Bankei was sort of the Krishnamurti of Zen patriarchs. Since his own awakening, so he thought, required no method or effort, he felt duty-bound to preach: "To attain the truth today all one needs is self-criticism. There's no need to talk about Buddhism and Zen...all of you have the buddha-mind." Same, too, with K, who left the Theosophists and for the remainder of his life seemed to spurn any tradition. He basically preached a doctrine of "choiceless" awareness. Both men drew big crowds and, from what I've read, little in generating realization amongst their followers. Bankei's sect died out after his death, and I'm seeing far fewer of K's books in the stores these days. I think both men overlooked Ramakrishna's approach of different strokes for different folks or Jesus' selective shout-out to "those who have ears to hear." Personally, I needed a huge smack in the ass from life to dislodge me from my conditioned ego, and I have benefited greatly from slow and steady meditation (which is largely superfluous lately).
Today every word of B + K rings true, but 30 years ago they would have been just so much nonsense. I see the inbred resistance each time I try to convey something of this to family members: vehemence or a pitying assumption that Daddy's high again. It's like asking a blind man to visualize something. The difference is that the blind man's eyes are irreversibly damaged, while our intuitive, spiritual eye is merely dormant, asleep.
"Remain firmly in the self-sufficient budding-mind of non-birth." Bankei
This command is as clear to me as being told to stand up on two legs - when I am already doing so! I just hadn't noticed until you told me.
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