Trying to clear away thoughts

Once a layman asked Zen master Bankei:  “When I try to clear away thoughts from my mind another appears.  Thoughts keep appearing endlessly.  What do I do about these thoughts?

Bankei gives the layman this answer:  “Trying to clear away thoughts is like washing blood off with blood.  Although you’ve wiped away the first bloodstain the blood you just used to wipe it away remains.  No matter how much you wash, blood still remains.”

What the layman doesn’t understand is the nature of Mind.  Each thought that arises is only a shape of pure Mind or tathata, just like a pot is the shape of clay, clay being the true nature or substance of the pot.  It is the same with a gold bracelet or a gold ring or Fa-tsang’s gold  lion.  They arise from gold.  While appearances deceive us we will never see the nature of Mind by trying to clear them away.  

If the layman had directly been able to connect with the substance of his thoughts, which is unborn, he would have become enlightened (bodhi) realizing that pure Mind is clear light.  From that moment on, the power of his former thoughts to deceive him would have come to a close.  

Fundamentally, we are pure Mind or the same, we have Buddha-nature.  But because it is so pure we cannot see it (which means we can’t see our self).  We only see it in its composed state which then becomes something determinate for us, like a thought.  This composed state is samsara:  A world of appearances and rebirth.

If we are able to penetrate through the barrier of our thoughts, to cognize (bodhi) pure Mind, this amounts to a return-to-self or the same, Mind-returning-to-itself which is like the Buddha anointing us.  This is also prajñâ because Mind can now distinguish itself from its infinite variety of forms whereas before it couldn’t.

 

Comments

[Egoless Hipster]

http://i.imgur.com/moapE.gif

[JK]

I hear a sound of a cat. "Meow, meow, meow" - as it is, it's a pure stream. It has no distinguishable objects. But whatever is called mind projects in it separate entities ("meows") and then attribute meaning to it ("she is hungry").

Of course there is no such thing in the audio-stream in itself.

So what is sound without those projections? But more interestingly:

What we do with thoughts is the same. We "space" the stream of mind into separate entities (thoughts). We project words and names and sentences, inferences, etc

The big question is: can you think in that skull without using words? And if you can't, it means no thought is your own. Not even 1 thought you had in your life was your own.

Whenever we use words we're like robots and we can't even convey anything unique.

So we can't look at a flower using our inherited cultural shit

[WuWeiTV]

Ramana Maharshi : The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry `Who am I?' The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre. If other thoughts rise one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire `To whom did they rise?' What does it matter however many thoughts rise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires `To whom did this rise?', it will be known `To me'. If one then enquires `Who am I?', the mind will turn back to its source [the Self] and the thought which had risen will also subside. By repeatedly practising thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.

Although tendencies towards sense-objects [vishaya vasanas], which have been recurring down the ages, rise in countless numbers like the waves of the ocean, they will all perish as meditation on one's nature becomes more and more intense. Without giving room even to the doubting thought, `Is it possible to destroy all these tendencies [vasanas] and to remain as Self alone?', one should persistently cling fast to self-attention.

As long as there are tendencies towards sense-objects in the mind, the enquiry `Who am I ?' is necessary. As and when thoughts rise, one should annihilate all of them through enquiry then and there in their very place of origin. Not attending to what-is-other [anya] is non-attachment [vairagya] or desirelessness [nirasa]. Not leaving Self is knowledge [jnana]. In truth, these two [desirelessness and knowledge] are one and the same. Just as a pearl-diver, tying a stone to his waist, dives into the sea and takes the pearl lying at the bottom, so everyone, diving deep within himself with non-attachment, can attain the pearl of Self. If one resorts uninterruptedly to remembrance of one's real nature [swarupasmarana] until one attains Self, that alone will be sufficient.