Reflections on Bankei's 'Song of the Mind' Verses 1-4

“Unborn and imperishable

Is the Original Mind

Earth, water, fire and wind

A temporary lodging for the night

Attached to this ephemeral burning house

You yourselves light the fire,

Kindle the flames

In which you're consumed.

Search back

To the time

When you were born

You can't remember a thing at all!

Keep your mind as it was

When you came into the world

And instantly this very self

Is a living ‘thus come’ one”

Bankei Yotaku (1622-1693) was a wonderful exponent of our true nature. He called it the Unborn Buddha Mind, and talked of it in the everyday language of ordinary people, rather than in the convoluted language of philosophy and mysticism. For this reason, his teachings are as valuable today as they were in Seventeenth Century Japan where he gave them to the world, in the hope of helping suffering beings out of their self-created hells. For this reason, it is felt that the present exploration of the 'Song of the Mind’ will benefit anyone seeking clarification in the search for awakening to our Unborn Buddha Mind.

“Unborn and imperishable

Is the Original Mind”

When Bankei speaks of “the Original Mind,” he is talking of our true nature, the bottomless ground of our being. Moreover, he is using language common to the Zen masters of old, among whom the famous Huang Bo (died c.850) said that the One Mind is the Buddha, which is unborn in its nature. This Original Mind is unborn in that it is not created, that is to say it is not dependent upon anything, and is indeed not a ‘thing’ itself. Bankei says that it is imperishable - it cannot be destroyed. Now, since thoughts, emotions, memories, and sense-consciousness are all conditioned and ephemeral, they cannot be anything to do with the Unborn Original Mind. Therefore, it is not mind in any conventional (or current scientific) understanding of the word.

“Earth, water, fire and wind

A temporary lodging for the night”

In traditional Buddhist parlance, as in other ancient philosophical systems, “earth, wind, fire and wind” represent the primal four elements of the natural world, and as such, also account for the human body. Bankei states that this form is no more than “a temporary lodging for the night.” A temporary lodging for what, however? If the mind is accepted as being temporary as stated above, then this is not the ‘what’ that is being referred to by the Master. Indeed, when its transient nature is accepted, the mind as much as the body can be considered a temporary lodging, too. Both are impermanent phenomena playing host to what Bankei calls the Unborn.

“Attached to this ephemeral burning house

You yourselves light the fire,

Kindle the flames

In which you're consumed.”

“This ephemeral burning house” is another term for the body, and by extension the mind that is interwoven with it. And, as the Buddha taught in the famous Fire Sermon, the body and mind are “burning with the fires of passion, hatred, and delusion; burning with birth, ageing, and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.” Furthermore, we cannot blame others for our self-created suffering; nor can nature be blamed, for it is simply the way it is, and it is our own egotistical minds that create suffering around it. We “kindle the flames” by attaching to what we like and resisting what we dislike, rather than accepting life as it is. This ego-perpetuated misery ends up consuming the mind, born of our constant thirst for life to be the way we want it to be, and not the way it actually is.

“Search back

To the time

When you were born

You can't remember a thing at all!”

Bankei encourages us to think back to when we were born, or as close to that time as we can because as newborns we do not have these cynical minds making tall demands of life, but rather innocent ‘blank sheets’ upon which life writes its poetry, both beautiful and grotesque. Sure enough, as babes we quickly decide on what we like and what we don’t like, crying when we don’t get our own way; but even toddlers still have moments when the clear and indiscriminating mind of innocence remains, illuminating their world. Indeed, even adults can sometimes spontaneously experience the Unborn, for it is our natural underlying state, and out of it comes the struggling egos that we mistake ourselves to be.

“Keep your mind as it was

When you came into the world

And instantly this very self

Is a living ‘thus come’ one”

Here Bankei encourages us to “keep your mind as it was when you came into the world” because he knows that this pure state of innocent knowing is the very Unborn Buddha Mind that is without the sufferings of the limited human minds that we normally identify with. On top of this, he states that “this very self is a living ‘thus come’ one.” A ‘thus come’ one is a title of a Buddha, and Bankei is saying that if we recognize and retain the pure Mind that precedes and sits behind the conditioned mind, we will rest in the unconditioned and unborn Buddha Mind. This is not, as Bankei makes clear, not something to be believed, but rather an experience to be known. And here, we come to a crucial point in all of this: how do we realize the Unborn? It is not through thinking, for enlightenment precedes all thought; it is not through feeling, for enlightenment precedes emotions. We must regain the vision of an innocent babe. And we can do this by looking at ourselves with the pure Eye of an infant. To do this, please conduct the following reflection, remembering that it is not our thoughts or emotions that are important, but the essential experience itself.

Look carefully at whatever is opposite you at this moment. Take notice of its size, shape, colours, and opacity. Now, turn your attention around 180 degrees and focus upon that which is doing the looking. Examine what you see here for any of the same qualities you observed earlier: right now, right here, is there any size, shape, or colour to be seen? Moreover, is what is here opaque or transparent? Lastly, is what is seen here and what is seen there actually separate, or are they in fact a unity of things and ‘No-thing’?

If Bankei is correct in that the Unborn is ever-present amidst the born, and that it is in fact our natural state, it shouldn’t be too difficult to locate. And, as it turns out, if we turn around and accept what is present instead of what we think or believe should be present, the Unborn is revealed. As it was never born, it can never die, and is always awaiting us if we pay enough attention to the way things are right now. Retaining this vision, we will spontaneously produce all the wisdom and compassion we need, straight out of nowhere. Doing thus, we are each a “living thus come one” awake to our true nature, as well as the relative nature true that appears in it. Why not look and see whether or not Bankei is correct – what have you to lose?