Hello All,

I thought I would share these beautiful words of Bankei (Bankei Yōtaku was a Japanese Rinzai Zen master, and the abbot of the Ryōmon-ji and Nyohō-ji):

The One Mind, Unborn—this is “the one” that, in everybody, sees images via the eyes, hears sounds via the ears and, generally, when it encounters the objects of the six senses, reveals whatever is seen or heard, felt or thought, with nothing left concealed. (H 101)

The Buddha-mind in each of you is immaculate. All you’ve done is reflected in it, but if you bother about one such reflection, you’re certain to stray. Your thoughts don’t lie deep enough—they rise from the shallows of your mind. Remember that all you see and hear is reflected in the Buddha-mind and influenced by what was previously seen and heard. Needless to say, thoughts aren’t entities. So if you permit them to rise, reflect themselves, or cease altogether as they’re prone to do, and if you don’t worry about them, you’ll never stray. In this way, let one hundred, nay, one thousand thoughts arise, and it’s as if not one has arisen. You will remain undisturbed. (SI 86)

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…. Thoughts arise temporarily in response to what you see and hear; they haven’t any real existence of their own [like the objects seen and heard]. You must have faith that the original mind that is realized and that which realizes original mind are not different. (H 136)