Bankei Eitaku

Bankei Eitaku (Yōtaku), also Bankei Kokushi ( Japanese 盤 珪 永 琢 ; * 1622 in Hamada , Harima Province ; † September 30, 1693 in Ryūmon-ji Monastery ), is one of the most popular Japanese Zen masters of the Rinzai school .

As a child, Bankei searched for answers to the fundamental questions in life. Since the teachers at his school could not help him with this, he left his family at the age of eleven to look for answers from various Buddhist teachers. Temporarily living in homelessness, he meditated excessively. Eventually he fell ill with consumption . Near death, at the age of 23, he experienced enlightenment in a spiritual breakthrough .

Bankei spent the rest of his life with vividly introducing the teaching of Buddhism to an increasing following in an individual, inimitable form, the "Zen teaching of the unborn". In doing so, he contributed significantly to a revitalization of Japanese Zen, which was in decline during the Edo period .

Bank ice lessons

Bankei's teachings were revolutionary in the sense that they cut through the dictatorial social ideas prevailing at the time, which were based on Confucianism and forbade any individual thought and expression. Bankei's work was based on the spoken word. His lectures sprang from a deep inner conviction and were so convincing and understandable that they reached everyone, even without being a Buddhist.

His teachings can all be reduced to one point: Let go of the mind, give up all concepts and ideas and experience your own, original mind “here and now” without clinging to any religious or ideological idea or practice. Bankei referred to this immediate spirit here and now as “the unborn”, which is always there and always has been:
“The unborn is not something that is achieved or acquired through discipline. It is not a quality of mind or religious ecstasy; it is where you are standing, flawless as it is. All you have to do to realize it is be yourself just as you are; to do exactly what you do, without comment, bias or judgment. ”
Quoted from Verrückte Wolken , p. 123.

Bankeis Zen should help people to perceive the impressions and concepts about themselves that have been accumulated from birth and to leave them behind. In contrast to the traditional Zen schools, this did not happen through conventional methods and techniques, as in monastic life with intensive meditation, but through direct personal experience. The pupil was able to catch a glimpse of a fleeting impression when he heard Bankei's words, and the impulse set in this way could gradually unfold like a seed in the ground.

When asked that he had only experienced his own enlightenment after extreme exertion and long years of hard discipline, he replied, “I fought my own battles by mistake because I happened to not meet a clear-sighted master. In the end, however, I discovered the Buddha-mind for myself. I have told others about theirs so that they know about it without having to face this acid test themselves. ”
Quoted from Verrückte Wolken , p. 131.

Life path

childhood

Bankei was born in the Edo period in 1622 , when Iemitsu , the third Tokugawa shogun , took power and established the most repressive, dictatorial regime Japan had ever seen. Under Iemitsu, Japan was completely sealed off from abroad for around 200 years.

Bankei was one of nine children and the fourth of five sons of the doctor Suga Dōsetsu and his wife Noguchi. He spent his childhood in a small village on the coast of the Japanese Inland Sea in Harima Province, today's eastern Hyogo prefecture .

When Bankei was ten years old, his father died. According to the records, he was an intelligent and highly sensitive child, but at the same time disobedient and strong-willed. According to his mother's testimony, at the age of three, Bankei had a violent disgust for death. All you had to do was play dead to inspire respect and stop his screaming. Even later, when he excelled himself with pranks, this was an effective means of bringing him to reason.

At the age of eleven, Bankei started attending the village school. There he showed himself to be very eager to learn, but developed a violent aversion to the art of writing lessons . The fact that Bankei had an iron will as a child is shown by the following incident: To avoid the monotonous copying of Chinese characters , he often skipped classes. This led to violent conflicts with his eldest brother Masayasu, who took on the role of father. These conflicts burdened the little banker so much that he thought of suicide to avoid his brother. He tried to carry out his plan by eating a handful of poisonous spiders and locking himself in a small Buddhist shrine to wait for the end. It was only after many hours that he admitted his failure, broke off the attempt and went home to his mother.

Inspired by the instructions of Confucian teachers at the village school and because of the searching spirit inherent in him, Bankei dealt with fundamental questions of life at an early age. The key experience was a statement from the teachings of Confucius : "The way of the Great Doctrine consists in the clarification of Radiant Virtue". With great restlessness he wanted to know what the "Radiant Virtue" means, but did not get a satisfactory answer from his teachers.

Since the teachers' answers based on the traditional scriptures could not satisfy his thirst for knowledge, his inner doubts increased like a koan . The teachers he pressured finally advised Bankei to see a Zen priest. Since there was no Zen temple nearby , the child had no choice but to continue to storm all scholars in the vicinity with his questions. Then he always ran home to tell his mother about it. In doing so, however, he neglected all domestic and school duties, which ultimately angered his brother so much that he finally banned the eleven-year-old banker from the house.

The search

The little bank was now completely on his own. For the next few years he lived in a hut that a friendly neighbor had given him. When he was fifteen, he moved to a Shingon temple. The teaching of Shingon did not suit him, however, whereupon he moved to the Zuiō-ji monastery, which was built and directed by the Rinzai master Umpo Zenjō. Umpo was regarded as a strict master who demanded full dedication from his students. Only a few monks dared to meet him. Umpo ordained Bankei as a monk and introduced him to Zen meditation.

At the age of 19, Bankei went hiking. His four-year journey took him to the area of Kyoto and Osaka and west to the island of Kyushu . During this time he lived under great privation in various temples but often only in simple huts. For a while he is said to have even lived among beggars .

All hardship got him nowhere. When he returned to Zuiō-ji, he complained to Umpo with tears that he had not met a single person on his wandering who could have helped him. Umpo replied that it was precisely this desire for a person that kept him from his goal. He would never achieve enlightenment as long as he searched outside of himself. This spurred his efforts so much that he decided to live as a hermit from then on. So he built a small wooden hut as a hermitage near the monastery. By closing the entrance with clay, he shielded himself almost completely from the outside world. He had the food passed through a narrow hole. Another hole in the floor served as a toilet . Like the Buddha and Bodhidharma , he now practiced zazen ceaselessly, day and night , determined not to stop until he experienced enlightenment.

The breakthrough

The enormous physical and psychological exertion during the wandering and the time in the wretched hut had weakened the monk so severely that he fell ill with consumption . He got increasingly sicker until he barely ate anything and finally spat blood in large lumps on the wall. However, this did not stop him from practicing. A doctor summoned said he was lost, whereupon Bankei prepared to die in meditation.

At this point, a solution suddenly came about: the moment the monk, ready to die, relaxed, all his doubts dissolved like a dream on awakening. Bankei later compared this experience with a filled bucket from which the floor suddenly bursts out. Gradually from then on he felt new strength pouring into him. His appetite increased in an incredible way every day and his health improved noticeably.

A short time later he had another enlightenment experience in a moment, while he was washing his face in a nearby stream and the wind carried him the delicate scent of the nearby plum blossoms.

Perfection

After the monk had recovered, he went back to Umpo to get the approval of his insight. Umpo was overjoyed and told Bankei, "This is the marrow of Bodhidharma's bones" and "From now on, no one, anywhere , will be able to touch you anymore," confirming Bankei's enlightenment.

The now twenty-six-year-old Bankei went hiking again, this time to the province of Mino, today's Gifu prefecture. He sought further confirmation of his experience, but found that none of the teachers he visited was able to do so. One even admitted this quite openly. After that he is said to have lived again for a year in a hermitage to deepen his enlightenment.

In 1651 the monk sought out the Chinese master Dōsha, who had the reputation of a mature Zen master. Dōsha stayed at Sōfuku-ji , a large Chinese-style monastery on the slopes above Nagasaki . Already at the first meeting, Dōsha Bankei's enlightenment confirmed: "You have advanced to the great cause of the self" . But he also warned him: "You still have to clarify what lies beyond this and what constitutes the essence of our school." By this Dōsha meant that Bankei still had to learn to integrate his insight into everyday life and to instruct other people in Zen himself. Initially, the monk rejected Dōsha's advice indignantly, but was impressed and therefore stayed in the Sōfuku-ji to keep watching him. After recognizing its maturity, he decided to stay and practice under Dōsha's guidance.

Since Bankei couldn't speak Chinese , life in Sofuku-ji was quite difficult for him. So he had to communicate with Dōsha using the identical characters in both languages . The monk also did not want to participate in the recitation of the sutra in Chinese. Since Dōsha had recognized his talent, he accepted Bankei's idiosyncrasy.

In the following year, Bankei had another enlightenment experience, which was also confirmed by Dōsha. This confirmation and the preference that Bankei experienced from the master led to envy and violent outbursts of jealousy among the other monks. In order to protect him, Dōsha asked Bankei to leave the monastery for a while. Following this request, Bankei went on a journey again for a while.

Teaching

In 1653 Umpo, Bankei's old teacher, died. Bankei had suspected this, but was not there in time to meet his old master again. Before his death, Umpo had given his successor Bokuō Sogyū the instruction to see to it that Bankei becomes a Zen teacher:
"I am certain that Bankei is the only one who will hold up the Dharma banner and the destiny of Zen in the future I want you to push him out into the world in my stead. Under no circumstances should he be allowed to put his light under a bushel. "
Quoted from "The Zen Teaching of the Unborn" (p. 25)

With some monks who had since joined Bankei, Bankei moved back to Nagasaki to learn the original Chinese Zen. The small group found, however, that another master, the highly respected Yin-yüan Lung-chi (Japanese Ingen, 1592–1673) had taken the position of Dōsha. Ingen, who came on the basis of an official invitation, had literally ousted Dōsha with his supporters. Bankei worked to ensure that Dōsha could find accommodation in another monastery. After several attempts and a four-year stay in a small family temple, this attempt failed and Dōsha made his way back to China.

For Bankei the time of pilgrimage was over. Officially, he had received the Dharma transmission from Dōsha and thus the inclusion in its teaching line . Although he continued to live an ascetic life and worked tirelessly to deepen his knowledge, from this time onwards his focus was on imparting the Dharma to lay people and monks, who increasingly visited him. In 1672, at the age of 50, Bankei was appointed abbot of the Myōshin-ji monastery in Kyōto by the imperial family . He became the successor to Bokuo.

In his late fifties, Bankei began to make his teaching accessible to a larger group. He was now famous and many people came to him for instruction. During these meetings, which lasted two to three months and were held twice a year, once in summer and once in winter, he trained his followers through lectures and face-to-face discussions, in which he also responded to questions and problems individually.

Sometimes only his immediate students, of whom there were several hundred, were present. Usually there were no restrictions, so that often several thousand people came together, lay people and monks from all walks of life, feudal lords as well as craftsmen, traders and farmers. There was no difference here between men and women or poor and rich. Sometimes so many followers came that the accommodation in one place was insufficient and barns, sheds and warehouses had to serve as sleeping quarters. The master practiced these “ retreats ” until his death in 1693.

Significance for Japanese Zen

Monasteries and temples

In the 36 years of his teaching activity up to his death in 1693, Bankei trained in numerous temples and monasteries in the country. Some of these houses were built and promoted by rich students of Bankeis and many practice places that were in decline were restored.

Three monasteries formed the center of Bankei's teaching activities: the Ryūmon-ji in Bankei's hometown Hamada, the Nyohō-ji in Ōzu on the island of Shikoku and a little later the Kōrin-ji in Edo , today's Tokyo.

• The ryūmon-ji was donated to Bankei in 1657 when he was 35 years old by his former school friend Sasaki Michiya, who had become a wealthy merchant. The Ryūmon-ji was enormous for rural conditions.
• The Nyohō-ji was created in 1669 by the lord of the fortress Ōzu, Katō Yasuoki. A small hermitage in the mountains also belonged to this monastery. Bankei occasionally withdrew here with selected students in order to practice a stricter Zen practice with them.
• The Kōrin-ji was built by Kyōgoku Takatoyu , a daimyō from Sanuki Province at the urging of his mother, a nun who had fully understood Bankei's teachings about the unborn.

In addition to the aforementioned monasteries, there were over forty other training facilities that were built or restored on Bankei's initiative. He traveled back and forth between the monasteries and these places, giving new impetus to Zen, which was in crisis in the Edo period .

effect

With his great power of persuasion, his ability to convey the teachings of Zen in simple words and his openness to all people, Bankei made a significant contribution to revitalizing Zen, which was in decline during the Edo period . He is also considered to be the pioneer of Hakuin Ekaku, who was 64 years his junior .

Despite his large following, few of his disciples were confirmed as Dharma followers . Although Bankei himself left no writings and did not allow his students to write them, there are still a number of presentations and dialogues that his numerous followers wrote down and that tell of his intense life.

Particularly worth mentioning as a biographer is Den Sutejo, a famous 17th century poet who, as a pupil of Bankeis, received the name Teikan from him. It is mainly thanks to Teikan that knowledge of Bankei's trips and lectures was preserved for posterity.

literature

• Norman Wadell (ed.): The Zen doctrine of the unborn . Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, Bern et al. 1984, ISBN 3-502-64050-5
• P. Bessermann, M. Steger: Crazy clouds - Zen masters, Zen rebels . Theseus 1999, ISBN 3-89620-138-7

Web links

• Literature by and about Bankei Eitaku in the catalog of the German National Library