The Lazy Way To Enlightenment: Bankei’s Unborn Zen

“The Unborn is not something difficult to attain; it is not something distant. It is not something we have to search for; it is not something we have to discover. It is something we already have, right here, right now.“ - Bankei Yōtaku. Dogen & Hakuin Zen Buddhism is a major school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China and later spread to Japan. The term “Zen“ comes from the Sanskrit word “dhyana,“ which refers to a state of deep meditation and awareness. Zen emphasises the experience of direct, intuitive realisation of the nature of reality and the attainment of spiritual enlightenment. There are two names considered most important to the development of Zen are: Dogen & Hakuin Dogen Kigen (1200-1253) was the founder of Soto Zen. The question that Dogen became obsessed with as a young man and which motivated his search for truth was: Simply put, the answer that Dogen came to was that practice itself was an expression of enlightenment. Because of this c