Some wisdom from the Zen Master Bankei

dennis60

As Bankei saw it, the whole approach of koan Zen was hopelessly contrived. He rejected the need for familiarity with classical Chinese as an unnecessary encumbrance, and rejected the koan itself as artificial technique. The original koans, he argued, were not "models" but actual living events. The old masters had simply responded to particular situations that confronted them, naturally accomadating themselves to the needs of the students involved. That was the business of any Zen teacher, to meet each situation on its own terms. There was no need to make people study the words of ancient Chinese monks when you could simply have them look at their own "cases", the way in which the Unborn was at work here and now in the actual circumstances of there lives. This is what Bankei called his "direct" teaching, as opposed to koan practice, which he referred disparagingly as "studying old waste paper." The koan, Bankei said, was merely a device, and teachers who relied on it, or on any other technique, were practicing "Devices Zen" Why rely on a device, he argued, when you could have the thing itself?


found at....http://books.google.com/books?id=DEuYPXTBlN8C&pg=PR35&lpg=PR35&dq=%22studying+old+waste+paper%22&source=bl&ots=LF-tUo7GQK&sig=D0oFURYe_lVCOF9mTT2f9wMrlCQ#v=onepage&q=%22studying%20old%20waste%20paper%22&f=false
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