Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Cut Off All Useless Thoughts- Kisei Costenbader, Sensei

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Cut Off All Useless Thoughts- Kisei Costenbader, Sensei · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:26
  Kisei: Good evening. Again, welcome back. I will begin the dharma talk by taking refuge. You're welcome to join in. I take refuge in the Buddha.
• 0:46
  I take refuge in the Dharma, and I take refuge in Sangha. So we're in the midst of our Ongo practice period. And for those in the Northern Hemisphere, we're in the midst of autumn, it actually just snowed last night here in Ohio. It's cold and dark. And we're studying this really, really powerful, really beautiful, poignant poem, the faith mind poem.
• 1:45
  And in some ways, when I read this poem, I'm like, oh, they're just saying the same thing over and over and over again. And here we are spending over a month, months with these words, these words from this poem. And I've I've been pretty going pretty slow through it. So I'd like to share a few more stanzas and then and then reflect on some of them and hear and listen to what's here. So this is still on page 31, which is the second page if you're following along in the chant book.
• 2:31
  And I'm going to read it out loud so you also can just let the words wash through you. I find because oftentimes a lot of people are familiar with this chant because we chant it and we chant it during session and we chant it really fast that hearing it read, even by someone else out loud, we might hear some of the words differently or maybe a certain line will stand out. And that's definitely what happened for me. So I'm gonna just focus on after I read these stanzas, there's one or two of these lines. So the stanza I wanna start with is cut off all useless thoughts.
• 3:18
  It goes, cut off all useless thoughts and words, and there's nowhere you cannot go. Cut off all useless thoughts and words, and there's nowhere you cannot go. Returning to the root itself, you'll find the meaning of all things. If you pursue appearances, you overlook the primal source. Awakening is to go beyond both emptiness as well as form.
• 3:58
  All changes in this empty world seem real because of ignorance. Do not go searching for the truth. Just let those fond opinions go. Abide not in duality. Refrain from all pursuit of it.
• 4:21
  If there's a trace of right and wrong, true mind is lost, confused, distraught. Like I said, the first week we started studying this text, this text does best, I feel, as a meditation manual, as something that really supports us in our inquiry into the nature of mind. And so it's not necessarily telling us how to work with a disagreement in a relationship. It might be giving us some key pointers, but it's more about, like, really this intimacy with our nature, this intimacy with mind. So these are great stanzas to read before a meditation period if you're practicing at home.
• 5:27
  And the ones that I want to highlight today is these first two lines. Cut off all useless thoughts and words, and there's nowhere you cannot go. Returning to the root itself, you'll find the meaning of all things. That's a pretty big statement. What is this root?
• 5:56
  What is this root we sometimes call the mind ground? And these these lines from the third ancestor, they're echoed in the commentary, in Mumon's commentary to the first koan in the Mumon Khan. So the Mumon Khan is a collection of Zen koans, and the first koan in the Mumon Khan is quite popular. It might be the most popular koan. Even people who don't practice Zen and know maybe a little bit of Koans know a little bit about what a Koan is know this Koan.
• 6:39
  And the Koan is a monk asks Joshu, does a dog have Buddha nature? And Joshu says, Moo or No. People, this is a breakthrough koan. So people meditate on moo, moo or No as a practice. And Mu Man's commentary also is commonly read.
• 7:11
  And this commentary that he makes to this first Koan, Mu, is the longest commentary in the whole moo mankan. So he really he puts this koan first. It was apparently the koan that he had a kensho experience, an awakening experience, the taste of his true nature when he, you know, really stayed with the the inquiry of this koan and something shifted. He saw into the nature of his mind. And so he put this koan first in his koan collection, he really emphasized this koan in the commentary.
• 7:50
  But in the first paragraph of the commentary, it says something very similar to what we're hearing lines in this part of the Faith Mind poem. And he says, For the practice of Zen, it is imperative that you pass through the barrier set up by the ancestral teachers. For subtle realization, it is of the utmost importance that you cut off the mind road. If you do not pass the barrier of the ancestors, if you do not cut off the mind road, you are like a ghost clinging to bushes and grasses. So we have this phrase both in the Mumang Khan and in the faith mind poem, cut off.
• 8:52
  Cut off. And I think there are times in our practice where cut off maybe is helpful. We need that kind of ferocity directly, to look at the thinking mind directly. And in some practices, and you may have, in your own practice life, experienced this, it can be like we're swinging the sword of Manjushri. Just like when people practice with moo, they replace every thought with moo.
• 9:28
  So it's like the mind starts thinking, moo, moo, moo, moo. They're using moo as the sword of Mandushri cutting through, cutting through thought. And part of that isn't, and this is where it can get dangerous, this word cutting through, or can kind of take us off point in another direction is we can get aggressive or we can think that the point is not to have any thoughts. And so we start to get at war with our thoughts or in a fight with our thoughts, or we think we need to make them go away. And that that sword or that practice of moo is a practice of seeing the emptiness of thought, the malleability of thought, that the mind can think one thing and then think its opposite, and we can tie ourselves up in knots.
• 10:31
  And so we replace thought with just the sound moo, moo, which I said, you know, it translates as no, but Chozoroshi used to say, it's a meaningless word. Doesn't mean anything. Part of why we keep that Chinese, Japanese word is because it doesn't mean anything to our thinking mind. And the mind, you know, sometimes and you might experience this in meditation. You might experience this if you've ever done retreat.
• 11:09
  It can feel like the mind just likes to think at some point. It's not really about the content. And that's part of this cutting through is just seeing like, oh, that mind road. I think I shared this a couple of weeks ago. I was sharing some of Machik Lavdrung's teachings, and she used to refer to the mind as the demon that goes on and on and on and on.
• 11:42
  And that's, you know, also this analogy of the mind road. It's it's a road. It's like goes on and on and on. Or I I often think of the thought stream as a a stream. It's like thoughts are are flowing by.
• 12:04
  Chosen Roshi would sometimes instruct in working with in working with Moo to imagine that the mind is this big empty warehouse, and thoughts are like the leaves that are collecting on the floor of this warehouse. And your breath or moo, and we would often tone moo on the exhalation, would be just the breeze blowing through the warehouse and the thoughts scatter or silence for a moment as the breeze moves through. And then they might collect again. And then on the exhale, And the thoughts scatter, and they might collect again. And so working with Moo in that way, cutting through the mind stream is temporarily interrupting the thinking mind to see that it's interruptible.
• 13:23
  Now sometimes we can have this feeling sense of thoughts being concrete, like they're solid, that they're, like, always there. So these kinds of practices interrupt even just for a moment that sense of thought being so solid, so real, so true. I think if I were to change the words, instead of using cutting off, I would use seeing through because that's more what the instruction is pointing to. This isn't a practice. We can't totally cut off the thinking mind.
• 14:15
  We use the thinking mind, but what we're doing in Zazen, in practice, is recognizing thoughts for what they are, especially thoughts that appear as hindrances. So that could be the repetitive inner critical thoughts or the endless doubts or obsessive thinking about the future or ruminating about the past. And so we're invited in Zazen in meditation. This is something you could carry on into your daily life, but I think it's even hard to do sometimes in meditation to objectify the thinking mind. Often a thought comes and we're in it.
• 15:18
  We're seeing through its eyes. We're interested in the content. We're feeding it, or we're pushing it away in some way, trying to get rid of it, trying to cut it off, whack a mole it. But this part of this invitation of this, these lines of returning to the root is to look into the thinking mind, to really study thought. What are thoughts made of?
• 15:57
  That's one inquiry. What is your actual experience of thought? In the in the Buddhist tradition, thought is regarded as another sense, which is informative for us because in in Western culture and in modern society, we don't think of it that way. You know, all through the day, we're we're using our thoughts and probably also being a bit used by them. But we need our thinking minds.
• 16:40
  Like, we plan, we discern, we weigh things, we read, we study, we interpret. But here in meditation, we're being invited to regard thought differently, not as the central truth of who we are, but to notice, oh, just like the other senses, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, tasting, touching, touching, seeing, seeing, feeling, feeling, thoughts come and go. And they have, we actually experience them as sense qualities. So you could you can even explore that. Like, how do you experience thought?
• 17:39
  When when a teacher asked me that for the first time, it was really groundbreaking for me. Like, oh, how do I experience thought this thing that's so intimate that can cause me so much suffering that I am so habitually identified with, think I can't live without? And no one's ever asked me, like, how do you actually experience thoughts? What are they? What do you what do you think they are?
• 18:10
  And not as like, oh, they're electrical synapses in the brain. Like, that's not very intimate. Like, that's what we might know about thought. That's more thought about thoughts. But, like, what's the actual how do you experience thought?
• 18:25
  Just like we're invited in Sasa and how do we experience the breath? Like, how do you feel it in your body? And what is it like to feel it? So the same thing with thought, like, how do we experience thought? For me, it's mostly verbal, sometimes image, and a lot of times there's a feeling quality to it, an emotional tone.
• 18:58
  There's also a touch sensation. I can almost feel thoughts coming. Sometimes people describe that, like, in deeper states of meditation, they can feel it's not even that their minds are forming full thoughts, but they can feel a kind of bubbling up of thought like energy. That's it's not saying anything, but it's about to. Maybe you've experienced that in meditation.
• 19:36
  So we're invited to get curious. What are thoughts made of? This is part of seeing into or seeing through the thinking mind. What are thoughts made of? How long do they last?
• 19:50
  How long does a single thought last? Again, when somebody asked me that, that was also just kind of stopped my mind for a moment. Oh, wait. And you might have this experience too. You might notice in Zazen or in meditation that you're thinking.
• 20:11
  And then in that moment of noticing the thought disappears and you can't really even remember what you were just thinking about. And that's part of it. We only think a thought in the moment we're thinking it. You know, same with, like, we only feel the breath in the moment we're feeling the breath in the moment of breath. That's true with any sensation, but same with thought.
• 20:45
  And sometimes we think we're experiencing thought or like maybe the thoughts are repetitive. So there can be a sense of, oh, the mind is just keeps thinking this. But there's often, if we look, we can start to notice space between thoughts or even space around thoughts. Despite that warehouse analogy that Chosen would do as a guided meditation is actually quite helpful because the mind, and we'll get into this a little more in this talk, but the mind that's aware is so much bigger than the thinking that happens, the thought stream, the mind road, which is the thought stream. And so to to start to get a sense of that spaciousness of capital m mind, which is what this poem is about, and to see the thoughts are just small happening in that field of awareness, in that mind, Big M Mind.
• 22:11
  When we see thoughts for what they are, they have less power over us. We don't have to believe everything we think. We have some choice. So this teaching that is being given in the Faith Mind poem is really empowering. It's meant to be empowering.
• 22:42
  It empowers us to be more discerning. So yes, we use our thinking minds throughout the day to plan, to reflect, to reason, to contemplate, to converse, to learn, to study, but we can use our mind without being used by the mind. That's a common Zen phrase, use the mind without being used by the mind. And this poem is inviting us to recognize the root of the thinking mind, the root of the thinking mind. And it's saying that the root of the thinking mind is the root of all things.
• 23:26
  So if we begin to recognize or look into the root of the thinking mind, we're looking into the root of all appearance, which is the next line in this chant. So when we know experientially the true nature of the thinking mind, which includes doubt, which includes the inner critic, which includes worry, Those are all aspects of the thinking mind, different streams or channels that the thinking mind can kind of plug into or get hooked into. Doubt, worry, inner critic, anxiety, other people's thoughts, or thinking about other what other people might be thinking about us, or even when other people tell us what they're thinking. And then we think something about that, like, oh, I need to be more like that person or they won't like me or whatever. So when we experientially know the true nature of the thinking mind, which includes all of those, includes any of the different kinds of content that we might suffer from that the thinking mind generates.
• 24:51
  When we know the true nature of the thinking mind, all of those patterns of thought, habits of thought have less power over us. Sometimes we can feel like victims to our thinking. We're so, like, pulled around by our doubts, our confusions, the inner critic. And this practice is inviting us to look directly at thought and to see, see thought as another sense, see thought as a stream of changing experience that we don't need to believe the content of our thoughts all the time. The beginning of this line that I read says, cut off all useless thoughts and words.
• 26:02
  But when we see, experience ually see or know or recognize the true nature of the thinking mind, everything turns around. And that's part of what they're saying. If you know the root of the thinking mind, you know the root of all things or the meaning of all things. Everything turns around. We see the light or Bodhicitta within every thought, every emotion, no matter what the content.
• 26:34
  It all comes from the same source. The most hateful thought, the most loving thought, in essence has the same nature, and that's what we're being invited to recognize in this stanza. I want to share more teaching that is on this this point. This is from a teacher named Da Wei. Da Wei is a contemporary of Hung Zhi who's the author of Cultivating the Empty Field, the poem Silent Illumination and The Hall of Pure Bliss, which some of you may be familiar with.
• 27:22
  He's famous in the Renzai tradition. His teacher was Yuan Wu, who was the compiler of the Blue Cliff record. He is so he's a student of the compiler of the Blue Cliff record, and he really his way of teaching the koans has had a huge influence influence over over the the whole whole Renzai tradition up to this day up to this day. He was alive at a really interesting time in China. It was during the Song Dynasty in China was a pretty stable time.
• 28:00
  During the time that Dahwei was alive was the time that it was not stable, and it was when he started teaching that there was this kind of rupture in China where invaders came in from the North and kidnapped the emperor and his whole family, and the ninth son of the emperor was the only one who survived that, wasn't kidnapped or somehow got away. And so the South and the North were split again, and most of the government managed to move to the South. And so the South was functioning as the Song dynasty, the North became the Jin dynasty at that time. And there were, you know, different factions in the government, and there were people who thought that they should apply military force, and they actually did that for a while. And and then there was this I'm telling you a lot of story about this Sung Dynasty, but I'm getting to a point.
• 29:11
  There was this counselor of the emperor who worked out a peace treaty, and in so doing though, anybody who was supportive of the military effort was exiled. And Dahue himself, I don't know what his political opinion was, but he had students who were sympathetic towards the peep the people who wanted them to apply military force. There was, like, a lot of other politics going on too. So he was exiled. He was exiled because he was the teacher of the students who held different political views than those who were in power, basically.
• 29:57
  And so he was exiled to a place in China that was difficult to to live in at the time, and part of what was good for us in this time that he was exiled is he maintained contact with his students through letters, and his students saved his letters. And after he died, his head student went around to all of his known students and asked for the letters and compiled a book. And the book was made, like, two years after he died. So it was very recent, and scholars believe very historically accurate because of its, like, quick turnover in a way. And recently, it's a long story, but recently his letters were translated into English actually by a student of Shoto Horatauroshi.
• 30:56
  So somebody Hogan and Chosen know, and I actually met when I was in Japan very, very well translated. Lots of footnotes. Really great. And one of the things he said is Da Hui, because he has these letters, which is really this is a rare look at the student teacher relationship. Especially, like, from an era like the Song Dynasty long time ago, we don't have a lot of records of how teachers actually talked to their students one on one.
• 31:36
  We have records of dharma talks that they gave to assembly. We have records of koans that are also happen in public, but we don't have so much like somebody bringing a specific question about their meditation and someone taking the time to really examine the question and try to give an answer in written form. And so it's a special treat, this book, and has had a huge influence, has had a huge influence on what we think of as Zen now. So it may sound familiar as well because this person has had a huge influence. Most of the letters are just his responses.
• 32:31
  Some of the letters we actually get to hear the actual question too how students and teachers communicated with each other, but I'm finding this to be really wonderful. So I'm a little bit promoting this book, Dahui's Letters, but I wanna read this. This is the tenth letter, and also what's remarkable about these letters is that he's speaking to all of them are lay practitioners. So a lot of his students were in the government, government officials. So they have family, they have job responsibility, and they're doing dharma practice.
• 33:13
  And so I feel like that is particularly relevant to us too. A lot of the teachings that we have from the older teachers, the ancient teachers in the lineage are teaching monks. So different kind of teaching too, different kind of lifestyle. Okay. Now I'll read the letter.
• 33:37
  So he starts out, Thank you for your letter. You say that from childhood you have had faith in the way, but that in your later years, hindered by discriminatory thought, you have yet to experience the slightest awakening. From dawn to dusk, you desire to know how to embody the way. Having recognized your deep sincerity, I will not refrain from presenting my views in order to best guide you in accordance with your appeal. Your desire to experience awakening is itself the discriminatory thought that hinders you in the way.
• 34:23
  Apart from this, what other discriminatory thought is there that obstructs you? Ultimately though, what is it that you call discriminatory thought? Where does such thought come from? Who is it that is being obstructed? Who is it that is being obstructed?
• 34:47
  Your statement reflects three confused views. The first is for you yourself to say that you are obstructed by discriminatory thoughts. The second is for you yourself to regard yourself as not yet awakened, thereby accepting an identity as a deluded being. I love that one. Just stop.
• 35:13
  Stop regarding yourself as not yet awakened. That's one of your, that's one of all of our mistakes. The third is for you yourself to wait expectantly in this deluded state for awakening. These three confused views are none other than the root of Samsara. This very moment, just in this very moment, just cease to entertain thought, putting an end to the confused mind.
• 35:46
  So that's a really great way to say it. Often that's what we're doing. We're entertaining thought. Just cease to entertain thought. It doesn't say push them away.
• 36:00
  It doesn't say you shouldn't be thinking. Just notice when you're entertaining thought. And when you cease to entertain thought, that will put an end to the confused mind. So we could try that on. He goes on, Then you will know that there is no delusion to be destroyed, no awakening to be aspired to, and no discriminatory thought to be cut off.
• 36:34
  With time, erroneous views will disappear of themselves, and you will be like a person drinking water and knowing for himself whether it is hot or cold. The mind that is clearly aware of discriminatory thought taking place. How can this mind possibly be obstructed? The mind that is clearly aware of discriminatory thought taking place. How can this mind possibly be obstructed?
• 37:07
  How can there possibly be any other kind of mind than this one? Since times of old, the wise have taken to discriminatory thought like dragons to water and tigers to mountains. They regard discriminatory thought as a companion, employing such a thought as Upaya, and on the basis of discriminatory thought practice universal compassion and carry out all sorts of Buddha deeds. For them, discriminatory thought is never a source of suffering because they understand its source. Once the source of discriminatory thought is fathomed, it becomes the locus of liberation and of release from Samsara.
• 37:59
  He goes on, but I'm gonna stop for time's sake. So he's basically saying or instructing to recognize that thoughts themselves are not a problem, and the mind that's aware is already free. And that's what we're doing in Zazen. That's what we're doing in this practice. We're recognizing that in us that's already free.
• 38:47
  That's unhindered. Awareness itself, big M mind itself is not hindered by thought, is not hindered by the inner critic or by shame or by doubt. It's true that that mind knows their source. And the practice he gives is to recognize that mind, to recognize the one, to start to recognize the one who's aware of thought and to start to see that that one isn't hindered by thought. It's like that analogy of the warehouse that chosen gives.
• 39:50
  It's like recognize the spaciousness of mind. And we're learning to rest more in that spaciousness. And a confidence comes as we do that. Clarity develops. So I wanna read a poem to end because sometimes when I talk about thought too much, we get out of our hearts and this practice is really about love and kindness.
• 40:38
  And I don't think this is saying anything different. It's just another spin. So this is a poem from Joy Harjo. I went to my local library, and they had a book of her poems just on display, and I had to get it. This is Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, 50 Poems for fifty Years.
• 41:00
  This morning, I pray for my enemies. And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It's the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
• 41:24
  The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. The heart, it hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should only open open from the heart. An enemy who gets in risks the danger of becoming a friend.
• 41:49
  This morning, I pray for my enemies. And who do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It's the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
• 42:10
  The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should only open from the heart. An enemy who gets in risks the danger of becoming a friend.
• 42:38
  Jomon: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.