Daihō shōgen kokushi hōgo · Butchi kōsai zenji hōgo · Bankei kokushi seppō · Ojimon kikigaki
Daihō shōgen kokushi hōgo · Butchi kōsai zenji hōgo · Bankei kokushi seppō · Ojimon kikigaki
Warning on the state of the sources: the bibliographies and accessible electronic transcriptions of modern edited texts have been checked; page-by-page images of the 1758 woodblock edition and the original manuscripts of Kōrinji / Ryūmonji have not yet been obtained. The online OCR contains misread characters; the short excerpts below are candidate excerpts from verifiable electronic transcriptions, not the result of a completed letter-for-letter collation of the old texts.
Public note on limited evidence: this archive only arranges the modern Japanese transcriptions that can currently be located and their leads back to the primary texts; it has not itself checked the 1758 old woodblock edition or the Kōrinji / Ryūmonji manuscripts. Candidate original sentences carrying OCR noise cannot be equated with “passing letter-for-letter against the old texts”; among them E-29 and E-37 serve only as cards locating missing evidence and are not positive evidence in any direction. What this archive establishes on the basis of argument and the limits of editions is the state of a research text, not an authentication of the original graphic forms of the old books.
One-sentence placement: Bankei defines “the Unborn buddha-mind” as the actual ground that everyone has possessed since birth and that functions when seeing, hearing, sleeping, working and speaking (E-04—E-05, E-12, E-20—E-21, E-25—E-26); he opposes manufacturing the ground through stopping thoughts, sitting meditation, kōans or “making another Unborn mind” (E-08—E-09, E-24, E-27—E-32). Yet he equally requires learners to “believe and grasp it”, to “settle it”, to “not doubt”, and narrates actual liberation through recognizing and not recognizing, drinking and refusing to drink water, becoming a buddha on the spot and continuing to transmigrate (E-14—E-15, E-18—E-19, E-22, E-33, E-36, E-38). Both directions form strong formulations at the completion layer.
This archive uses ② “Direct Seeing of the Ground” (C) as a working index, not a verdict; the ① direction already has systematic positive evidence at the layer of the ending, and cannot simply be called “the substance is originally present”. If the old Japanese texts confirm that “to think of attaining awakening is secondary” and “awakening exists only relative to delusion” belong to the authoritative records, while “settling / believing and grasping” are only naming or skilful means addressed to learners, a reclassification to ① or to a pure ① / ② boundary must be seriously considered.
The most distinctive structure: Bankei even refuses to treat “awakening” as a second thing that needs to be manufactured; yet the same records say again and again that after hearing the dharma, “settling it” lets one immediately cease to be deluded. Here one cannot use the “originally Unborn” side to cancel the other, nor understand “belief” as a newly arising buddha-substance.
T1—T4 mark how reliable material is as evidence for “the historical Bankei’s own thought”; A—D mark the strength of an interpretation or judgment. A only means the surface of the sentence says it directly, and does not imply that the overall classification must be A. T1 in principle requires reliable autograph writing or highly direct contemporary evidence; this archive has not yet obtained any.
T2: Bankei’s orally delivered dharma talks / lecture records collected later, evidence for the author’s thought with layers of transmission; T3: modern editing, printing and online OCR transcription, together with research notes on these texts; T4: later chronologies, accounts of his conduct and legends. When an evidence card is T2, this refers to the transmitted status of the words relied on, and does not mean that we have independently checked the original woodblock.
What this archive confirms is only that “the string is visible in the modern online transcription”, not that “it exists letter for letter in the original manuscript”.
The “original excerpt” preserves short Japanese phrases in older orthography as visible in modern texts; where a character in the OCR is unstable, the card takes a stable short phrase as far as possible and notes the risk. Nowhere has a full quotation been stitched together that has not been seen. Repeated restatements in different modern editions are not counted cumulatively as independent sources.
Main documentary axis: the three transmitted texts of talks in Bankei zenji seppō, edited by Furuta Shōkin with commentary by Suzuki Daisetsu (first edition 1943, new edition 1990). The searchable online transcription comes from a third-party mirror, in which the OCR mixes old kana, block-centre numbers and annotation marks into the text; locations record at once the title of the transmitted text, the neighbouring range of printed pages and a searchable short phrase; where the OCR misaligns preceding and following pages, a range is always used and no line number is invented.
The Nagoya University holdings bibliography indicates that the Daihō shōgen kokushi hōgo is based on a Kōrinji manuscript (with a colophon of copying in Kansei 10, 1798); the base text of another, the Butchi kōsai zenji hōgo, is a copy formerly in Suzuki’s possession made in Meiwa 3 (1766); the third, the Bankei kokushi seppō, belongs to a manuscript system related to Kōrinji. The Ryūmonji system differs from the Kōrinji system, which is exactly why variants need checking. The Ojimon kikigaki printed in Hōreki 8 (1758) of the Edo period can be set up as a separate edition for comparison. The above are facts of bibliography / editorial history, not old texts personally checked by this archive.
The deletion test is carried out in two rounds: the first round deletes any cognizing entity or effort of sitting meditation produced in addition to the buddha-mind, which Bankei explicitly agrees to delete; the second round deletes the actual occurring function of “settling / believing and grasping / not being deluded”. If after this deletion the transmitted accounts of “becoming a buddha immediately”, “belief arising and delusion stopping” and “drinking water to quench thirst” cannot hold, then ② still has a functional break; if this group of terms is only an expedient naming of “the Unborn as originally present”, then the ① direction holds.
• The ground layer: the Unborn buddha-mind is fully present from birth; before any deliberate seeking to know, seeing, hearing and recognition are already at work (E-04—E-05).
• The source of delusion: hatred, love and anger come from habitual tendencies, adventitious dust formed by habits of seeing and hearing; the buddha-mind does not have to wait for habit-energies to disappear in order to hold (E-06—E-07).
• The dismantling layer: forcibly stopping thoughts leads to a “double mind”; sitting in order to obtain a state of awakening, treating the Unborn as a theoretical principle, and using the mind to manufacture another mind are all denied (E-08—E-09, E-24, E-27—E-32).
• Positive self-inclusion: the farmer swinging his hoe, sleeping, speaking, seeing, hearing, perceiving and knowing are all fields where the buddha-mind can operate; sound has not left the Unborn (E-12, E-20—E-21, E-26, E-34).
• The ① chain at the ending: originally a buddha, not newly become one; awakening is a name relative to delusion; seeking awakening is the secondary (E-27—E-32).
• The ② chain at the ending: the actual fork of knowing the buddha-mind, believing and grasping, settling without doubt, not being deluded, the eye opening, becoming a buddha at once (E-14—E-15, E-18—E-19, E-22, E-33, E-36, E-38).
• The layer of textual criticism: these words come from edited talks and lecture records, not from Bankei’s autograph as can presently be verified; they have not passed multi-directional collation against early manuscripts and prints.
Limits of the evidential baseline: E-01—03 are bibliographic / transmission background and cannot be used as three independent pieces of evidence for Bankei’s thought; original excerpts such as E-37, if marked as missing evidence because of OCR misalignment, may not be used as collated original text. The remaining short quotations come from the same third-party modern transcription and have not yet been checked one by one against images of the original woodblock or authoritative printings. “Can be found on the electronic page” means only a locatable working quotation, and is not equal to T1 personal statement by the author or A-grade letter-for-letter collation of the primary text.
The “original excerpt” on each card is only a modern text transcription visible online (for E-01—E-03, original sentences of bibliographic fact stand in), and the wording may not yet be called “identical letter for letter with the 1758 old print”. Daihō = Daihō shōgen kokushi hōgo; Butchi = Butchi kōsai zenji hōgo; Kokushi = Bankei kokushi seppō.
Bibliographic content (not Bankei’s own words): Bankei zenji seppō contains three colloquial dharma talks, with an appended account of his conduct and a brief chronology.
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The Nagoya University bibliography clearly records the manuscript system relied on;
the modern combined volume cannot be regarded as a work written by Bankei himself.
Role here: It carries only facts about sources and is not counted as a claim of his own thought.
What it does not prove / edition limits: A bibliographic fact, not an original sentence of Bankei’s thought.
Bibliographic content (not Bankei’s own words): Bankei Butchi kōsai zenji ojimon kikigaki, two fascicles (upper and lower), printed in Hōreki 8 (1758).
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): CiNii registers this print, titled as related by Bankei. It is a later record, not an edition revised by Bankei himself and printed in his lifetime.
Role here: It carries only facts about sources and is not counted as a claim of his own thought.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This archive has not seen the inner pages of the original print.
Bibliographic content (not Bankei’s own words): Bankei zenji goroku, edited by Suzuki Daisetsu, first edition Iwanami Shoten, 1941.
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The National Diet Library confirms the editor and year of publication; electronic access is currently restricted.
Role here: It carries only facts about sources and is not counted as a claim of his own thought.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The letter-for-letter collation notes of this edition have not been checked, and its printed page numbers cannot be cited in place of the inner pages of the primary text.
Original excerpt: 人々生れ備りたる不生の仏心
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The buddha-mind is not an object produced later through cultivation and realization; this sentence points directly to the ground preceding recognition.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: An online OCR transcription of the edited edition seen today; the images of the Kōrinji manuscript have not been checked.
Original excerpt: 分別巳前に見聞せらる
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The capacity to hear a dog bark and recognize a bird’s call needs no prior preparation of discrimination — an everyday instance of the unborn and luminously clear.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The graphic form 巳 / 已 has not been confirmed against the original print.
Original excerpt: 見習ひ聞習ひ、重畳の気癖となる
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The afflictions are not the core of the original buddha-mind, but habitual tendencies formed by habits of seeing and hearing.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It cannot be directly equated with a theory of the type “delusion too arises from the nature”.
Original excerpt: 気癖の客塵によって
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Describing habit-energies as adventitious dust keeps the buddha-mind itself from being created or cancelled by habit-energies.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The full sentence and the wording of the simile in the manuscript must be checked.
Original excerpt: 起る念をやめんとすれば
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Trying to control thoughts means manufacturing another, controlling mind.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “limits”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: From “do not stop thoughts” one cannot infer that “all cognition in life should be abolished”.
Original excerpt: 二つに成て、安心の期なし
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The intention to stop thoughts divides the mind into what stops and what is stopped, adding an artificial mediation.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “limits”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This sentence is a criticism of stopping thoughts, not a general statement at the completion layer.
Original excerpt: 念は仮の化想也と知て
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): “Knowing” here may be functional discernment, or merely a description of undoing a misrecognition; both readings are kept.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “disputed”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The word “know” may not be raised in advance to a final, necessary cognitive condition.
Original excerpt: 鏡は明にして
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): A mirror can reflect things, yet adds no new substance by reflecting them; this can support the self-inclusion of cognition.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Only a short phrase is quoted; for the completeness of the simile see the full text on the same page.
Original excerpt: 只百姓の所作を余念なく勤る
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The farmer’s labour is placed within “the mind-activity of the Unborn”; accomplishment does not consist in withdrawing from actual practice.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: “No other thoughts” may not be expanded into having no capacity for discrimination at all.
Original excerpt: 今始めて叶様はなし
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Because one already has the Unborn buddha-mind from birth, the idea of “only now coming into accord” does not hold.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It must still be read with the distinction drawn later in the text between anger and delusion.
Original excerpt: 疑をなし水を飲まざる人の、かわきやむべき様なし
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The same water is already present, yet there is an actual difference between drinking and not drinking; at the level of the learner this is a strong contrast for ②.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The quoted sentence comes from an online transcription; the original manuscript has not been checked.
Collation note: The drinking-water simile points to a real experiential fork, “the same Unborn is available, yet some have not yet practised / believed and grasped it”; but if “drinking” is only accepting the teaching in faith, this card does not independently prove that the learner must additionally produce a new buddha-nature. The original wording of the simile and this archive’s interpretation are first distinguished; it is provisionally recorded as a structural candidate in the ② direction at C.
Controlled falsification criterion: If a reliable early text defines “drinking water” only as provisional acceptance in faith or uses it to oppose ascetic practice, without the completion definition “stopping delusion / becoming a buddha”, E-14 is lowered to an expedient for the audience and may not independently bear load;
only if the same passage directly marks off present ultimate freedom from delusion by drinking and not drinking does it constitute a necessary function for ②. The context in the old print has not been checked; for now this card is only C-grade side evidence from a simile.
Original excerpt: 自心の仏を見出し
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Even while denying that arduous effort is necessary, he still described the occurrence of recognizing the buddha of his own mind.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The self-account is transmitted in the records of dharma talks; it is not a diary written by Bankei himself.
Original excerpt: 仏語祖語を引て人に聞かせぬ也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The manner of discussion reflects on the relation between his own teaching and the words of the buddhas and patriarchs, constituting self-reflexivity.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “limits”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This is a linguistic strategy, not sufficient evidence of an ontological self-inclusion in which “speech is within the Unborn”.
Original excerpt: 只親の産附た仏心の外には、余の物は一つもなし
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): With a thoroughly monist formulation, it embraces the everyday life of living and the original buddha-mind together.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It does not directly argue the functional result that the deluded have already realized non-delusion.
Original excerpt: 知らざる故、種種に迷ひ流転する也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): “Not knowing” does not mean the buddha-mind is absent, but is the differentiating condition of delusion and transmigration.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: To prove ②, a positive condition of completion — “in what does delusion stop” — is still needed.
Original excerpt: 信心起れば、迷はず覚悟になり
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): After the habits of delusion, there is a describable transformation in which faith arises and one awakens to non-delusion.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: “Faith arising” is not necessarily a newly added entity or a forced act of intention.
Original excerpt: 寝れば仏心で寝
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The sleep of one who has confirmed the Unborn is taken into the everyday operation of the buddha-mind.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This item has the premise “already settled”, and cannot be taken as unconditioned completion for everyone.
Collation note: “寝れば仏心で寝” (“when you sleep, you sleep with the buddha-mind”) together with E-21’s “語れば仏心で語り” can be used for ①’s positive internal placement of everyday activities, but the passage is conditioned in advance on listeners who have already “settled the Unborn”, and cannot be extended without qualification to all who have not believed. If the conditional clause can be seen in an early transmitted text, this qualification must be kept on the same page.
Ruling on self-inclusion: The positive placement “sleeping / speaking belong to the buddha-mind” holds at least in the context of listeners who have “already settled the Unborn”; it cannot be extended to the claim that the speech and sleep of all who have not believed are already ultimate, still less can one infer from it that the later edited text of this book is the speech of the dharma-buddha itself. ① self-inclusion holds in a limited way; the overall classification still depends on the fork of belief / delusion at the completion layer.
Original excerpt: 語れば仏心で語り
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): “Speaking” does not necessarily withdraw from the ground; cognition, language and life can all be positively taken in.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The surrounding text restricts this to “people who have settled the Unborn buddha-mind”, which must be kept.
Collation note: The judgment of “self-inclusion of speech” should distinguish (1) the activity of speaking being said to be an operation within the buddha-mind, from (2) whether the speech made by this book and all deluded speech are also unconditionally and positively taken in. The former has a short phrase visible in the transcription; the latter is not stated directly. Self-inclusion may neither be denied as zero nor expanded without condition.
Original excerpt: 此の趣きを決定して疑ひなければ
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): This passage links “settling without doubt” with the function of the clear eye, an explicit fork at the completion layer.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Whether “settling” can be read as an additional, necessary cognitive mediation still requires the full context.
Original excerpt: 念は元来生れ附きなき
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Deluded thoughts are not part of the original buddha-mind, showing the later-arising character of delusion.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Thinking activity itself must be distinguished from clinging habits.
Original excerpt: 妄想をしずめんと思ふも妄想也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): It directly dismantles the second mind, self-control and the accumulation of effort.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “limits”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It is not a blanket denial of every form of practice.
Original excerpt: 損もなく、只寝入たるまで也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): That discrimination is not manifest in sleep does not lessen the Unborn buddha-mind — the most suitable test of “whether awareness maintains the ground”.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This question and answer does not concern the completion of ethical choice after waking.
Original excerpt: 一念不生にて働けども
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The recognition by eye and ear in life is not preceded by an operation of “producing a thought”.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: “Not a single thought arising” is not a direct affirmation of the extinction of consciousness.
Original excerpt: 悟らんと思ふは、第二に落たる
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Even the setting “I want to awaken” may add a further layer of erroneous mediation, a real challenge to ②.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction at the completion layer”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It must be read together with “settling and becoming a buddha”, and may not be extracted alone.
Collation note: “Wishing to awaken, one falls instead into the secondary” is direct pressure from ① at the completion layer, not merely an ordinary admonition against strenuous effort. It dismantles explaining the ultimate by pursuing a later-obtained state of awakening; if ② holds, it can only be the functional fork of “actual non-delusion / settling”, not the manufacture of a new awakening. The graphic form of this sentence still awaits checking against a reliable Japanese base text.
Final ruling: E-27 directly opposes “raising a mind that seeks awakening in order to obtain a future state of awakening”; it does not directly declare that every actual difference between awakening and not awakening, believing and not believing, can be deleted. It is strong positive evidence in the ① direction against fabricated completion, but has not yet independently passed the deletion test for the function of “settling / non-delusion”.
The original sentence is still a modern OCR candidate reading, not fixed against the old print.
Original excerpt: 本来仏なれば、今始て仏になるにあらず
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): This sentence directly denies a newly added buddha-substance, and is ①’s most powerful candidate at the ending.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction at the completion layer”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Even with nothing newly made, it does not directly exclude the occurrence of actual non-delusion.
Collation note: “Originally a buddha, not becoming a buddha only now” directly denies “newly producing a buddha through effort”, and supports ① at the completion layer. The ② interpretation cannot easily smooth this away with the single phrase that the original buddha belongs only to the substance layer; the dispute lies in “whether those who have not believed are already ultimately free from delusion”.
Final ruling: E-28 denies the acquired production of a buddha-substance, and does not automatically deny the actual boundary between those not yet settled who are still deluded and those already settled who are not deluded.
“The buddha-substance is not newly made” and “delusion has already stopped” belong respectively to the layers of the ground and of completion; whether the two layers can be wholly identical within the Unborn remains a C-grade boundary dispute.
Original excerpt: ［缺证：网络OCR跨栏错序，不作逐字引文］
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): Not a blanket opposition to sitting;
he opposes turning sitting meditation into a mechanism for making a buddha.
Role here: For now it only records a research question about sitting meditation awaiting checking, and the missing-evidence quotation is not used as load-bearing for any six-position classification.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Individual graphic forms in the electronic transcription are garbled; the whole sentence awaits checking against old texts.
Original excerpt: 悟は迷に対しての事也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): It lowers awakening from an ultimate first principle to a relational concept set up with respect to delusion.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction at the completion layer”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It opposes reifying “awakening” here once again into a ground higher than the buddha-mind.
Original excerpt: 心上に心を生じ、不生にならうとするは、誤なり
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): It denies the cognitive construction work of “making the originally Unborn become unborn”.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction at the completion layer”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Whether it also denies “changing the deluded state after affirming the Unborn” is still disputed.
Original excerpt: 不生には理はなき也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): It applies self-reflexivity to the name of the ground itself: even “the principle of the Unborn” may not become a second thing.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “limits”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: “No principle” may not be read as denying all concrete explanation.
Original excerpt: 信て疑はざる所、即成仏也
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The teaching explicitly links becoming a buddha with a certain believing and grasping, and not doubting.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Whether this is only naming rather than new becoming constitutes the key dispute.
Collation note: If the graphic form of “信て疑はざる所、即成仏也” is verified, it will directly provide the ② direction with a completion stipulation on “whether the learner becomes a buddha”. But “即” (“itself / at once”) may also be the conferral of a name on the original buddha, and does not automatically equal adding a new buddha-fruit. This must be read together with E-27 / E-28 / E-30; ② (C) and the open boundary are maintained for now.
Original excerpt: 見聞の主と尋る者と二つなし
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The seeker has no external status separate from the master of seeing and hearing.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “positive evidence for the ① direction”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The wording of the whole passage on what follows, “manifest in the seeing, hearing, perceiving and knowing of the six senses”, must be checked.
Original excerpt: 不生の仏心で居さっしやれば
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The already fully present buddha-mind is directly called the place to rest in practice;
whether “居る” (“to abide”) is a demand for action or a name that revokes action requires the deletion test.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “disputed”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: This is a re-edited text of the transmission relied on by Kōrinji / Suzuki; the original manuscript has not been checked.
Original excerpt: 不生な事を決定めされば
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The text links settling the Unborn with tranquillity and with the clear-eyed function of seeing into people’s minds.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: The different accounts are related to the Daihō shōgen kokushi hōgo and are not an independent authorial source.
Original excerpt: ［缺证：网络OCR“まひとつ”等字形不稳，不作逐字引文］
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): There is no second buddha to be produced outside the buddha-mind; this presses directly on whether the function claimed by ② can ultimately be deleted.
Role here: This may belong to positive evidence for the ① direction at the completion layer, but the original text is missing evidence, so for now it can only serve as a hypothesis awaiting checking and is not counted in any established chain of evidence.
What it does not prove / edition limits: It contains the OCR-suspect string “まひとつ”; only the verifiable short phrase is taken as a candidate, which must be read against the original images.
Original excerpt: 一度にて此道理を覚悟なされば
Translation / gloss (this archive’s trial rendering): The link between “一度覚悟” (“awakening once”) and “今日より仏” (“a buddha from today”) is evidence at the completion layer from a different passage of the same transmission.
Role here: The load-bearing direction is “supports ②”; but its concrete force within the system must be cross-checked against the cards pointing the other way.
What it does not prove / edition limits: Other transmitted texts of talks orally delivered by the same author are not to be counted cumulatively as independent sources of thought.
| Term / visible original wording | This archive’s gloss | Forbidden leaps |
|---|---|---|
| Unborn / 不生の仏心 (the Unborn buddha-mind) | The buddha-mind not generated by later-arising thoughts | Does not mean the absence of the functions of seeing and hearing |
| 霊明 (luminous clarity) | Able to see, hear and recognize; not static void | May not be directly reified into an inner observer |
| 気癖 (habitual tendencies) | Acquired conditioning and habitual reactions | Not the substantial structure of the innate buddha-mind |
| 決定／信得 (settling / believing and grasping) | Certainty about and acceptance in faith of the Unborn; or the practical state of actual non-delusion | One cannot say a substance has been newly added on the strength of the word “faith” alone |
| Term / visible original wording | This archive’s gloss | Forbidden leaps |
|---|---|---|
| 悟／覚悟／成仏 (awakening / becoming awake / becoming a buddha) | Terms relative to delusion, also usable for actual release from delusion | The original buddha and actual release from delusion may not be wholly conflated |
| 見聞 (seeing and hearing) | Recognition that occurs without prior intention | Not a theoretical stipulation that all perception is already ultimate |
| 心上に心 (a mind upon the mind) | Using a second mind to manufacture the original Unborn | What is denied is ultimately the superfluous mind, not all discrimination |
| Term / visible original wording | This archive’s gloss | Forbidden leaps |
|---|---|---|
| 佛語祖語 (words of buddhas and patriarchs) | The traditional form of discourse on which Bankei reflects | Refusing to cite does not mean denying language itself |
The ground is not in a newly formed self-knowledge, but in the Unborn buddha-mind with which everyone is born fully endowed. Seeing colours, hearing birdsong and a dog’s bark, do not require first forming the intention “I will discriminate”; this does not place the ground outside experience — on the contrary, it uses actual everyday discrimination to point to the luminous operation of the buddha-mind (E-04—E-05). When in deep sleep awareness is temporarily not manifest, the text still says the buddha-mind is not diminished (E-25), so that the Unborn is not equated with a waking act maintained with continual tension.
① has systematic positive evidence: the Unborn has never been produced, and has never been made to hold by empirical recognition; the original buddha does not suddenly become another buddha through practice; trying to make oneself unborn only forms a second mind (E-27—E-32). Yet that the buddha-mind constantly holds does not automatically mean that every learner is presently free from delusion: habitual tendencies and conditioning, and settling upon hearing the dharma, still produce differences (E-06—E-07, E-18—E-19).
Gate for classificatory evidence: ①’s completion-layer evidence is explicit: seeking awakening is secondary, the original buddha is not newly made, awakening is spoken of only relative to delusion. ②’s strongest candidate is the difference made by settling, not doubting and actual non-delusion; if this fork is deleted, the teaching context of the extant transcription has an explanatory break. However, the modern transcription shows OCR noise, and it is not yet possible to judge reliably the specific order of these parallel sentences in the early lecture records;
therefore at present ② (C) is only a working filing, ① / ② is genuinely open, and the number of 38 cards may not be mistaken for “a sufficient level of evidence”.
Independence and accounting of missing evidence｜E-29 and E-37 are missing-evidence cards that merely hold positions awaiting checking, and are wholly excluded from the load-bearing chains of both ① and ②. Most of the remaining working short quotations come from the same third-party electronic transcription; although the modern bibliographies point to several historical systems of dharma talks, until each is matched to an old text they may not be counted as independent witnesses across base texts. “Coexistence” in the text only means that a real tension exists within this modern transcription, and may not be inflated into independent confirmation by several historical texts.
E-08—E-09 and E-31 oppose stopping and controlling thoughts and producing a second mind, and E-27—E-28 deny “seeking awakening” and “newly becoming a buddha”; this stage of the test clearly passes. Any scheme that relies on sitting meditation to forge a new buddha-mind, or on external mystical knowledge to complete the ground, is withdrawn by the text.
E-14’s “drinking and refusing to drink water”, E-19’s “because faith arises one is not deluded”, E-22’s “settling without doubt is the clear eye”, E-33’s “believing without doubt is itself becoming a buddha” and E-38’s “awakening once, one is a buddha from today” show breaks in the narrative once the corresponding function is deleted. But whether they are already “the ultimate” rather than an expedient naming is exactly what E-27—E-32 attack head-on. This draft does not force a raise to B.
If earlier witnesses of the oral teaching are found that explicitly say “even without believing / without cutting off habitual tendencies, one has already actually attained the completion of present non-delusion”, ① rises; if the same transmitted text explicitly states that “although the buddha-mind is originally present, delusion truly stops only after settling, and this relation is not an expedient”, the strength of ② rises.
Self-reflexivity: in E-16—E-17 the author criticizes merely citing the traditional words of buddhas and patriarchs, and E-32 further says that “the Unborn” may not be fixed again into “a set of principles of the Unborn” — bringing his own highest formulation back under scrutiny. Self-inclusion: E-20—E-21 positively take the occurrences of sleeping, speaking and so on into the buddha-mind, E-12 takes the activity of hoeing into the mind-activity of the Unborn; E-04—E-05 also place natural seeing and hearing in the ground. This is not a substitute for self-reflexivity; both dimensions must be argued separately.
Limits: these everyday-speech sentences carry the opening condition “people who have settled the Unborn buddha-mind”; one cannot delete the condition and claim that deluded utterances at every moment are already ultimate; moreover, whether this book, compiled and recorded by disciples, can itself enter “buddha-mind speech” with its own language cannot be inferred automatically from “語れば” (“when you speak”).
Bankei says “awakening is spoken of only relative to delusion” (E-30), and explicitly judges “悟らんと思ふ” (“thinking to attain awakening”) to be secondary (E-27); this is a negation at ①’s completion layer stronger than an ordinary doctrine of the prior existence of the substance. But in the same oral tradition, becoming a buddha can also be defined as “believing without doubt” (E-33), with the simile that those who drink water, whether or not they have practised austerities, alike quench their thirst, while those who refuse to drink remain thirsty (E-14). Therefore the question is not necessarily which of ① and ② “has more evidence”, but whether practical non-delusion can become an ultimate function that cannot be deleted.
Two errors must be guarded against here at the same time: reading “the Unborn buddha-mind is originally present” as the learner already being completely free from delusion; and reading “settling” as a cognitive entity independent of and outside the ground. By the functional criterion of v1.3, the second error cannot be dissolved by “cognition is still within the Unborn”: a function that is internal may still be impossible to delete.
| Candidate | Strength | Reason for the judgment |
|---|---|---|
| ① The Occurring Itself | C (serious competitor) | From never newly becoming a buddha, to language, labour and sleep all belonging to the Unborn, to seeking awakening falling into the secondary; if the deletion genuinely passes, ① has a complete structure. |
| ② Direct Seeing of the Ground | C (provisional index) | Believing and grasping on hearing the dharma, settling without doubt, being a buddha on the spot still retain an actual difference, but they hold at the same time as “awakening exists only relative to delusion”. |
| ③ Inquiring into the Ground | D / not adopted | His perplexity over “bright virtue” was the starting point of his personal study; in the end he explicitly stipulates the Unborn, and does not take continued inquiry as the endpoint. |
| Candidate | Strength | Reason for the judgment |
|---|---|---|
| ④ Explaining the World | D / not adopted | Explanations of habit-energies, sounds and so on are supporting evidence, not the main object at the ending. |
| ⑤ Experiencing the World | D / not adopted | Even though everyday experience is rich, the final placement is still by the Unborn / delusion and awakening. |
| ⑥ Living in the World | D / not adopted | Hoeing and sleeping are examples and modes of practice, but the normative ordering of worldly action is not taken as the highest completion. |
Provisional form: ② “Direct Seeing of the Ground” (C)｜the ① / ② boundary is substantively open. C here is the strength of interpretation, not the documentary reliability of T2. There is no evidence sufficient to declare a ② (B) or ① (A) classification.
The achievement is not making a second buddha; the text says explicitly that the original buddha is not newly made; but in the learner’s concrete life there occur changes such as the settling of non-delusion, reactions no longer being dragged by habitual tendencies, and tranquil belief grasped on the spot. Bankei’s distinctiveness is that, after withdrawing the deepest structure, he does not let the functions of life withdraw: present seeing and hearing, labour and speech all belong to the places where the Unborn buddha-mind may occur.
One must avoid misrepresenting “easy / no hardship needed” as “no actual distinction needed at all”. The water simile does remove the threshold of “austerities first being necessary”, yet at the same time says “refusing to drink, one cannot quench one’s thirst” — precisely the most valuable competing case for the deletion test.
Strongest objection: The three sentences “thinking to attain awakening is secondary”, “the original buddha is not newly made” and “awakening exists only relative to delusion” directly cancel the cognitive operation required for becoming a buddha; they should not be described merely as a doctrine of original endowment.
Provisional reply: The substantive holding of the ① direction at the completion layer is accepted; ② retains only the functional fork of “settling / non-delusion / seeing into people’s minds”, and it cannot at present be determined which layer has ultimate priority.
Strongest objection: If faith arises, one settles without doubt and becomes a buddha immediately, then positing no cognitive mediation could not explain why delusion stops.
Provisional reply: This break is accepted as a real difficulty; but “believing and grasping” may be a settling and a recognition rather than a newly added substance, and different records may emphasize talk at the practical level differently.
Strongest objection: The natural discrimination of a dog’s bark and a bird’s call is still awareness; the highest may be defined by luminous clarity, which may be only a new name for ②.
Provisional reply: The highest name is not directly reified;
what is tested is where the operation of discrimination is placed and whether the buddha-mind persists in the absence of awareness; the question and answer on deep sleep is an important piece of counter-evidence.
Strongest objection: The layering of later-compiled oral lecture records, later prints and modern electronic mirrors means that the original sentences cannot directly prove the historical Bankei.
Provisional reply: Second-hand originals are not taken as first-hand autographs; this archive is published as a research text of limited evidence based on electronic transcriptions, with clear edition notes and requirements for external checking against images, and its philosophical provisional judgment is only a candidate.
Strongest objection: Speaking, seeing and knowing are all within the buddha-mind; the teaching in the book should also belong to the ground, so ① needs no recognition.
Provisional reply: The strong internal placement of everyday language is acknowledged, but it is expressed under the condition of “those already settled”; the compilation and transcription of the book are not necessarily equal to the speech of the dharma-body, and condition and identity must still be distinguished.
Strongest objection: The water simile says that others practise austerities for many years, while the listener sitting and drinking water can quench his thirst just the same, which seems to overturn the necessity of practice.
Provisional reply: Austerities and the accumulation of effort can be deleted; but “whether one drinks the water” is still an actual difference, and no longer practising austerities cannot automatically be equated with there no longer being a function of completion.
No.08 Huangbo’s “no-mind” and Bankei’s “Unborn buddha-mind” both have the direction of removing added cognitive operations, but their textual transmissions and periods differ, and Huangbo’s classification cannot be used to prove Bankei’s.
No.11 Fazang discusses “arising not apart from the nature / whether arising occurs at the level of ordinary beings”, Bankei discusses “the original buddha / believing and grasping actual non-delusion”; both must avoid mistaking the internal belonging of the substance for the deletability of a function. No.14 Longchenpa’s “realization and non-realization are not two” and Bankei’s “awakening is relative to delusion” can be set up as a structural comparison, but similar wording may not be used to judge transmission or direct influence.
No.16 Milarepa and No.17 Sengzhao have their own complete research archives; this archive does not reclassify Bankei by cross-figure analogy of vocabulary, and the reliability of transmission and the conditions of completion of the three textual systems are adjudicated separately.
What does Bankei ultimately dismantle? He dismantles using a second mind to manufacture the Unborn, producing a buddha through the accumulation of austerities, replacing one’s own mind with traditional recorded sayings, and congealing the noun “Unborn” into a theoretical entity.
What does Bankei ultimately keep? He keeps the luminously clear buddha-mind present from birth, the function of everyday seeing and hearing, and the talk of “believing and grasping / settling” by which the learner passes from delusion to non-delusion.
The most important judgment of this archive is not to force a victory for ① or ②, but to fix the position that truly awaits decision: can the Unborn that is already present at the same time accommodate the conditional fork of the learner’s actual delusion / non-delusion? E-27—E-32 directly challenge the fork as the highest; E-14, E-19, E-22, E-33 and E-38 do not let the fork fall wholly to zero. At present it is filed as ② (C), with ① / ② substantively open.
Status of the content: this archive takes ② (C), an open ① / ② boundary and the documentary uncertainty of the existing online transcriptions as its limited-evidence research content. Letter-for-letter authentication against the old texts is still missing evidence, and this page is prominently marked as an “electronic-transcription limited-evidence research edition”; if authoritative old texts or key variants are obtained, a reopening of the edition will be initiated, rather than presenting the present OCR candidate sentences as a final established text.
Boundary of use｜This page is a limited-evidence research edition with a prominent source warning, for reading and collation; it is not “the final critical edition of Bankei’s old texts”. The missing-evidence marks on the missing-evidence cards may not be removed, nor may provisional OCR wording be automatically raised to T1 or to A-grade quotations from the original print.
Gate for documentary evidence: this archive must still keep three layers apart — old prints / holdings records that existed historically (bibliographic facts), the text of the modern edited Bankei zenji seppō (possibly rearranged), and the third-party online transcription with OCR errors (the actual witness for the excerpts in this archive). No layer can prove every character of the third layer correct on the strength of the existence of the preceding one. It is recommended that the complete same-source passages of E-27—E-33 and the contexts of E-14, E-19 and E-22 be listed as the priority group for manual collation; where images cannot be found, the corresponding cards may for now not serve as load-bearing evidence.
Independent bibliographic records: (1) Nagoya University Academic Digital Archive, holdings page for Bankei zenji seppō: https://da.adm.thers.ac.jp/item/n004-20230901-00983;
(2) CiNii, Bankei Butchi kōsai zenji ojimon kikigaki of Hōreki 8: https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB2309716X; (3) NDL, Bankei zenji goroku edited by Suzuki Daisetsu, 1941: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000039-I1040775.
Leads for reading the modern text: Bankei zenji seppō, edited by Furuta Shōkin with commentary by Suzuki Daisetsu; online third-party text transcription https://dokumen.pub/38612851ae61d0678c352df16e55cf64.html. It has a great deal of OCR layout noise and cannot be regarded as an authoritative letter-for-letter base text; all quotations are working short quotations, not re-checked sentence by sentence against paper scans.
Conditions for future reopening / upgrading to a critical edition of the old texts: (a) the original print or key paper passages of the upper and lower fascicles of the 1758 Ojimon kikigaki; (b) variants of the Kōrinji / Ryūmonji Hōgo; (c) records of the normalization in the 1941 / 1943 editing; (d) the exact page numbers and transmitted text for each protected field; (e) once evidence is obtained, correcting the candidate transcriptions sentence by sentence and re-checking the classification. Until then, this archive must be prominently marked as an electronic-transcription limited-evidence research edition; it may not claim that the images of the old print have been verified letter for letter, nor may E-29 and E-37 be counted as positive evidence from the original text.