The eccentric Bankei (16221693) has long been an underground hero in the world of Zen. At a time when Zen was becoming overly formalized in Japan, he stressed its relevance to everyday life, insisting on the importance of naturalness and spontaneity. This volume presents his teachings as refreshing and iconoclastic today as they were three hundred years ago in a fluent translation by Peter Haskel, accompanied by a vivid account of Bankei’s life and times, illustrations, and extensive notes for the scholar.