Tao Te Ching
Bankei Yōtaku 盤珪永琢
1622 – 1693 CE
Zen Master of the unborn
Along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the most influential Zen masters, Bankei developed a description of realization he called "Unborn Zen." D. T. Suzuki thought this one one of the most important and original descriptions in all the history of Zen. A rebellious child always getting into trouble, his early studies with Confucian and Buddhist scholars led to frustration for both Bankei and his teachers, to him getting expelled from his family home and having to live in a neighbor's tiny hut. He practiced so long and so hard that his health deteriorated to an extent causing his doctor to predict an imminent death. Healed by his realization however, he lived another 48 years. Refusing a high status position in his monastery, he worked in the kitchen and later lived alone in the mountains.
Eras
Unlisted Sources
Song of Original Mind
Quotes by Bankei Yōtaku (8 quotes)
“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”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“Keep your mind as it was when you came into the world”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“Since, after all this floating world is unreal, instead of holding onto things in your mind, go and sing!"”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“Only original mind exists... Instead of holding onto things in your mind, let them go!”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“You think that good means hating what is bad. What's bad is the hating mind itself”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“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 [actually] get involved with thoughts.”
Comments: Click to comment
“To exert yourselves in religious practice, trying to produce enlightenment by doing religious practices and zazen, is all wrong too... by wanting to realize enlightenment, you create a duality between the one who realizes enlightenment and what it is that's being realized... When you cherish even the smallest desire to realize enlightenment, right away you leave behind the realm of the Unborn and go against the Buddha Mind.”
Comments: Click to comment
“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'”
from Song of Original Mind
Comments: Click to comment
Comments (0)