Song of Original Mind

Link : http://www.scribd.com/doc/24007756/Song-of-Original-Mind

Bankei Yōtaku, also known as Kokushi (1622-93), was an acclaimed Japanese Zen master of the Rinzai tradition (tracing back to the great 9th century Chinese Ch’an master Linji), and abbot of the Myōshinji, Nyōhoji, Kōrinji, and Ryōmonji monasteries in Japan. Bankei is renowned for the emphasis in his talks on the “Unborn” (Fu-shō) Buddha-mind or Buddha-nature, the birthless, deathless, timeless, spaceless, boundless Awareness-Isness-Aliveness, Our Real Identity. Bankei’s brilliance and directness is reminiscent of the style and approach of the ancient Chinese Ch’an Buddhist masters of the T’ang Dynasty. The eminent Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki said of Bankei “… in the whole history of Zen, both in China and Japan, there is none, it may be said, who has displayed so independent a view as Bankei.”

In the mountains of Yōshino, in 1653, while living in silent retreat, Bankei composed some Buddhist songs on the Unborn, including his nearly 50-verse Song of the Original Mind (Honshin no uta). The song was apparently composed for the children and adults of Yōshino who were suffering from drought--and a plentiful rainfall followed their recitation of it. Some cogent verses communicating his deep Zen wisdom are as follows (in a translation by Peter Haskel[5]):