Reflections on Bankei's 'Song of the Mind' Verses 39-41

“People have no enemies

None at all right from the start

You create them all yourself

Fighting over right and wrong

Clear are workings of cause and effect

You become deluded but don’t know

It’s something that you’ve done yourself

That’s what’s called self-centeredness

Grown used to the conditioned world

Grown used to the world of transience

When you become deluded like this

You’re the one that’s losing out!”

When we consider the words of a great Zen master like Bankei Yotaku (1622-1693), we should approach them with both respect and awareness. Respect should be present because these are the teachings of a man that dedicated himself to the alleviation of ignorance and suffering in both himself and others. Awareness is needed because if we don’t pay attention we are likely to miss the central point of what he is telling us. Furthermore, awareness turns out to be the essential ingredient when enlightenment dawns on us, stripping away the nescience that darkens our ignorant minds. In the following reflections on Bankei’s verse, there are quite a number of technical Buddhist terms in the ancient Sanskrit language. Please don’t be perturbed by them, and if it assists in your appreciation and understanding of this commentary, ignore them. They are included to show that there is a thread of enlightened truth that runs through the teachings of both the Buddha and Bankei, mainly for the benefit of those who might doubt such matters. In the end, however, it is the exercise included towards the rear of this piece that the proof of the pudding lays. Eat on!

“People have no enemies

None at all right from the start

You create them all yourself

Fighting over right and wrong”

Bankei, having rediscovered his original nature and then lived from it, knew something very basic to the human condition – we are our own worst enemies. Not just in the sense that we are often mean to each other – although this is a major side effect – but in the way that we create conflict first in our own minds. “Mind is the forerunner of all states,” as the Buddha declares in the Dhammapada, and this is exactly what Bankei is getting, too. The mind makes all manner of things its enemies:  insects, traffic, bosses, relatives, countries, and computers, not to mention the weather (the latter especially in Britain!). It doesn’t stop here, of course, for the mind is divided against itself, and when confronted with the mundane decisions can come into conflict with itself: the red dress or the blue one; cereal or toast; the comedy or the drama? At the level of personality, the mind can be its own worst enemy as well, at loggerheads whether to be friendly or firm, submissive or assertive, mysterious or readily available.

Right and wrong can refer to specific decisions that we make, and to which personality traits we consider preferable, but they clearly also indicate morality.  Is it right or wrong to eat meat? Is it right or wrong to use violence to defend one’s country? Rather like personality traits, or, as part of what we consider to be those traits, comes our moral attitudes, whether they be liberal, conservative, left wing, right wing, or just plain barmy! Psychologically, we can have serious and debilitating battles over these issues, tearing ourselves in two (or more) over which qualities and opinions we deem right and which ones wrong, and all inside these meatballs that sit atop our necks! And, should such conflicts spill out into the world, we may end up losing our topknots altogether, either on the gallows or at the hands of a crazed zealot. We are, indeed, the creators of our own worst enemies.

“Clear are workings of cause and effect

You become deluded but don’t know

It’s something that you’ve done yourself

That’s what’s called self-centeredness”

There are three key terms in this verse which form the heart of its meaning. The first of these is “cause and effect,” which references the Buddhist understanding of how everything we do has consequences. This is related to the word karma, which translates as ‘action.’ In this sense, an action has a result, so that if I stand in the rain, I get wet. In Buddhism, it goes further than this, for the results of actions are believed to not always be immediate or obvious, so that the ramifications of what is done now may crop up much later in this life, or even in future lives. Furthermore, karma and its results can be interpreted psychologically, so that the state of the mind now affects its condition later on. When we meditate and develop mindfulness of our thought processes, this psychological aspect of karma becomes most apparent, and Bankei, being the wise Zen master that he was, was no doubt well aware of this particular understanding of cause and effect.

The second term to come to terms with in the above verse is “deluded.” This word has its equivalent in Buddhist parlance as avidya in Sanskrit, the Indian philosophical, religious, and literary language which will be used here. Delusion is as an important word to understand as is karma for the serious Buddhist, but it has not caught on in the west like the former term. Perhaps this is because avidya is even harder to swallow as a concept than it is pronounced as a word. The Buddha taught that avidya lies at the foundation of our suffering, and it only completely dies away with when we realize full enlightenment. But, you may well ask, avidya is delusion of precisely what? Well, the delusion of self, or, the false understanding/experience that I am a separate self. The opposite of avidya is vidya, and is the realization of anatman, which means ‘not self.’ Put simply, anatman is the realization that none of the things that we normally take to constitute a self, do not, and that in truth there is no self here to suffer. This is related to the Buddhist idea of emptiness (sunyata).

The third important term in the above verse is “self-centeredness.” This can be equated with the Buddhist words satkaya-drsti (idea-of-self) and mana (conceit-of-self), and relates to the concept of anatman, which is its antithesis. When we live with the idea and feeling of being a separate self with its own concerns and biases, there is bound to be conflict with the world which does not always fit in with our individualistic plans. If others are perceived to be spoiling our plans, adverse reactions can – and usually do – arise, causing much strife. If two extremely self-centred personalities come into conflict, the consequences can be equally extreme, resulting not just in strong and offensive language, but even violence or death.

Now, what does Bankei say of these key concepts of cause and effect, delusion, and self-centeredness? He states that we are the cause of our own deluded self-centeredness and the resultant suffering that thereby arises. Because we attach to the ideas and feelings of being a self, and live ignorant to the process of cause and effect, we suffer, and cause others to suffer through our selfish behaviour. Moreover, he teaches that we have become deluded; it is not our original, natural state. This gives us hope, for if our original mind is the origin of the suffering one that we experience – and associate with – now, then it must be possible to rediscover it and let go of our delusion and suffering. Here, we can see the psychological aspect to these teachings alluded to above, and in his diagnosis, Bankei, like the Buddha before him, hits the cause of our suffering firmly on its egotistical head!

“Grown used to the conditioned world

Grown used to the world of transience

When you become deluded like this

You’re the one that’s losing out!”

In this verse there are two terms that are worth defining, but luckily they mean the same thing. They are “the conditioned world” and “the world of transience.” Both can be summed up with the Buddhist term samsara which literally means ‘flowing on,’ and indicates ‘the round of rebirths,’ and, by extension of that concept, ‘the round of suffering,’ also. When we live identified with being a separate self, we see this self as living in the conditioned world, largely at its (non-existent) mercy. Furthermore, as part of this world, we too are conditioned and therefore limited by it. The Buddha described this situation as the process of pratitya-samutpada, in which natural forces, both conditioned and conditioning, flow on through this existence. The Buddha also taught about an escape from this conditioned world, also, which we will come to a little later.

The other term used in this verse is “the world of transience.” In other words, this life lasts only a short time, a fleeting moment on the cosmic scale, and is therefore impermanent, too. It’s a sobering fact to reflect that not only are all individual creatures impermanent, but also entire ecosystems, indeed entire worlds. Not only are our thoughts and emotions temporary, but also the bodies that host them. In fact, the world itself will not last forever, as no planet does, and even the sun that it orbits will one day – in a few billion years – expire. Indeed, the two predominant theories in modern cosmology predict that the universe itself will eventually end, either in a ‘big crunch’ (the opposite to a big bang), or in an entropic cosmic expanding and fading into nothingness. To identify as being an ephemeral being on an impermanent world, in a dying universe is ultimately...unsatisfying (duhkha).

This quality of existence as being unsatisfying lies at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching, as he saw it and variant meanings of the word duhkha (suffering, angst, misery, etc.) as being the main problem in human life. If we transcend duhkha, we no longer live unsatisfying lives, and in the process no longer construct a suffering, ignorant self dependent upon a transient and conditioned world. The Buddha also declared that it is possible to achieve this, for as he put it, there is an unconditioned (asamskrta) as well as the conditioned (samskrta), and the unconditioned is without form and limits, and is therefore without duhkha. He did not, however, state that it is in knowing all the Sanskrit lingo and related philosophical summersaults that we realize the original and unconditioned, but that it is in direct experience, out of reach of the intellect. Of course, in preparing us for enlightenment, for that is what is being discussed here, some knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings are helpful, and also when sharing this vision they come in pretty handy, too. But the experience of awakening itself is not a result of knowing this or that philosophical concept, for it is beyond all concepts. We must learn a little to lose all – and when we have lost all, we will know ‘it.’ It is in the hope of having at least a glimpse of this awakening to the unconditioned that the following exercise has been included in this article. Please try it out with an open mind, and see if the unconditioned is revealed.

Look at your hand. See its shape, its colour, its solidity. Turn it around, and note the physical sensation of this action. To deepen the sense of the manifest nature of it, feel it with your other one – if you don’t have another one, a foot can be used for the same purpose, or nose, etc.). Look at what your hand is connected to – hopefully your wrist! Trace the veins that run to and from your hand, carrying vital blood. See how your hand grows out of, and is conditioned by, the rest of your body. Take a further moment to consider how your arm is conditioned by your DNA, and by human evolution (or whatever form of creation you believe in!). You are examining a completely conditioned thing. Now turn your attention around to that which is observing your hand. Actually look closely and see if it has any features whatsoever. Is there any shape, colour, or solidity here? Is that which observes your hand (and the rest of ‘you,’ including your thoughts and emotions) completely unconditioned? Is it not formless awareness that takes in your mental and physical sensations and either identifies with them, or not? And, reflecting on Bankei’s teachings on self-made enemies, does that which is unconditioned also have enemies?

If we live from the unconditioned rather than as conditioned individuals, both the Buddha and Bankei argue that the conditioned world will take care of itself, naturally, and all that’s left to do here is to keep on recognizing that there’s nobody home. Such a nobody has no enemies, self-made or otherwise. There are no inner demons to haunt one’s self, because there’s no self to be haunted in the first place. This conditioned and transient world flows on under its own steam, and there’s nobody here to suffer the consequences. This isn’t to mean that these thoughts, feelings, and bodies should be ignored or abused; quite the opposite. When there’s nobody here to be separate to the rest of the world, the world is seen for what it is, interrelated and dependently-arising. And, all those that make up its body deserve respect and care, all equal expressions of a living, loving organism spinning in the void.