Reflections on Bankei's 'Song of the Mind' Verses 12-14

“Your longing for the one you love

Is for the present time alone

It only exists by reason of

The past before she'd come along

To recall someone

Means you can't forget

Not to recall them

That you never had forgot

Thinking back over the past

You find it was an evening's dream

Realize that, and you'll see

Everything is just a lie”

Much of our suffering is born of time. As these illusory separate selves, we are temporal beings tied to time, our lives slipping away to the rhythm of a ticking clock. As the Unborn, however, we are nothing of the sort, and we neither age nor die, but rest in the spacious no-thing that we truly are. The seventeenth century Zen Master Bankei lived from this no-thing, calling it the Unborn Buddha Mind. And, because he lived from nowhere and no-time, he was able to dispense wisdom to whoever came his way, giving advice to monks, nuns, and the laity. Although most monks and nuns (hopefully) do not ache for a lost love, most of us laypeople have done so – some of us many times for many years. In the above verses, Bankei is not only referring to the longing for past love(s), however; he is also talking of those we currently have close relationships with.

“Your longing for the one you love

Is for the present time alone”

We miss those we love in the present. When we go through our day thinking about them, we colour everything we do with their image and fragrance. This intrusion into the present moment can cause much discomfort, for as the Buddha taught, one major form of suffering is to long for that which we desire but do not presently possess. And, the yearning for a loved one is the most gut-wrenching of desires, tearing at our heart and causing us to go off our food. Of course, in this scientific age we can rationalise much of this process with empirical analysis, noting that it is procreative urges and the push of our genes that creates such emotions. But, even scientists fall in love and suffer the consequences. Systematic thinking alone will not release us from the sufferings of a lonely heart; we need the wisdom of the Buddha for that, and reflecting on the words of Bankei can assist us in our endeavours.

“It only exists by reason of
The past before she'd come along”

By “it” Bankei is referring to the longing for another, and he states that its ultimate cause is that prior to knowing the object of our desires, we were a vacuum waiting to be filled with romantic love. This vacuum is not the Void that is free of all identification with selfhood and its sufferings, but rather an aspect of the individual ego that longs for union with another person. So, whether we possess our loved one and are desperately trying to cling on to her or him, or wishing to gain the affections of someone, according to Bankei it is the original egoistic desire for self-fulfilment that makes us desire another in the first place.

“To recall someone
Means you can't forget”

Memory clings to the image or idea of a loved one, fantasising about it, holding imaginary conversations with it, and even blotting out present circumstances with its aroma. This image is ensnared within the mind, which constantly returns to it every time it threatens to escape the memory’s grasp. So, even when we are in a moment of respite from the longing for another, its seed is buried in our psyche, ready to sprout again when we least expect it to.

“Not to recall them
That you never had forgot”

This part of the verse seems at odds with the last one. In the previous lines, Bankei stated that because we cannot forget someone, we continually recall them, but here he says that in not remembering them, we have never forgot. This apparent contradiction is lifted when we realize that in the second segment of the verse he is not talking of forgetting the same thing as in the first. In the first two lines he is indeed referring to forgetting a person, but in the second he is talking of not forgetting something completely different – the Unborn.

The Unborn is the central concept in Bankei’s teachings on Buddhism. It is not a concept in the sense of an idea that we need to intellectually understand, but rather an abstraction used to represent that which is beyond all concepts. In this way, the Unborn is a teaching that Bankei wants us to see rather than think. To not forget the Unborn is also to be fully awake in this present moment. This is why Bankei declares that one who never forgets does not recall their loved one(s): he or she is so completely alive to what’s happening right now that they do not dwell on anything else, even those they desire the most. He continues:

“Thinking back over the past

You find it was an evening's dream”

Here, Bankei is encouraging us to reflect on the past, and actually see what it is in this very moment now. Is the past real now, or is it, as Bankei claims, “an evening’s dream”? To experience an event is clearly not the same as considering it afterwards, is it not? If I think back to what I ate for breakfast this morning, this is not the exact experience that I had when I actually consumed it. I can’t see the colours of my breakfast in the vividness that they possessed early today, and the taste and smells are a pale imitation of the sense data that I received just a few hours ago. If this is true of this morning’s breakfast, then it is equally true for every other memory that I have; each one is indeed “an evening dream.”

“Realize that, and you'll see

Everything is just a lie”

Everything becomes a memory eventually; unless it is completely forgotten, of course. This is the fate of every single thing in existence, as well as every single event in time. In this sense, things and events are not real, in that they are not our true nature. Our true nature is not a thing or a process, but is the No-thing that experiences them whilst remaining unchanged itself. We can experience this No-thing by looking at our memories with detachment, and the resultant realization of what we truly are transforms our relationship with both our memories and the world as it is at this current time. Please take a few minutes to conduct the following exercise, and see if what you’ve been reading is in fact the case.

Close your eyes. Recall an event from the past, dwelling upon each image long enough to give it a firm appearance. Next, focus your attention on your original feelings towards the images within your memory; are they positive, negative, or indifferent? What emotions arise now as you view these mental objects? What are all these images arising in? Does it have a particular appearance that you can analyse? Does it have any features that give rise to emotional responses in you? Or, to the contrary, is it a simple and transparent awareness that pays attention to your thoughts and reveries but is void of any particular characteristics itself? Is it, in fact, free of attachments and the sufferings that accompany them? Is it your Unborn Buddha Mind?

We live in the world with each other. We live, we love, and we die. All this is perfectly natural and to be expected, and not to be avoided, unless one feels the pull to an alternative lifestyle, that is. And yet, if Bankei and the exercise above are to be believed, whilst on the conventional level we may love and lose, laugh and cry, there is another aspect to life that liberates us from the suffering normally associated with such activities. Seeing the Unborn Buddha Mind, as Bankei describes the indescribable, is to free ourselves from the restrictions of time and place. Furthermore, if done fully and continually, seeing and living from the Unborn frees us of our biggest enemies: our selves. This doesn’t mean that we cease to be humans living human lives, but that we live in the knowledge of the Unborn, ultimately free from the chains of time, self, and suffering.