Sublime

Teishin,

Bankei (1622–1693) was a contemporary of Hakuin and for some time roshi at the Myoshinji monastery in Kyoto. Translations of his informal talks on Zen, directed especially to lay people, may be found in D. T. Suzuki’s Living by Zen (Pasadena, Calif.: P. D. and Ione Perkins, 1949), and in Lucien Stryk, ed., World of the Buddha (New York: Doubleday &

it is clear that he and the early patriarchs of Zen preferred Gunabhadra’s version.

Then again, with a genuine guru, it’s difficult to know for sure if he is being petty or if he is employing skillful means.

but they eventually became the hallmarks of Yogacara Buddhism, with its emphasis on tracing everything back to the mind, back to that cup of tea. The Lankavatara operates within this universe of Yogacara discourse, and it likewise puts that cup of tea into our hands. But then the Lanka sets all of these schemes aside in the interest of urging us to

Good in the Middle is the frame of mind with which we enter into the heart of the practice, one inspired by the realization of the nature of mind, from which arises an attitude of nongrasping, free of any conceptual reference whatsoever, and an awareness that all things are inherently “empty,” illusory, and dreamlike.

Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “What is the Way?” Nanquan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.” “Should I turn toward it or not?” “If you turn toward it you turn away from it.”

Mahayanists may be perfectly correct in assuming that the Buddha intended this emphasis as an upaya, a skillful means of enabling one to realize, concretely and vividly, the absurd vicious circle of desiring not to desire, or of trying to get rid of selfishness by oneself. For this is certainly the conclusion to which the practice of the Buddha’s d

Basho wrote his haiku in the simplest type of Japanese speech, naturally avoiding literary and “highbrow” language, so creating a style which made it possible for ordinary people to be poets. Bankei, his contemporary, did just the same thing for Zen,