The Unborn
Zen Master Bankei has something to teach us
One of the most interesting Zen masters in my opinion is the 17th century Japanese master Bankei. But I didn’t quite understand his core teaching on “the Unborn” the first time I read it.
His teaching is that we are all the Unborn Buddha Mind, naturally, as a gift from our parents.
It is our inheritance to be Buddhas, we already are Buddhas, but we just don’t see it.
His proof of this claim was in the mind’s (or consciousness’s) ability to know, to think, to understand and differentiate, all on its own. His particular example was to point out to those listening to him that, while listening to him speak, and without trying, the listeners were at the same time hearing the sound of birds, knowing what bird was what, whether a man or woman was speaking and so on.
Consciousness, awareness or the Buddha mind, all functions spontaneously without a little “me” having to do anything.
We just delude ourselves into thinking that this little person, this little “me”, is what does it all.
We believe this little “me” is doing all the smart stuff.
But it doesn’t - it is all happening, marvellously, on its own. “You” don’t have to do anything.
Notice how easily the mind categorises, develops conclusions, is aware, without anyone doing anything.
It is our delusion, the mistaken belief that we somehow own the functioning of the Unborn Buddha Mind, that causes the suffering pattern to arise in that Mind.
If there is no longer a grasping of what arises, a holding on or pushing away, then this natural intelligence works on its own and life is lived. Without “me” doing the living.
This is the spontaneous functioning of the Unborn that we all already are. It is our inheritance. We are Buddha’s, right now, we just have to realise what is already the case.
And, to do that, there needs to be the allowance of the rising and falling of all things without attachment or repulsion.
When I originally read this teaching, I thought, “well, that’s just the working of the unconscious mind, my brain, doing its thing.”
But that is just the same old materialist bias. We take what is most intimate, immediate, and therefore that which we should have highest certainty in, and replace it with less certain materialist philosophy. The working of my mind “is just neurons firing”, the movement of atoms, physics. We believe this to be the case even though science has never been able to explain consciousness, hence the emerging popularity of new paradigms like panpsychism.
No - the working of the Unborn Buddha Mind, this natural Intelligence that lives life as it will, is not “just neurons firing”. That is not our experience, and there is no reason to subordinate our experience to materialist fairy tales.
So now, right here, there is enjoyment of the spontaneous workings of this intelligence, without “me” being involved, without a separate thinker concocting what is going to be said.
This is true freedom, the true freedom of the Unborn.
For more on this, check out the Flow lesson in here.
A very profound teaching - Consciousness, awareness or the Buddha mind, all functions spontaneously without a little “me” having to do anything. Little me becomes simply an instrument thru which the buddha mind expresses. Little me starts to own all the expressions terming them as mine. There is element of truth in it because little me is nothing but the contracted buddha mind, one of its expressions thru which buddha mind says I am doing the expression or i am listening to my expressions thru other expressions of mine. The key is to live this understanding. Which our society doesn't teach. It infact teaches just the reverse and hence we suffer the consequences. Time to change 😌 and live the right understanding 🙏 by realigning our daily practices and how we approach life.
Both buddha mind and little me are part of the same reality but in different states. Each little me appears different from each other due to its unique vibration while the buddha mind behind all little me is the same. Just that our awareness is dominant when little me is active and awake when little me sleeps the buddha mind is active but the experience of buddha mind is lost in sleep while the experience of little me stays days after days. Months after Months and years after years. And this solidifies to make us belive that we are little me. While in truth we are both, with probably buddha mind is our original state. We have completely forgotten that. However conscious sleeping and conscious waking up practice makes me aware of my true buddha nature, when ask this question who is sleeping or who is waking up as I meditate before and after sleep. Over the years this has made me aware of my true positioning around my true self and who others are with whome I interact on a moment to moment basis. They are no one but my own reflection. So as I am writing this, I am writing to myself only. The one who reads is again me, not little me but the buddha mind in me.