Bassui Zenji also Bassui Tokushō, 1327-87; Japanese Zen master of the Rinzai school and one of the outstanding Zen masters of Japan.
The death of his father when Bassui was seven years old drove him to try to resolve the question of his being. His intensive doubtful questioning (dai-gedan) led him to several enlightenment experiences, but he was never content with what he had attained but rather searched ever deeper. He began searching for a Zen master who could lead him to inner peace. At the age of twenty-nine, he received monastic ordination b ut did not, however, enter a monastery, since he felt no connection to the ritual activity and the comfortable life in many monasteries.
“On his numerous pilgrimages he stubbornly refused to remain overnight in a temple, but insisted on staying in some isolated hut high up on a hill or a mountain, where he would sit hour after hour doing zazen away from the distractions of the temple. To stay awake he would often climb a tree, perch among the branches, and deeply ponder his natural kōan, ‘Who is the master?’ far into the night, oblivious to wind and rain. In the morning, with virtually no sleep or food, he would go to the temple or monastery for an encounter with the master” (Kapleau 1980, p. 165).
Finally he found a master who was right for him, Kohō Zenji. Kohō ultimately led him to profound enlightenment, in which “all his previous concepts, beliefs, and views were entirely annihilated in the fire of his overwhelming experience” and through which his profound doubt finally vanished. After receiving inka-shōmei from Kohō, he continued his life of wandering and for many years opposed the efforts of Zen students to make him their master.
At the age of fifty he finally settled in a hermitage in the mountains, where students soon gathered around him. He now no longer drove them away. Finally he consented to be come abbot of a Zen monastery and there, until his death, he led monks and lay people on the path of Zen. Shortly before passing away at the age of sixty, he sat upright in the lotus position and said to those assembled: “Don’t be fooled! Look closely! What is this?” He repeated this loudly and then calmly died.
Bassui Zenji wrote little, nevertheless his “words of dharma” and the letters he wrote to a number of students are among the most penetrating writings in the literature of Zen. A translation of his “Dharma Talk” and some of his letters can be found in Kapleau 1980.
In a letter to “a man from Kumasaka,” Bassui Zenji wrote: “All phenomena in the world are illusory, they have no abiding substance. Sentient beings no less than Buddhas are like images reflected in water. One who does not see the true nature of things mistakes shadow for substance. This is to say, in zazen the state of emptiness and quiet which results from the diminution of thought is often confused with one’s Face before on e’s parents were born [honrai-no-memmoku]. But this serenity is also a reflection upon the water. You must advance beyond the stage where your reason is of any avail. In this extremity of not knowing what to think or do, ask yourself: ‘Who is the master?’ He will become your intimate only after you have broken a walking stick made from a rabbit’s horn or crushed a chunk of ice in fire. Tell me now, who is this most intimate of yours? Today is the eighth of the month. Tomorrow is the thirteenth!”
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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