True Image:

Celebrating the Legacy of Yinyuan Longqi (Ingen Ryuki) and the Art of Ōbaku

Celebrating the Legacy of Yinyuan Longqi (Ingen Ryuki) and the Art of Ōbaku

NOTHING by Bankei Yōtaku

NOTHING
Bankei Yōtaku 盤珪永琢 (1622-1693)

Japan, Edo Period (1615-1868)
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
33 x 52 cm; 24.7 x 67.1 cm (mounted)
Collection of Stuart Katz
無生法忍
NOTHING
Arises, patient acceptance
—trans. adapted from Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

Bankei’s genius was to convey his own enlightenment experience to a wide audience via lectures on
the concept of the “Unborn,” which he often wrote as 不生. Here, brushing a classic Buddhist
phrase, he energetically evokes the qualities of patience and acceptance of the non-arising of
phenomena (法) critical to the bodhisattva path. Bankei was a Rinzai Zen monk whose connection to
Obaku Zen was as a disciple of Daozhe Chaoyuan, an early Obaku abbot and the calligrapher of
“Within the moon” also in ROOM 2.

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