Bankei Zen - Translations from the Record of Bankei by Peter Haskel (1984).pdf

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BANKEI ZEN
Translations from the
Record ofBankei
by
PETER HASKEL
Yoshito Hakeda,
Editor
Foreword by
Mary Farkas
GROVE PRESS,
INC. /NEW
YORK
The author wishes to acknowledge the cooperation of
the First Zen Institute of America, New York.
Copyright © 1984 by Peter Haskel and Yoshito Hakeda
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys-
tem, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including me-
chanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First Evergreen Edition 1984
First Printing 1984
ISBN: 0-394-6249S-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-81372
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bankei, 1622-169B.
Bankei Zen.
Translated from the Japanese.
1. Zen Buddhism—Doctrines—Early works to 1800. I.
Hakeda, Yoshito S. II. Haskel, Peter. III. Title.
BQ9399.E573E5 1984 294.3'927
83-81372 ISBN 0-
394-53524-3 (hard) ISBN 0-394-62493-9 (pbk.)
Manufactured in the United States of America
GROVE PRESS, INC., 196 West Houston Street, New York,
N.Y., 10014
FOREWORD
These days many people travel hundreds or thousands of
miles to see or hear Zen masters. Some meet them. Some
study with them. Few have a chance to ask them: What
shall I do with my anger, jealousy, hate, fear, sorrow, am-
bition, delusions—-all the problems that occupy human
minds? And how shall I deal with my work, my mother
and father, my children, my husband or wife, my servants,
my employers—the relations that make up human life?
Can Zen help me?
If the Zen Master Bankei were available for consulta-
tion at a nearby street corner today, he'd be saying much
the same things he did to comfort and enlighten the parade
of housewives, merchants, soldiers, officials, monks and
thieves who sought guidance from him three centuries
ago.
Bankei, the enlightened human being, shares his own
experience with us as a real person, speaking his own real
words. The advice he gives strikes right to the heart. It is
highly personal, not theoretical or abstract. The nature of
human beings has changed very little through the centu-
ries, despite numerous efforts to change it. Nor does it
seem likely to be less full of passion, jealousy and hate in
the next thousand years, here or in outer space.
When Bankei had completed his spiritual training and
monastic career, which included the founding of a number
of temples and the training of innumerable monks and
XI
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F o re w o r d
priests, his true concern was with the problems of ordinary
people. He had wanted to share what he had discovered
with his mother, his first audience, and, I believe, was
finally able to do so before she died, a very old lady. He
wants us to have it too.
Peter Haskel has found Bankei's real voice. In this fine
work by a young translator who has lived intimately with
Bankei for the last ten years and knows him through and
through, we are brought smack into Bankei's world. It
seems to be no translation at all. Although all the tools of
scholarship have been meticulously used, no traces of them
mar the polish.
No one needs to explain what Bankei means. His sev-
enteenth-century metaphors and logic can be used or dis-
carded without disturbing the substance of his teaching.
What comes through is often just good hard common
sense. Except for one thing: the Unborn Buddha Mind.
Whether called by this name or any other, it is the heart
of Zen as well as the core of Bankei's teaching. Bankei's
approach shows that there is no need to be Japanese or
imitate the Japanese to appreciate or acquire it.
MARY FARKAS First Zen
Institute of America New
York City, April 1983
PREFACE
My first encounter with Bankei was in the fall of 1972. I
had arrived at Columbia University two years earlier, hop-
ing to study the history of Japanese Rinzai Zen, but my
general coursework and the extreme difficulties of master-
ing written Japanese had left me time for little else. Now
that I was finally to begin my own research, all that re-
mained was to choose a suitable topic. Brimming with
confidence and armed with a list of high-sounding propos-
als, I went to see my advisor, Professor Yoshito Hakeda.
He listened patiently, nodded his head, and then, ignoring
all my carefully prepared suggestions, asked me if I had
considered working on the seventeenth-century Zen mas-
ter Bankei. My disappointment must have shown. Al-
though I had never actually read Bankei, I had a vague
impression of him as a kind of subversive in the world of
Zen, a heretical figure who didn't believe in rules, dis-
pensed with koans and tried to popularize and simplify the
deadly serious business of enlightenment. I was hoping to
deal with a Zen master closer to the "orthodox" tradition,
I tried to explain, perhaps one of the great teachers of the
Middle Ages. "Take a look at Bankei s sermons if you have
a chance," Professor Hakeda urged, "you may find them
interesting." My skepticism remained, however, and I did
nothing further about Bankei, determined to find a more
"respectable" topic of my own choosing.
The following year, Professor Hakeda raised the subject
xin

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