Bankei Yōtaku (1622-1693) stands among the most luminous and uncompromising figures of Japanese Zen.
At a time when Zen had hardened into ritual and doctrine, Bankei shattered every hierarchy with one simple truth: the Unborn Mind (fushō no kokoro) - the original awareness that neither arises nor dies.

His words are not teachings but awakenings.
They do not invite the seeker to become; they reveal what has never ceased to be.
They speak from silence, and to silence they return.

"Do not seek to become a Buddha.
You are already born of the Non-Born."
- Bankei Yōtaku

In this fourth volume of The Masters of the One, Kheprias A. brings forth the living voice of Bankei with clarity, devotion, and experiential precision.
Through the alternation of authentic passages from The Record of Bankei (Paul Reps, 1947) and reflective commentary, the book reveals the universal nature of the Unborn - beyond religion, beyond philosophy, beyond time.

Each chapter is a threshold between word and silence, between presence and non-being.
To read Bankei is not to learn, but to remember what has never been lost.

This American edition, The Masters of the One - Bankei Yōtaku: The Non-Born, continues the series dedicated to those who embodied the living truth of Oneness - from Shankara to Siddharameshwar, from Nagarjuna to Bankei, whose voice still breathes like the wind through the mind of the world.