Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei #6
12:32AM Jun 23, 2023
Speakers:
Dhara Kowal
Keywords:
practice
mind
monk
thoughts
layman
ganesha
unborn
buddha
dialogues
teachings
person
life
called
zen
matter
question
ride
mute
unenlightened
experience
This is day six of this seven day, June 2023 sesshin. And we're going to continue with a sampling of dialogues between Bankei, the renowned 17th century, Zen master and various monastics and lay people who attended training, training periods that he conducted at different temples in Japan.
These dialogues appear in the book the unborn, the life and teachings of Zen master Bankei and taken together the material in this book, including his talks and the dialogues represent what what little has been preserved of bunkies teachings. The books editor, Norman Waddell mentions in the introduction, that Bombay didn't even want his teachings to be set to words, words on a page. But his students kept a record anyway. So some of his teachings were preserved. And we'll start with a question from a layman who's caught up in thoughts about progress, which many of us can relate to? The layman says I've practiced diligently for a long time. But even when I think I've advanced to where I won't backslide anymore, there's still a strong tendency to do so. And I sometimes slip back how can I become so that I won't backslide. And bunkie replies, live in the unborn buddha mind, then there's no regression. No need for advancement. Any idea of wanting to make progress is already a regression from the place of the unborn. A person of the unborn has nothing to do with either advancing or backsliding. One is always beyond them both.
The whole notion of backsliding. It's just a thought. We can't backslide any more than we can advance. As long as we're staying on the path, doing the practice diligently. That's all that matters. One moment at a time
let's say you were setting out for a hike up a mountain. You you study the trail map, you know the elevation of the peak. But if you've ever hiked up a mountain before, you know that the trail is not likely to be a straight path. There are twists and turns, switchbacks. And sometimes, sometimes the trail goes down for quite a quite a stretch before it shifts back up again. But if we don't continue to follow the path, as frustrating as it gets at times, we're probably going to get lost. And we won't see the view from the summit. So even though practice is irregular and twisty A tourney. We need to trust it, trust that it will lead us where we need to go
next is a question from a monk. The monk asks, I don't know why it is, but my mind often seems to be somewhere else. Could you help me to keep my mind from playing truant like that? Another question we can all relate to. And bunk a response. The unborn mind of the Buddhas is wonderfully bright and illuminating. No one. And that includes all of you. No one is ever separated from it. This absent mindedness of yours is the same, your minds not really somewhere else, you're not absent minded. What you're doing is making the buddha mind into these other things. Making it into a thought, an object outside of ourselves. And then Bankei says, with someone whose mind is really somewhere else, be inquiring whether it was or not. If your mind were somewhere else, you would hardly be aware of it. You wouldn't be asking questions about it. You You're not even away from it when you sleep. Because if someone calls to you, and tells you to wake up, you will respond and wake right up. You've never been apart from your mind in the past. You won't be apart from it in the future. And you're not apart from it right now. None of you here has ever been separated from your mind. Just as none of you is an unenlightened person. You've each been born with the buddha mind. It's your birthright.
From the very beginning.
As part of his reply to the monk bank, He then tells a story about a thief. And as a teacher, he was known for turning no one down. It didn't matter if you were a thief, a gambler, a bandit or some other kind of so called low life.
Nothing and no one outside of our true nature.
So Bungay gets into the story. He says, When I was a youth, we had a rascal in this neighborhood called the Kappa. He was a notorious robber in the mold of criminals. Kuma Sokka show Han. But in the footnote says that Kuma Sacco was the leader of a large and famous group of bandits. The kappa plied his trade on the highways. He had acquired an uncanny knack of being able to tell at a glance, just how much money a person had with him. He was always right. It was amazing. Anyway, he he was eventually caught and thrown into prison after a long period being locked up in the cell, because he was such a master thief. His death sentence was finally lifted and he was released on the condition that he worked at As an agent for the Constabulary.
He later became
a sculptor of Buddhist images and made a name for himself as a master sculptor. He ended his days as a protection as a practitioner of the Pure Land faith, and passed away peacefully in a nembutsu Samadhi. nembutsu Samadhi is a pure land practice of reciting a verse over and over. And then he goes on by mending his ways, even a notorious thief, like the Kappa, died with a deep aspiration. So what does that mean for the person who steals because of the depth of their karma, or sins? Robbery is the bad karma. Robbery is the sin. If you don't steal, you don't have the karma or the sin. Whether you steal or not, is determined by you, yourself, not any karma. You don't think that what I've been saying applies only to stealing. or, excuse me, and don't think that what I've been saying applies only to stealing. It's just as true of any human illusion. They're all the same. Having illusions or not having them depends upon your own mind and nothing else. If you have illusions, you're an unenlightened person. If you don't, you're a Buddha. Outside of this, there is no shortcut to being a Buddha. Each one of you should fix this unshakably in your mind
I'm reminded of that, that wonderful quote, by Jose Ortega, E. Gossett, which Roshi often uses tell me to what you pay attention. And I'll tell you who you are comes down to attention no matter our life history, no matter our past deeds or misdeeds, no matter what happened yesterday or five minutes ago, a second ago. What matters is what we do with our mind right now.
And now
in this
moment, where is your mind?
The next question is from a priest
the priest asks, suppose right now that a man at once blind, deaf and mute appeared before you? How would you deal with him?
So is this priest referring to someone who all at once in a flash literally lost their sense of seeing, hearing and speaking?
This requires some decoding because in in Zen koans having this so called triple disability is a metaphor that can have different meanings, depending on the context. And in this exchange, it's it's referring to someone who is enlightened, who's gone beyond the duality self and other and that becomes clear and what Bankai says next He says, of these people with triple disability, you must think very highly of these people, the way you spend so much time studying about them trying eagerly to join their ranks. But right at this moment, you are not blind, deaf and mute instead of trying to become one which would be very difficult anyhow. Difficult only because this priest is caught up in thoughts about enlightened versus unenlightened. Instead of trying to become one, which will be very difficult anyhow, you should get to the bottom of your own self. That's the first order of business for you. Since you don't have any of those disabilities yourself going around talking about all these other things will get you nowhere. Pay attention now to what I'm going to tell you. Pay attention now.
You there's a koan in the Blue Cliff Record the Hekiganroku That's called Ganchos man have three disabilities.
So it connects with this exchange with Bonnke. Ganchos name in Chinese is tshwane SHA she Bay and he lived in the years 835 to 908. And Andy Ferguson, Andy Ferguson, in Zen's Chinese heritage, give some brief background information on him. He says that as a young man, Ganesha lived as a fisherman on the Nantai River, and at the age of 30, he left lay life to enter a temple on Lotus mountain. And Ganesha carried on an ascetic practice wearing only a patched robe and straw sandals. He often fasted instead of taking the evening meals, he is said to have awakened one day upon reading the words of the surangama Sutra. So that's a little brief backstory. And now, here's the case, it's number 88.
Ganesha said to the assembly. The Masters are always talking about the necessity of delivering people and benefiting sentient beings. Supposing you met up with someone who is deaf, mute and blind, how would you guide him? Being blind, he couldn't see your gestures, being deaf, he couldn't hear your words and being mute. He couldn't speak, even if you wanted him to. How would you guide him? If you couldn't guide him? The Buddha Dharma could not benefit him.
So in referring to someone who cannot see hear or speak in the context of Is koan. is Ganesha, referring to an enlightened person or someone else. And that's one of the things a student working on this koan has to look into.
But for the time being, let's just take it literally, if such an individual could not receive the teaching, that is literally could not hear, see, or converse about the teaching. What about them? Is there any potential for their life to be enriched by practice? Could such a person wake up to their true nature, having not received the teaching, having not read about it, having not listened to any talks, ignoring gauged in any dialogue about it? What about them?
There was a monk in the assembly, who must have been very befuddled by Ganchos statement doesn't everyone have Buddha nature? Anyway, this monk then goes to my mom to get his instruction about it. woman said, make your boughs and the monk did so. Woman then poked at him with his staff. The monk true back you are not blind said oh Mon. Then Oman said Come closer. The monk then approached AMone who said you're not deaf? Do you understand? AST or Mon? And the monk said no, no, I don't understand. Well, mon said you're not mute. And that this the monk had an insight
so this monk had been stumped by the logic or illogic of Ganchos statement. Enough to seek out Ramones help in understanding it. Again, aren't all beings Buddha? How could How could someone who's blind, deaf and mute know that they're a Buddha? Though, if they can't receive instruction? How could they understand how to even take up practice? How would they know who they are from the very beginning? And Oman's line of questioning prodding him cause the monk to notice his thoughts
he was caught up in thoughts
how often do we get caught up in asking conceptual or abstract questions that aren't relevant to practice? Or just don't apply to us directly? Personally. We may feel the impulse to try to wrap our heads around it and try to understand things through reason and logic
that can serve us well in a university course. By now In Zen practice.
Next is a question from a layman who is entangled in thoughts about Vonk. A, as a teacher
the layman says, Master, I've heard that you can see right into people's minds right now. What am I thinking? And Bombay says, you're thinking that you're thinking that
apparently this guy thinks that Bankai has some special powers or abilities. But actually Zen teacher in general is just just someone who has been Where are you are, they have experienced firsthand the turmoil that the mind can produce.
And they have the experience to be able to observe what obstructions are impeding a student because they'd been there. Even obstructions that a student might not be aware of. Or possibly, they're in denial of it. They're just further along on the path. And based on their own experience, they can offer guidance
but there's a more essential point here. Again, the layman asked Bungay right now what am I thinking and bonk, a response? You're thinking that
bunk is pointing out that there is no no separate mind to see into. The only mind is the one that we directly experience. Just this one has no limits. It's vast, and it's wide.
The Buddhist writer and eco ecologist Joanna Macy put it this way. We can place the self between our ears and have it looking out from our eyes. Or we can widen it to include the air we breathe. Or at other moments, we can stand it extend its boundaries farther to include the oxygen giving trees and plankton are external lungs and beyond them, the web of life in which they are sustained. And we can go even wider. This true self goes into the depths of outer space beyond the Earth's atmosphere, other planets, galaxies stars, nothing that confines us.
Then another layman asks a different question. What happens when you become Buddha, where do you go Bungay says, when you become a Buddha, there isn't any place to go. You're already everywhere, reaching even beyond the universe itself. If on the other hand, you become something else, there are plenty of places for you to go. Meaning if you live in your thoughts, you do become something else. Because you're somewhere other than right here, your mind is divided
but what happens, what happens when you relax into this stillness
into the quiet that lies beneath the noise of our thoughts. What happens then?
Just the pitter patter of rain
falling everywhere
there's no question that at this stage in such sheen, everyone's thoughts have settled doesn't mean that you're not going to have thoughts or you're not going to encounter emotional states. Conditions of the mind always come and go. But we're, we're fortified by all these days, these hours upon hours of Zen such that we can more more readily keep our attention on our practice. And let the thoughts be just opening opening opening to this
but we still need to make the effort can it can be tempting to coast to do the bare minimum and now go deeper. Don't settle for that?
Another layman bowed before bound gay and asked, Is it true that when someone is enlightened as you are, he can really see the past present and future worlds, just as if he's looking at the palm of his hand. Bonnke looked at him and said, Is that a question? Is that question something you thought up beforehand? Or did it occur to you just now? In other words, have you been chewing over and reflecting on this in preparation for our meeting? Or is this a natural, spontaneous question that you're asking? Then the layman admits? Well, it didn't come into my head just now. When I asked it. It's something I thought about before. And Bankei says, in that case, it will be all right to leave that for later. First of all, what you must do right now is to find out about yourself until you've completed that, no matter how much I describe to you what the three worlds look like. You wouldn't be be able to understand what I'm saying, because you couldn't see them for yourself. And in the context of this exchange, the three worlds are past, present and future. But, in in Buddhist cosmology, the three worlds can mean have other meanings, which we won't get into, because it's not not relevant here. And Bank A says, once, once you found out about yourself, the question of both seeing the three worlds past, present and future and not seeing them will be something you'll know about quite naturally. There's no sense in in my trying to tell you about it, and no need in your asking me. Rather than do what you should be doing, dealing with the matter of yourself. You come here with worthless questions that you don't really need to know about now, and miss the point completely. You're Miss directing your effort to what's altogether irrelevant to you. It's like counting up someone else's money, when you're not going to get a penny of it for yourself. So listen to what I'm telling you. The important thing for you to do is to find out all about yourself. Pay careful attention to my instructions. If you follow them, and become absolutely sure of them yourself. That very instant, you're a living Buddha, then you'll realize how mistaken you've been to carry around needless questions, such as the one you just asked. And you want to record your effort where you shouldn't.
So many of us fall into the trap of getting tangled up in concepts intellectualizing our practice. We want a teacher to tell us what to do to give us direction? How do I know if I'm making progress? What should I do differently?
And a teacher can give guidance, but working on our practice is not like trying to solve a math equation or choose the right answer to a multiple choice question. There is no right or wrong and you're not being graded
forget about
right and wrong forget about time. There's nothing that you need to know. You don't need to know any concepts. It's nothing you need to remember. Or to plan for. Be here. Stand still sit still.
The end we can like in practice to riding a bike when we're first learning how to ride ride a bicycle We're extremely self conscious about the position of the steering wheel, how we're pumping the pedals, keeping our balance how to apply the brakes, how to shift the gears doing all that and all the while looking out for cars and pedestrians. It's it seems like a lot to manage all at once. And when we're first learning, our attention is kind of scattered in all different directions and we double guess ourselves by doing this, right?
Is this the way you do it?
I remember when I was a kid learning how to ride a bike, I was riding along a sidewalk. And I had Yeah, I was trying to keep track of all these things, the pedals, the handlebar, etc. And I got so overwhelmed by it that I threw myself off the bike and into the grass. I just couldn't handle it
but with practice, and persistence just like riding a bike, you eventually get the hang of it. And you experience this this freedom the freedom of no mindedness
you no longer have to think about how to ride a bike. You just get hop on it and go and it's so freeing to enjoy, enjoy the ride. Feel the wind take in the scenery without a thought there is no thought of steering of pedaling or braking.
