If there were an Ascension Leaderboard, I think Bankei Yōtaku would be sitting at the top.
Not because he accumulated the most mystical experiences.
Not because he built the most elaborate philosophy.
Not because he mastered the greatest number of practices.
Quite the opposite.
He seems to have found the shortest path by removing almost everything that could get in the way.
Bankei’s teaching of the Unborn is almost offensively simple: the Buddha-mind is already present. You do not need to manufacture it. You do not need to become somebody worthy of it. You do not need to construct a special spiritual identity and then spend twenty years polishing it.
You are already there.
And that makes Bankei a fascinating candidate for the imaginary competition of spiritual advancement.
Because if the objective is awakening with the least unnecessary machinery, Bankei’s method is difficult to beat.
No enormous cosmology.
No complicated hierarchy.
No requirement to become an expert in sacred texts.
No elaborate identity to adopt.
No spiritual achievement badge to pin to your chest.
Just:
Stop interfering with what is already here.
That is an astonishingly short instruction for something humans have spent thousands of years making extraordinarily complicated.
The Fastest Route
Imagine that enlightenment is a mountain.
Some traditions hand you a map.
Some give you climbing equipment.
Some teach you the history of the mountain.
Some teach you seventeen different breathing techniques for climbing it.
Some tell you which clothes enlightened people wear.
Some build monasteries halfway up the mountain.
Some debate whether the mountain technically exists.
Bankei looks at the mountain and says:
You are already standing on it.
And then he tells you to stop making the journey harder than it is.
That is why I give him the gold medal.
If we’re measuring distance traveled, perhaps someone else wins.
If we’re measuring amount of doctrine accumulated, Bankei certainly doesn’t.
If we’re measuring number of spiritual techniques mastered, he is going to have a rough time competing.
But if we’re measuring how efficiently someone points a human being toward the thing itself, Bankei is terrifyingly efficient.
He doesn’t seem particularly interested in helping you become an impressive spiritual person.
He wants you to stop missing what you already are.
That’s a hell of a shortcut.
The Least Dogma
There is another reason I put Bankei at the top.
The more elaborate a spiritual system becomes, the easier it becomes to confuse the map with the territory.
You start learning what an awakened person is supposed to look like.
Then you learn what an awakened person is supposed to believe.
Then you learn the correct vocabulary.
Then you learn the correct practices.
Eventually, you can become extraordinarily good at being someone who is seeking awakening.
And that can become its own cage.
Bankei cuts through much of that.
The Unborn does not need you to construct a new spiritual self.
In fact, the construction of that self can become precisely what obscures the thing you’re looking for.
So Bankei’s great trick is almost anti-spiritual.
He gives you less.
Less machinery.
Less identity.
Less striving.
Less conceptual furniture.
And somehow, by taking things away, he gives you a clearer view.
And Therefore… Bankei Wins.
But here is where the joke gets beautiful.
Bankei is the winner of the Ascension Leaderboard.
And Bankei would probably tell me to throw the leaderboard away.
That’s the paradox.
I have just taken a teaching whose power partly comes from refusing unnecessary spiritual status games and turned it into a competition.
“Congratulations, Bankei. You have achieved first place in not caring about first place.”
Which is hilarious.
And yet…
I don’t think the irony invalidates the ranking.
That’s the interesting part.
Because saying “Bankei would reject the leaderboard” does not somehow mean “therefore Bankei isn’t the winner.”
Those are two different things.
He can simultaneously be the person who wins the imaginary contest and the person least interested in participating in it.
In fact, that’s probably part of why he wins.
The leaderboard is useful as a metaphor.
It becomes dangerous when we start believing the metaphor is real.
The Winner Doesn’t Need the Trophy
There is something deeply funny about spiritual attainment.
The ego wants to win enlightenment.
It wants to become the most awakened person in the room.
It wants a certificate.
It wants witnesses.
It wants somebody to say:
“Yes. You made it.”
And then along comes Bankei with essentially:
Who is this “you” that needs to win?
Oof.
There goes the trophy.
And yet, strangely, that makes the trophy even more deserved.
Because if we define the competition as:
Who can point toward freedom while creating the least unnecessary bondage?
Bankei has a very strong case.
He doesn’t need to defeat the other traditions.
He doesn’t need to prove that everyone else is wrong.
He doesn’t need to establish Bankeiism as the official winner.
The teaching itself keeps removing the need for that victory.
Which means the ultimate irony is this:
Bankei wins the Ascension Leaderboard precisely because he doesn’t need to win it.
And I don’t have to pretend he didn’t win just because he would laugh at me for making the leaderboard.
That’s another trap.
Sometimes we become so committed to avoiding ego that we start performing humility.
“Oh no, there is no best path. Everyone is equal. Nobody can say anything is better.”
But that can become its own kind of dogma.
If something seems particularly clear, we can say it seems particularly clear.
If a teacher found an exceptionally direct method, we can say they found an exceptionally direct method.
We don’t have to flatten every distinction in order to remain humble.
We can simply recognize what appears to be true without needing to build an identity around being the person who recognized it.
So yes.
I am putting Bankei at #1.
And if Bankei objects to the leaderboard, I will happily accept his objection.
It won’t change the score.
Bankei: #1.
Least interested in being #1: also #1.
That’s a pretty good trick.
Maybe that’s what winning looks like when there is nothing left to win.
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