On 'Wind and Banner'

fuu ban — Wind and Banner.

On the origin

From the Gateless Gate (Mumonkan), Case 29, “Not the Wind, Not the Banner”; the same exchange is preserved in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Two monks argued whether it was the wind or the banner that moved; the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, said it was neither — what moved was their own mind.

On the reading

A banner stirs. Is it the wind that moves, or the cloth? To the two who argued, the Sixth Patriarch said: neither. What moved was the mind that watched it. The motion taken for something outside was within from the start.

On the garment

The seal for this phrase was hand-carved in Tokyo by the artist Satake Hōsen. The front carries this phrase’s seal; the back and inside label carry the Hōsen seal (寳千), printed in vermilion.

The garment is Bella + Canvas 3001 (short sleeve) or Gildan 2400 (long sleeve). A vessel for the word, not the subject itself.

― hosen, tokyo