ZEN: Buddha-mind and "The Unborn"

Zen Master Bankei Yotaku excerpted from The Life and Teaching of Zen Master Bankei, Norman Waddell (trans.); CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Jeff Albrizze (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Unborn

Zen Master Butchi Bankei Yotaku (1622-1693)

I was still a young man when I came to discover the principle of the Unborn and its relation to thought.

I began to tell others about it. What we call a "thought" is something that has already fallen one or more removes from the living reality of the Unborn. If you priests [Zen monks] would just live in the Unborn, there wouldn't be anything for me to tell you about it, and you wouldn't be here listening to me.

Because of the unbornness and marvelous illuminative power inherent in the Buddha-mind, it readily reflects all things that come along and transforms itself into them, thus turning the Buddha-mind into thought. I'm going to tell those in the lay audience all about this now. As I do, I want the priests to listen along too.

 

Not a single one of you people at this meeting is unenlightened. Right now, you're all sitting before me as Buddhas. Each of you received the Buddha-mind from your mothers when you were born, and nothing else. This inherited Buddha-mind is beyond any doubt unborn, with a marvelously bright illuminative wisdom.

 

In the Unborn, all things are perfectly resolved. I can give you proof that they are. While you're facing me listening to me speak like this, if a crow cawed, or a sparrow chirped, or some other sound occurred somewhere behind you, you would have no difficulty knowing it was a crow or a sparrow, or whatever, even without giving a thought to listening to it, because you were listening by means of the Unborn.

If anyone confirms that this unborn, illuminative wisdom is in fact the Buddha-mind and straight away lives, as he is, in the Buddha-mind, he becomes at that moment a living Tathagata, and he remains one for infinite kalpas in the future. Once he has confirmed it, he lives from then on in the mind of all the Buddhas, which is the reason the sect I belong to has sometimes been called the "Buddha-mind" sect.

 

While you face this way listening to me now, if a sparrow chirps behind you, you don't mistake it for a crow; you don't mistake the sounds of a bell for that of a drum, or hear a man's voice and take it for a woman's, or take an adult's voice for a child's. You hear and distinguish those different sounds, without making a single mistake, by virtue of the marvelous working of illuminative wisdom. This is the proof that the Buddha-mind is unborn and wonderfully illuminating.

 

None of you could say that you heard the sounds because you had made up your minds to hear them beforehand. If you did, you wouldn't be telling the truth. All of you are looking this way intent upon hearing me. You're concentrating singlemindedly on listening.

There's no thought in any of your minds to hear the sounds or noises that might occur behind you. You are able to hear and distinguish sounds when they do occur without consciously intending to hear them because you're listening by means of the unborn Buddha-mind.

When people are firmly convinced that the Buddha-mind is unborn and wonderfully illuminating and live in it, they're living Buddhas and living Tathagatas [Wayfarers] from then on.

"Buddha" too, is just a name, arising after the fact. It's only the skin and shell. When you say "Buddha," you're already two or more removes from the place of the Unborn.

A person of the Unborn is one who dwells at the source of all Buddhas. The Unborn is the origin of all and the beginning of all. There is no source apart from the Unborn and no beginning that is before the Unborn. So being unborn means dwelling at the very source of all Buddhas.

If you live in the Unborn, then there's no longer any need to speak about "nonextinction" or "undying." It would be a waste of time. So I always talk about the "Unborn," never about the "Undying." There can be no death for what was never born, so if it is unborn, it is obviously undying. There's no need to say it, is there?

 

You can find the expression "unborn, undying" here and there in Buddha's sutras and in the recorded sayings of the Zen masters. But there was never until now, any proof or confirmation given of the Unborn.

When you are unborn, you're at the source of all things. The unborn Buddha-mind is where the Buddhas of the past all attained their realization and where future Buddhas will all attain theirs. Although we're now in the Dharma's latter days, if a single person lives in the Unborn, the right Dharma flourishes in the world. There's no doubt about it.

Upon confirming yourself in the Unborn, you acquire the ability to see from the place of that confirmation straight into the hearts of others. The name the Zen school is sometimes given, the "Clear-eyed" sect, stems from this.

There, at the place of confirmation, the Buddha's Dharma is fully achieved. Once the eye that can see others as they are opens in you, you can regard yourself as having fully achieved the Dharma, because wherever you are becomes a place of total realization. When you reach that place, no matter who you are, you are the true successor to my Dharma.