Bankei's entire teaching can be reduced to the single
admonition "Abide in the Unborn!" This was Bankei's
constant refrain. The term "Unborn" itself is a common
one in classical Buddhism, where it generally signifies that
which is intrinsic, original, uncreated. Bankei, however,
was the first to use this term as the crux of his teaching.
Rather than obtaining or practicing the Unborn, he says,
one should simply abide in it, because the Unborn is
not a state that has to be created, but is already there,
perfect and complete, the mind just as it is. There isn't any special
method for realizing the Unborn other than to be yourself,
to be totally natural and spontaneous in everything you do.
This means "letting thoughts arise or cease just as they
will," and doing the same in regard to physical sensations,
as Bankei indicates in his advice on illness (pp. 61-63) and
in his instructions on the art of the lance (pp. 138-39).
The mind, as Bankei describes it, is a dynamic mechanism,
reflecting, recording and recalling our impressions
of the world, a kind of living mirror that is always in
motion, never the same from one instant to the next. Within
this mirror mind, thoughts and feelings come and go,
appearing, vanishing and reappearing in response to circumstances,
neither good nor bad in themselves. Unlike
the man of the Unborn, however, the impulsive person
suffers from attachment. He is never natural because he is
a slave to his responses, which he fails to realize are only
passing reflections. As a result, he is continually "hung
up," entangled in particular thoughts and sensations, obstructing
the free flow of the mind. Everything will operate
smoothly, Bankei insists, if we only step aside and let it do
so. He illustrates this to the members of his audience by
pointing out that, even while engrossed in listening to his
talk, they automatically register and identify everything
else around them—the calls of crows and sparrows, the
various colors and aromas, the different sorts of people in
the room. No one is deliberately trying to do this; it simply
happens. That, Bankei says, is how the Unborn functions.
For Bankei, the important thing is letting go, breaking
the mold of our self-centeredness (mi no hiiki) and bad
habits (kiguse). These are familiar Japanese terms that Bankei
used to describe the chief components of delusion. Selfcenteredness
is the basis of the false self. It is "ego" in the
pejorative sense, the reflex that leads us to judge everything
from a narrowly selfish viewpoint. What fuels and informs
this attitude is bad habits, character flaws that, like self-
centeredness, are the result of conditioning. We grow up
imitating the people around us, Bankei says, and in the
process acquire certain failings which finally become so
ingrained that we mistake them for our real selves. Unlike
the Unborn Buddha Mind, however, neither bad habits
nor self-centeredness is innate; both are assimilated from
outside after birth. When we become deluded, we temporarily
forfeit the Buddha Mind we started out with, exchanging
it for these learned responses. The moment this
occurs, duality intervenes and we leave the original oneness
of the Unborn to be "born" into particular states of
being—as hungry ghosts, fighting demons, beasts or helldwellers—passing
fitfully from one to the next, trapped in
incessant transmigration. The only way out of this dilemma,
Bankei maintains, is to go back the way we came,
to return to the unconditioned, the uncreated, the unborn.
"What we have from our parents innately is the Unborn
Buddha Mind and nothing else"; "The Buddha Mind
is unborn and marvelously illuminating, and with the Unborn
everything is perfectly managed"; "Abide in the Unborn
Buddha Mind!" These are the basics of Bankei s Zen,
his catechism of the Unborn. He explained them over and
over in different ways, because he believed the truth of the
Unborn was so simple, so straightforward, that anyone
could grasp it. In this sense, Bankei s Zen was truly popular.
Other Japanese masters had taught lay audiences. But,
in most cases, Zen as such was considered far too difficult
for ordinary people, and Zen masters' popular teachings,
especially those directed to women, scarcely touched on
Zen at all. Instead, teachers spoke in general terms, urging
the merits of pious activity and discussing concepts from
the Buddhist scriptures. Study of the "inner teachings" was
generally confined to qualified monks and members of the
upper classes and intelligentsia who could follow to some
extent the difficult Chinese of the imported Zen texts.