Bankei Yotaku

"I felt a strange sensation in my throat. I spat against a wall. A mass of black phlegm large as a soapberry rolled down the side...Suddenly, just at that moment...I realized what it was that had escaped me until now: All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn [the Eternal, Absolute, Open, Infinite Awareness].” “It struck me like a thunderbolt that I had never been born, and that my birthlessness could settle any and every matter.” “don’t get born,” i.e., don’t take on seriously even for a moment any false, limiting identifications of being a man, a woman, a Buddhist, a Confucian, good, bad, old, young, angry, elated, mortal body or even a distinct, immortal soul."

- Bankei Yōtaku, Zen Master of the “Unborn”