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One Hundred Foot Pole - 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.
• 0:24
  Kisei: Let's start the Dharma talk by taking refuge. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. And I take refuge in Sangha. Happy New Year.
• 0:52
  So I wanted to start tonight's drama talk by sharing a koan. Tonight's This is from the Mumon Khan. It's case 46, sometimes referred to as stepping from the top of the 100 foot pole. And it begins, So Sekiso asked, How do you step from atop a 100 foot pole? And then the next line is actually a quote from another teacher.
• 1:31
  And it says, Another eminent master from former times said, You who sit on top of the 100 foot pole, Although you have entered the way, it is not yet genuine. Take a step from on top of the pole and the whole world of the 10 directions is your total body. You who sit on top of the 100 foot pole, although you have entered the way, it is not yet genuine. Take a step from on top of the pole and the worlds of the 10 directions are your total body. It's another way of translating that last line.
• 2:25
  So it's the beginning of the year, and in some ways, there's a kind of fresh start. Maybe. Maybe you feel that. Different times, different New Years, I feel that more or less. I feel that more this year.
• 2:46
  And if you have ever attended the New Year's Eve celebration with the Zen community of Oregon, they usually do a fire ceremony. And it's a way of burning up, offering what's burdening you. And that image of fire, the symbol of fire, of transmutation. You're really bringing to conscious awareness that which burdens us from the previous year and this act of a willingness to let it go, to let it transform, to become something new. So this koan of the 100 foot pole has been in my heart, in my mind the last week.
• 3:55
  I love this koan because I think this image of the 100 foot pole can apply to many situations in our lives. It's originally an analogy. The story goes that there were two practitioners who were dharma siblings. They studied with the same teacher for many years and one went off and kind of became a hermit. And the other one started teaching, was living in a thriving temple situation and was just like constantly responding to people.
• 4:39
  And the one who was living in the temple went and visited the hermit and asked him about his practice in a very Zen way. And the person responded, it was something like, nothing extraordinary. Like, I'm just sitting here. And then the person who was visiting, the person from the temple, as a way of responding to the other guy's response, like his, you know, nothing special, nothing extraordinary, I'm just sitting there. He says, you're sitting on top of a 100 foot pole.
• 5:21
  Like, your realization isn't yet genuine. You need to engage it. You can't just like sit here in nothing special for the rest of your life. And so that's where this poem comes from, this whole idea of the 100 foot pole in the Zen tradition. Is this plea, is this like, Oh, it isn't complete until we start to live it.
• 5:52
  Any insight, any realization is incomplete until we start to live it. I guess it's a really, I think, poignant poem for post Ongo practice where we were really focused on retreat and sazen and looking deeply into the nature of mind, into what doesn't change. And, you know, the new year often for a lot of people does bring in this, like, renewal of spirit. There's a, you know, the archetype of Capricorn is this, like, being that can accomplish things. So there can be this energy of throwing ourselves into our work or how we wanna change.
• 6:41
  And there's beautiful aspects of that and toxic aspects of that. I have a yoga app I use occasionally, and I opened it three days after the New Year, and they're like, you're getting a late start on your New Year's resolution? I just felt, like, this anger arise in me. I'm like, it's not why I'm here, to be, like, bullied by my yoga So, you know, there's beautiful aspects to that sense of renewal and like reconnecting with who we want to be or who we truly are and how we want to show up. And then there can be kind of like the more gimmicky or like, oh, we're supposed to be better than we are in some way that can kind of come into the picture.
• 7:33
  But this analogy of the 100 foot pole, one of the things I love about koans is they take these like ordinary images of our lives. So when I start thinking or reflecting on this koan, then I start noticing all the poles, like all of the telephone poles and the flagpoles. Now, a 100 foot pole is quite large. It's like a really large flagpole, like those ones, I don't know, when I was growing up, Perkins had this gigantic American flag and that flagpole was probably 100 feet. Ordinary flagpoles are more like 30 or maybe 60 feet.
• 8:16
  So a 100 foot pole is a high pole. Maybe also like those poles that hold stadium lights. I live near a stadium, so I see those poles pretty regularly. Now, how many people here have ever been on top of a 100 foot pole? Maybe?
• 8:38
  No. Maybe not literally, but think about it metaphorically. Metaphorically, we, you know, and this is the way I resonate with this going, like sometimes we have certain ways that we see the world, certain behaviors, certain ways of being that are comfortable, but perhaps keep us like at a distance from our lives or from how we really want to show up. You know, similar to how the hermit in the story that I told was, you know, he was content in his realization, but he was kind of stuck there. He wasn't really getting challenged or having to live it.
• 9:37
  He was like comfortable. And we do this. This is a very human thing to do. Part of when I was doing my reflection at the end of the year, we did a fire ceremony here in Columbus with our sangha here, Mud Lotus. And I was reflecting on and writing down the places that I felt burdened by or the kind of burdens I was carrying from 2025.
• 10:09
  And a lot of the things that I wrote down were these instances in my life where I separate, where I pull back, where I disengage or, you know, for various reasons. Like sometimes I don't feel safe or I feel judged and like, it can be like I ascend this 100 pole and push away or almost like I can sting. I feel bad sometimes. But that can be interesting to bring awareness to, like, oh, where are these places that we separate? We're kind of bringing this to attention all the time in our Zen practice.
• 10:59
  Like, oh, how do we separate or defend or live at a distance from our experience? So another way that I sometimes conceive of this 100 foot pole is that it's like actually in our bodies, and it's that tendency to experience life through the thinking mind. It's like we're on this 100 foot pole up here in our bodies and what's happening. Our feelings are like down there somewhere. And we can experience them more through analyzing or judging or labeling or naming, but we're not actually feeling it.
• 11:45
  So, so much of Zen practice is taking a step off that 100 foot pole into our direct experience. So moving from like thought mediated experience to just the pure sensation, pure awareness, which can be really scary. A lot of times when people start to practice, and of course this extends throughout practice, it's not just something that happens early on, is that we land in our embodied experience, whether that's the breath or physical sensations. And then, you know, we touch something uncomfortable or like a feeling of shame or, you know, all that is stored in the body and we bounce back up. We bounce back up into thought.
• 12:46
  And so that it's a very real analogy of meditation practices like that courageous stepping into the unknown, the lived experience of right now that's constantly being shed or being revealed. But another way, and like back to this kind of habit energy way of conceiving this 100 foot pole is like to bring awareness to those places where we separate, where we maybe, you have some kind of defense system that gets engaged where there can be so many different ways we do this, withdrawal or space out or get anxious or cling or overthink. And you know, stepping off the 100 foot pole, it can have this sense of like, yeah, just plunge into the unknown, like wholehearted, but it's really about curiosity. It's really about like, oh, what happens when I slow down? And instead of just enacting that habit, which probably we developed for a reason, to protect ourselves, to stay safe when we didn't have any other way of doing it.
• 14:31
  And how do I now bring curiosity to, oh, what happens if I stay a little bit longer in whatever the experience is and really get to know this anxiety or this tendency to space out or this defensiveness. And we need to do that in a safe place. Like if we're already in an environment that's triggering, that's probably gonna be more difficult and maybe not even wise to try to slow down and get curious. But a lot of times these habit patterns arise in situations where we actually are safe, we actually are able to maybe do something different. It's just that we have this habit energy.
• 15:36
  And, you know, specifically in Tsa Zen, that can be a great testing ground for bringing these habits to mind and then exploring, oh, what actually does happen in my body? What beliefs maybe are moving through my mind? And what happens if I get curious about it? Curiosity is a form of nearness. It invites intimacy.
• 16:04
  It invites connection. It invites us, you know, to stay in maybe places of discomfort, to stay with ourselves and to enter, become more intimate with the wisdom of this living, breathing body. So this image of taking a step off the 100 foot pole. It's also evocative for me, I think, of the fool card in the tarot, which is probably part of why I thought of this koan for the new year. It's like the zero card, like really kind of the beginning, beginning, beginning before beginning.
• 17:04
  And something about the fool card that I appreciate is there's a quality of playfulness. And I think that is such a beautiful aspect to remember that can be part of this practice that we're doing. And to remember at this time of year when there can be this kind of seriousness or like, I need to buckle down and do my New Year's resolutions, what happens if we meet ourselves with more of a sense of play? Another quality that I, you know, in thinking about this koan and the fool card, I think of resourcefulness. And, you know, I don't always do this, but that is my word of the year, resourcefulness.
• 17:56
  Dan Brown, who's a Vajrayana teacher, he taught several retreats at the monastery, and he resourcefulness is probably the best quality to cultivate as practitioners. And this applies to like, our practice life, to Tazen, but also to our living. And when I think of resourcefulness, I think of just, like, that ability to see possibility. Like, oh, even if things aren't quite working out or I don't quite know the tools to apply in this situation, like, can I trust? You know, that's a big theme that we were working with during Ongo.
• 18:55
  Can I trust that there's wisdom here? Can I trust that something will arise if I stay with it, if I stay engaged? Another quality of the Fool card card is this quality of at home in any situation. And I hear that in the poem that I read. Take a step from on top of the pole and the worlds of the 10 directions are your total body.
• 19:40
  Like this life is our total body. And whatever we encounter, and there's a quality of like finding ourselves here in this life, in every encounter, relationship, in every sensation. Like it's possible to be at home wherever we are, at home, like really in ourselves. And that's another aspect of this koan that I think is important and important to reflect on as we enter the new year and maybe you're reflecting on aspiration. There's a way in which, for those of you who are participating or attending during the Ongo period, there's this kind of like collective vow that we can sink into.
• 20:56
  And this can happen when you're retreat or at the monastery or at temple, or even at a gathering like this, where we're all doing Zazen together, we're all doing practice together. So we like, sometimes And you may feel like this just getting pulled into the Bodhisattva Vow as being expressed, as being lived through the forms, through this collective practice that we're doing together. But there's also an element of practice that's very important. And I think especially for those of us who don't live at a temple monastery is like, is the aspiration? What is your aspiration that stitches your life together?
• 21:52
  What's the thread that runs through your life? And I can say like, you know, in all of my years of practice, I'm constantly clarifying aspiration. I say like the big aspiration is awakening. The big aspiration is bodhicitta, is awakening with all beings. But the the shape that takes as my life evolves is is constantly is constantly changing.
• 22:32
  It's constantly being clarified. And there are times, when I lived at the monastery, every January, we would do some kind of life vows process. And at the end of that process, we always had to like have a vow that we're gonna say out loud and sometimes put it on a plaque. And so the shape, the words that I've put to the vow have taken so many different forms, sometimes more images. Remember one year was complete combustion, which I still really love that.
• 23:11
  Kenyo reminded me of that a couple days ago, and I was like, yeah. But other times it was like, you know, to teach the dharma that very specific in some ways. So this invitation to reflect on our personal aspiration. And in that, I think another reason why I'm like feeling this connection to the Fool card, the Tarot, is it's evocative of the spirit of the Bodhisattva, someone who's resourceful, someone who's playful, who's at home in their lives, in every situation. There are many different expressions to the archetypes of the Bodhisattva.
• 24:08
  We have Jiso who represents vow and benevolence and unflagging optimism and is depicted as a monastic and somewhat childlike. Yeah, it definitely has that kind of playful quality. And then we have all the different expressions of Kuan Yin from the thousand hands and eyes to a goddess who's weeping and her tears are being transformed into the waters of compassion, to a being who's resting in royal ease. Just a posture of complete comfort and at wholeness. And then there's the archetype of hearing the cries of the world.
• 24:57
  Those are all different expressions of what we call compassion, the archetype of compassion. And then there's the archetype of Manjushri who's like riding on a lion and has the sword of wisdom and cuts through delusion. And so there's like these different archetypal images. But one of them that we have that is kind of more like the Fool card is the last image of ox the herding pictures. So there's 10 ox herding pictures and the last one is entering the marketplace with open hands.
• 25:33
  And it usually is a picture of a Hotei, Hotei kind of figure who 's got a big smile and his robe is kind of disheveled and he's big and just benevolent and giving and generous and has that kind of like at home in any situation quality. Quality. Another image that has been with me in this just transition from 2025 to 2026 is the image of a lotus in the fire. So it's an image from Dahwei, who I was reading some of his letters throughout the fall. He mostly taught to practitioners because he was in ex ile for much of his life, he taught through letter writing.
• 26:39
  And many of the people that he taught were people who were engaged in, like worked in the government in some way. And some of them were also in exile, which was part of the reason he was in exile because he was a teacher to students who were kind of working against the government, but were government officials, so then they were exiled. But he used this image to talk about practice when we're practicing in our daily lives as we're practicing as lotuses in the fire. Lotuses in the fire, like blooming yet in the heat of the challenge, the struggle, whatever it is, whatever shape it takes. Another image of the lotus that we have is that a lotus blooms in the mud.
• 27:39
  The lotus' roots are rooted in muddy soil, but this beautiful flower, this whole flower that's really kind of has this circular quality, mondolic quality, symbol of wholeness, comes out of that mud. And a has many petals. So one of the ways I've been working with that image is just like, what are the petals? What are the petals on your lotus? Seeing the lotus as your life, as your practice, like what are the petals?
• 28:17
  What are the things that currently in your life you are responsible for or you're nourishing or you have the aspiration to show up for. It could sometimes be helpful just to name them all and to see like in that naming, oh, like what is, is there like a common practice or aspiration that runs through all of those petals that's nourished by the same root? Another new practice I wanted to mention and I wanna just talk more about in the coming weeks is the practice of the way seeking mind. So Chozan Roshi has been giving her very extended version Way Seeking Mind talk. And the Way Seeking Mind practice is this invitation to look back at our lives.
• 29:24
  And you can begin anywhere. I think when she started her story, she began with her grandparents and she has some really interesting grandparents. Part of the reason she did that was to see, like, what were the vows that these ancestors had and how did they carry it? How did she carry them forward? But the intention of the Way Seeking Mind is to zoom back in our life and to see when did the seed of practice, awakening, seeking, spiritual practice, when did it get planted?
• 30:06
  Has it been with you your whole life? Was there a pivotal moment that you felt like you really stepped on the path? Do you see it in your ancestors? Is this something that you carry forward from maybe your bloodline ancestors or other ancestors, other teachers that you've connected to? And then to see, to trace the thread of this vow, this aspiration, this path throughout your life.
• 30:45
  So it can be a really beautiful reflection on like looking at some of the challenges that you've encountered, the questions that you've asked, the different spiritual practices you've explored where you are now and how you feel, how you kind of see that path unfold. For many of us, it's not a straight line. It goes all sorts of directions. And maybe eventually, and I think this is part of why Chosen Rishi's Way Seeking Mind Talk has been so long, is everything becomes your life as you practice. You start to see like, oh, that allowed this to happen and then that happened and now I'm here.
• 31:38
  And so it can be a really beautiful reflection. Like I said, I wanna do a little bit more talking about that and looking at like, the archetype of the way Seeking Mind, in the coming weeks.
• 32:01
  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.