachers of Buddhism. So, for you people too, let the reward for your trouble in coming here all this way now be that you'll return home having experienced complete realization of the Dharma, thoroughly and conclusively realizing the principle of the Unborn without switching it for thoughts.
Submitted May 09, 2020 at 08:52PM by xXx_GreenSage_xXx https://ift.tt/35JIjME
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