Mark Foote

well, well, well. Hey, Taomeow, wasn't Maitreya supposed to be around about now? As to the anatomy and driving a car, I hear what you are saying, and absolutely nobody I know considers the study of anatomy and kinesthesiology important in the pursuit of well-being. Sounds funny when I say it like that, I guess, but when you are healthy it's true that you don't need medical science, it's irrelevant and possibly harmful. I myself felt that I didn't have something I needed, I felt that from early on, and although I don't think much has changed about me I don't feel I'm lacking anything anymore. I could use a lot of practice, but it's not clear that there's anything in particular that can be practiced. For me I could not see what I needed without the lotus, and I could not sit the lotus without understanding the relationship of place with the two respirations. For me, the key to it all is activity generated by fascial stretch without the exercise of volition, a subtle reality I learned to look for by reading a book. Not Buddhist, not Taoist, anathema to everyone I know. Hey, Mr. V., what about the nineth and tenth elements of the eight-fold way?

I like "Tao Bums" myself, because I feel Taoism offers a kind of open-ended teaching. I don't know this from teachers or readings, I just assume it somehow. "Dharma bum" and "dharma" used to have that connotation for me, before Buddhist institutions moved into the mainstream in this country; now I associate the words with teachers who have taught that the precepts are really the main gate. I know more of Buddhism, because I sat down and read the four principle Nikaya volumes in their Pali Text Society translations. And I've always wanted to learn to sit the lotus, and after finally breaking down and studying anatomy (and getting lucky with the discovery of John Upledger and cranial-sacral therapy), I've learned how to manage it as a morning and evening practice. I like Taoism, and the freer the translation the more I seem to like it. I also like the Egyptian pyramid texts, which I think are available on this site. The thing about the Pali Cannon texts is, they put forward a method by which to proceed. And the method is consistent, although it also says that one must "grasp after nothing in this world", and the teaching closes with the line "everything changes, work out your own salvation". I think a lot of what the Tao Bums site has to offer is the gems that people have found personally workable from the great legacy of ancient China, the methods and consistent frameworks of understanding. When the relationships that are important to human well-being are outlined in a consistent way, they seem to transcend any particular tradition; sometimes Tao Bums rewards me with such an outline. Sometimes I think it's just about taking the teachings we are already working with, Taoist, Buddhist, whatever, and drawing out the relationships that are outlined consistently. welcome back, Durkhrod Chogori.

sun-block creams can help mummification really preserves the best, though

knowing rodent ways, knowing own-nature, for cats- in the dark, shining

unseen, he sees us paws tucked in, tail curled close, soft up and moving, gone

by enlightenment only this, just this- nothing left to call one's own

lemon meringue pie in the summer time- ummm, um! Tao Bums in heaven

double negative x, x x; gotta git, boom squeeze out lemon life (better be butter...)

(something for Kate, between rounds- ha ha!- part of a screen by Kawanabe Kyosai 1831-1889)

Yes the potential for suffering is still there. Now for me, right view involves not only the recognition that attachment, aversion, and ignorance condition the place of occurrence of consciousness and result in suffering, but also the recognition that I cannot help being drawn to that which is marked by a non-material happiness. When I sit, I set up mindfulness of ji, chi, and shen, as it were, and then I let it go, if I'm lucky (must be why I'm so sore today, doing nothing!). The transition from the first jhana to the second is marked by thought no longer applied and sustained. I can't say that I can do even this!~ how can you claim to have right view?

the every man's dream bright stars before summer dawn mountains dark and blue illusions shattered bright stars before summer dawn mountains dark and blue (thanks, Cow Tao, for keeping me straight. I was at Sonoma Mountain Zen Center yesterday for a one-day sitting, and when I walked down the road at 4:30am, the sky was just lightening- I'm cheating, but both are true!)

I think it's true that when I suffer, there is a path; when I don't, there isn't. For me the main significance of the teachings is that knowledge plays a role in freedom. DO is really a part of that, useful sometimes for that, and there is nothing that has significance outside of its relationship to each other thing, without exception. How's that.

moving the fingers tapping the keys, red, white, blue right here, here, no news

the warrior's dance one sense after another, all at once- who moves!

Fast thread here, but I'm not unhappy to have spoken out of turn- there is a happiness in the practice that this site puts forward, in so many ways and with so many voices, and I hope that is what brings all manner of people here. I hope that SSW returns to his happiness, that has always been the path.

"Fungible commondity?" love that! I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have two part time jobs no benefits with my girl here in the garage and a bar within 2 miles where people dance to records on Saturday night. Compost, no fungi. I can sit the lotus, for 40 minutes, with only a little numbness. Most times. Left side on top now is easier than right side on top, whoa, what's that about! I have full confidence in the place of mind, because I have seen action out of breath with the impact of consciousness and feeling. My success, if you could call it that, has been because I felt I could give everything up, and yet I believed in the movement of breath as the key to an inner life. I think without the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths, as it were, it's easy to become to self-effacing and do myself harm. At the same time, I have to let it go, because I am dedicated to harmlessness- is that because I was raised on Rachel Carson and peace-love, or what? may all beings be happy, if any succeed than all succeed, here's to us all each and every.

The realization of dependent origination, don't need no stinkin' rug underneath this mind! no self in cause and effect, kind of freedom. OK. place, stretch that breathes, feeling; place, stretch that breathes, feeling. Thinking, place. Feeling. Ugly duck, walking- wake up, wake up, go to sleep!

There's no request stop that can be made; place to die, do we come to that?

The quote about the unborn is from the fifth sutta nikaya collection. Last I read, historians regard this collection as of later composition than the other four, and probably less accurate as a representation of the actual teachings of Gautama who became known as the Buddha. I think the birth stories, Jataka, are also from this collection. I personally find it suspicious, because the other nikayas cite anhiliationism and eternalism as errant views, and the passage quoted is eternalistic in viewpoint. If you need something unchanging, that would be change as a factor in life. How's that. I like the four mindfulnesses (particularly in the chapter on the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths in the fifth sanyutta nikaya, but that's another story) that close with "only to the extent necessary for mindfulness, and grasps after nothing in this world".

In "Buddhist India" Ward tells of the final conference after the death of the Gautamid before the order split. There were five main differences between what became Therevadin and what became Mahayana. One of them was the omniscience of the Buddha. The differences were reconciled around the notion that a Buddha was only omniscient with regard to the dharma, not with regard to worldly phenomena. As I've said on Tao Bums before, the point that could not be agreed was whether or not an arahant could have a wet dream, be seduced by a succubus. Something like that. Doesn't exactly sound like the Mahayana that we know, the compassion for all beings that holds off personal enlightenment for the sake of others? Yet I think it rings true, because it means that the mahayanist enters into the suffering occasioned by delusion for the sake of other beings, and that means acts are committed that an arahant (supposedly) could not commit. I'm thinking everybody is right tonight, God help me. the cessation of perception and sensation, which is beyond neither perception and sensation nor not perception and sensation. Marked by a happiness. The pride of clinging to existence, the craving to be reborn, giving rise to the asavas, which cease with the cessation of volition in perception and sensation. Attending on sense object, sense organ, consciousness arising from the contact of sense object and sense organ, impact out of the occurrence of consciousness, and feeling associated with impact, fevers of mind and body decrease, and happiness of mind and body is experienced. Right view, right intent, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration develop and go to fruition, right speech, right action, and right livelihood are already well-attended- so in one observing thus, abiding thus (something like that) with regard to the six sense-fields. does anybody think that the reason we have this much brains is directly related to our lack of a tail? Why do I exert so much energy to wag the tail that I don't have? How come all I have is consciousness, impact, and feeling that breaths and wags? Woof?

I see now that I am paranoid and imagine that people are talking about me when in fact they are not. Hmmm, stay tuned for voices, and possibly past lives. I agree with 'Songs, that reality can't be apprehend; I disagree, that there is no such thing as view (in relationship to other things) that is conducive to an end of suffering. Is it possible to share so much as a fart? I think it was Sawaki, the Japanese teacher, who said it was not. Can we teach ourselves without a teacher? Can we teach each other? Can we say something significant to another that is not significant to us, personally? Can we know what we're going to say before we start writing and still speak to ourselves?- doesn't feel like we can, maybe that's just me. Kate, have you seen Apepch7's writings?

some don't swear at all some laugh out loud at haiku some fall off their seat

Didn't mean to speak disparagingly of the jhanas. Not really a Buddhist, except that I believe he was right about suffering, that right knowledge is a knowledge of things as they really are and the truths about suffering are part of that. Have you seen my animation? Ice cream melting under a hat, is here: ok, dirty trick to get you to watch it, there is no ice cream under the hat, but it's short and I like it.

hypnagogia hallucinations prior sleep moves on the water

Hey, get me a cone! Also agree that actually all the states exist to one degree or another or none. Get me two cones! The cessation of the activities I hope we can agree is the cessation of volition in habitual activities, and the progression is given as speech, inhalation and exhalation, perception and sensation. Yes, the Gautamid saw past lives and karma in the fourth jhanna, according to the texts, especially in the wee hours of the morning. Good time for a couple of cones. Interesting to me that the net result of extending the mind of friendship in 10 directions is the fourth jhana, I could find the text if anybody is interested. Of extending compassion, the mindfulness of infinite ether (space, or the medium of breath?); of extending joy, the mindfulness of infinite consciousness; of extending equanimity, the mindfulness of no-thing. After which all hell breaks loose, ice cream everywhere, kids crying...