Dialogues · Poems · Sources
Bankei did not write a self-help system. He answered monks, women, farmers, officials, proud people, grieving people, angry people, and people who wanted the truth without ornament. The record is plain, sharp, compassionate, and often funny.
Begin with Bankei
These two English translations bring you to Bankei’s talks and exchanges with his listeners. Either is a place to begin; their selections and wording differ, so you can return to the other as your reading deepens.
01 · Bankei Yotaku
Translated by Peter Haskel · Edited by Yoshito Hakeda
Recorded sermons and exchanges, with letters and poems. Hear Bankei address the ordinary difficulties of the people who came to listen.
Where to beginStart with “Listen carefully,” included in the publisher’s excerpt. Read slowly, then notice the sounds around you.
02 · Bankei Yotaku
Translated by Norman Waddell
Bankei’s life alongside translations of his talks and dialogues. The revised and expanded edition brings together more of his teaching than the original volume.
Where to beginBegin with Waddell’s introduction, then read the talks in order. Take one exchange at a time and give it room in your day.
Reading order
Take one passage at a time. Follow these links for the teaching, the life behind it, and the wider Buddhist ground.
From the recorded dialogues
These are concise renderings of exchanges preserved in English translations. Consult the listed books for the complete texts and translators’ wording.
A monk
The masters of old reached enlightenment through difficult practice. How can someone like me realize the Unborn without doing the same?
Bankei
A traveler may cross mountains to find water, while companions drink what he brings back and satisfy the same thirst. I struggled because I did not meet a clear-eyed teacher. You do not have to repeat the search once the water has been brought.
A lay woman
If all we do is remain effortlessly in Buddha-mind, is that not too lightweight?
Bankei
You turn Buddha-mind into anger, craving, and foolishness, and call my teaching lightweight. Nothing carries more weight than living without exchanging Buddha-mind for those states.
A layman
By force of habit, second thoughts keep arising and I find it difficult to accord with the Unborn.
Bankei
A recollection is a thought already spent. If you take it up again, you go around in circles. Do not bother with spent thoughts, whether they appear or not.
The assembly
This monk is a thief. He should be expelled from the retreat.
Bankei
If he is sent away, where will he learn? He needs the teaching more than those who already know how to behave.
A monk
How should I prepare for death?
Bankei
Find out who it is that is born. If the Unborn is never born, it cannot die. Seeing this is seeing into your nature.
Song of the Original Mind
Bankei's Honshin no uta is a nearly fifty-verse song composed in Yoshino in 1653. The complete English translation most often cited is Peter Haskel's in Bankei Zen, pages 125-132.
"Unborn and imperishableis the original mind."
That is the actual opening of Haskel's translation. This site quotes only this brief opening and points you to the translation itself instead of reproducing the whole modern text without permission.
The wider Buddhist library
Books are not awakening, but they keep our study from becoming lazy. Read Bankei with the sutras, the ancestors, and good guides beside him.
Begin with early discourses on the path, mind, breathing, and not-self.
Early Buddhist canon
SN 56.11
MN 10
MN 118
SN 22.59
Emptiness, compassion, Buddha-nature, and the literature from which Zen formed.
Prajnaparamita tradition
Prajnaparamita tradition
Huineng tradition
Wumen Huikai
Yuanwu Keqin
Practice, koan, just sitting, awakening, and the arguments around method.
Eihei Dogen
Eihei Dogen
Hakuin Ekaku
Shunryu Suzuki
Philip Kapleau
Accessible, rigorous teaching on interbeing, peace, sitting, and engaged Buddhism.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
Accessible maps of Zen, best read alongside primary texts and communities.
Alan Watts
Walpola Rahula
Rupert Gethin
John McRae