the Unborn

What every one of you has got from your parents in no other than the Buddha-mind, and this mind has never been born and is full of wisdom and illumination. As it is never born, it never dies...and by this unborn Buddha-mind all things are perfectly well managed.

When you were coming this way to hear my sermon, or as you are actually listening to it, suppose you hear a bell or a crow. You at once recognize that the bell is ringing or the crow is crying, and you do not make any mistake. It is the same with your seeing: you pay no attention to a certain thing, but when you see it you at once know what it is.

It is the Unborn in you that is performing all these miracles, and as long as you are all like that, you cannot deny the Unborn, which is the Buddha-mind, bright and illuminating.


--- Bankei