Pick a Winner Every Time!

During Sesshin, in our efforts to empty the mind, Chozen Roshi reassured that it is not really possible to stop the mind. She referred to the term mindstream. This is apparently a term used more commonly in Theravada and Vajrayana practices, and after looking it up, I am perhaps even a bit more confused than I was before, so forgive me if I am not communicating about it clearly. Basically the point is that the mindstream is continuous, and flows even through lifetimes. Purifying the mindstream, as I understand it, is about reducing and removing the pollutants of greed, anger and ignorance.

It's easy for me to visualize the "stream of consciousness" or the "stream of thought." This common metaphor encourages us to sit on the banks, watching a little stream, and observing the leaves of thought and sensation innocently floating by. I would add, perhaps a bit judgmentally, observing the random trash floating by, particularly my "greatest hits," which are my most repetitive thoughts. With practice, the stream might sometimes slow down to some degree, but really doesn't altogether stop. The trick is to stay on the banks, rather than reaching out and grabbing hold of any of the tempting items floating by.

While it may still be true that my mind is a 2-year-old black lab that eats poop, it would also seem that my mind is the duck pond at the fair.

Pick a Lucky Duck originally uploaded by dcjohn

Pick a winner every time! A game requiring no skill! A prize every time! I remember playing the duck pond carnival game as a child. I remember the ducks had numbers written on the bottoms, in permanent marker. If you picked a duck with the number one on the bottom, you won the big fluffy huge pink teddy bear dangling at the top of the kiosk. But as the numbers got higher, those were the less desirable, and much more common prizes.

I think I might have been about seven years old when I last played this game. I, of course, picked a high number. I "won" -- I am not kidding -- a Roy Rogers poster.

Now, nothing against Roy Rogers -- he was a sweet man. But what kid on earth wants a Roy Rogers poster in the late 70's? Where did they even get this "prize"? The funny thing was, I actually put it up in my room for a while. I won it, right?

I am always similarly tempted to reach out and grab items of thought in the mindstream. But they tend to be the same things over and over -- just like the duck pond and its circular stream -- the same little duck-thoughts over and over, despite how important the mind insists they are, the endless hope and the mind's insistence that this time, this thought is the enormous pink teddy bear, not the Roy Rogers poster.

But just like at the fair, each thought really is always the Roy Rogers poster. And there is nothing more satisfying than going to the fair, watching those cute little ducks just float on by, and leaving emptyhanded.

prize everytime originally uploaded by pulpmojo