Mark Foote

such is the meaning in old age ageless again as never before

Ah...Le Tour De France! so much pride, in her country when she said, je t'aime

waiting for the rains... will it come, will it come- both and none, swirl, fall, rise

Dr. John Lee at a lecture in Mendocino noted that the nerves responsible for the myelin sheath require progeterone to do their job- this was at a lecture he gave in Mendocino in 1995. He was trying to explain why many of his patients using progest reported a decrease in their arthritis-bursitis conditions. Interesting to me that his patients reported generally improved health, and so do patients given physiologic doses of hydro-cortisone, or physiologic doses of thyroid hormone (physiologic meaning dosage amounts close to what the body produces naturally). Dr. Michael Shame (I think it is) in Marin was part of a team examining folks exposed to a Chevron plant release, and he found that while all the symptoms went away within a few months (runny nose or eyes kind of thing), the immune systems of the people exposed were still hyper a year after the event. Dr. Shame figured there was a relationship between the depressed health and the repression of normal thyroid function by a hyper immune system, and he saw health improvements in patients who were only borderline low thyroid. reminds me that I think I forgot my progesterone today... how many guys out there use progest, or similar? I started using it for achy joints in a coastal town, but I think it gives me energy.

write a line or two go with the flow, resonate leave this world behind

well excuse me interrupting, hopefully you and Serene won't mind. I have faith in my body, too, and there's an interesting relationship between opening my mind to pleasure or pain and the level of feeling I have. I think maybe the thing you strive for is more feeling- I mean overall, and inside and out kind of feeling. My study is that the occurrence of mind is used by the respiration of the lungs and of the cranial-sacral fluid to open feeling throughout the body. I can't control it, and I crave it. Is it about staying with the mind? Of course, but at the first intention the mind is lost. The feeling-pictures I've had pull me on, I have no choice if I really am honest with myself. Science of well-being, is just the science of fully feeling, my opinion.

Krishna bathed in blue a thousand spires of sunlight trailing in the dark

just follow the signs and know where you are, dusk light, dawn, forest, trees; heart.

pecks eyes like black fire for no good reason at all snow lies underfoot

Bunny slammed the small dictionary down, making her way around the far side of the long dark-wood table away from the Sage, and said "you can leave it when you're done." The Sage watched her go, and listened to her heels and the whir of the air-conditioning under the light of the single overhead flourescent fixture. His eyes turned to the cover of the dictionary, which said "Small Illustrated Pocket Medical Dictionary". What in the world could that have to say about happiness, he wondered, as he fingered the condom in his pocket.

Ready, get set... wait! look between the eyes, for whites shoot the moon, then some

Throughout your body itsy bitsy little poke a dots eat ivy

Looking down, I only see the underwear I usually find myself sitting in, so I guess I can join the thread unless something comes up. I am very grateful to have a thread where people talk about their experiences, of any kind, having to do with the body and spiritual practice. Happiness practice. I think we've all lived long enough to know that there's a happiness associated with being that we are not in control of, I am that I am and quite nicely too thank you, as it were. I like that voice. Here's one I was sharing with a friend earlier tonight, from Foyan in the 12th century I think: "You should not set up limitations in the boundless void, but if you set up limitlessness as the boundless void, you encompass your own downfall. Therefore, those who understand voidness have no concept of voidness. If people use words to describe mind, they never apprehend mind; if people do not describe mind in words, they still do not apprehend mind. Speech is fundamentally mind; you do not apprehend it because of describing it. Speechlessness is fundamentally mind; you do not apprehend it because of not describing it. Whatever sorts of understanding you use to approximate it, none tally with your own mind itself." (from Instant Zen by Cleary, "Keys of Zen Mind" is the essay) And to bring it back to something more Taoist, perhaps: "People nowadays mostly take the immediate mirroring awareness to be the ultimate principle. This is why Xuansha said to people, 'Tell me, does it still exist in remote uninhabited places deep in the mountains?'" (ibid) this is what free speech and the pursuit of happiness are about, to me, and most of all compassion. Thanks, witch, you inspire me even if I have only a practice of settling my weight low to know my breath sometimes, and I only imagine it to be a meeting ground neither male or female. My girl friend is back, hope my heart is good- love ya!

food for the belly warm bed at night- I think of Geronimo's fate

Babette's Feast: soup's on and flavour's good, dip right in scoop up some heartbeat.

my god what a laugh you gave me, apepch', and for no apparent reason! Ah, the splot plickens...

for my summer soup this thick head of fall cabbage geese honk past the moon

Thank you for asking. I thought it would just come to me for a long time after I first had the experience of "zazen getting up and walking around" You can read about it in the anecdotes at Kobun anecdotes (under Mark Foote), if you're interested. I finally started to study physiology and kinesthesiology, when I realized I still couldn't sit the lotus five years later. I read the pain series books by Dr. Rene Calliet, some materials at UCSF library, and eventually discovered the books of Dr. John Upledger on cranial-sacral work. A book from Dr. Raymond Richard on "lesions of the sacrum" (I think?) was also amazing, talking about the pivots of the sacrum. The notion of reciprocal innervation based on the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness is the basis for my practice now; I think the description I give in translations of motion in the lotus is mostly correct. Hard it is to recognize all this and still let go, but probably that's like layman Pang's family, in "Zen Letters: the teaching of Yuanwu", by Cleary; dad says is really difficult, like climbing a greased tree; mom says it's easy, like the dew on 10, 000 blades of grass; and daughter says it's neither difficult nor easy, it's just eating when your hungry and sleeping when you're tired. Yuanwu says often we pick one or the other as right, but they are all true. Forgot to mention that I also purchased the sutta volumes from Pali text society in 1985, and read them. That's my grounding. No formal student-teacher relationship, ever; my idea was that I should find a way to teach myself, that others could benefit from as well. Help develop a vocabulary that everybody could relate to, to communicate the gist. Open source wisdom? ... he he, as Marblehead is prone to say.

Ga Ga ooh La La! an eye-full of mind boggling wind and sand- hey! hey!

You came back with salt you left to buy something sweet tell me a story

This morning a second question has occurred to me, and that is: why do they sit 40-50 minutes in the lotus, when most hatha yoga postures are only assumed briefly? My answer would be, because we work loose, first the sacrospinous ligaments, then the sacro-tuberous ligaments, and finally the sacro-ilial ligaments. We work loose by settling in and accepting the stretch that already exists as consciousness takes place, relaxing as we breath in and out. When we have feeling over the surface of the whole body, then the impact of consciousness and feeling sits, the hit in "just hit sit", or shikantaza. Equanimity toward pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings is a part of this. Equanimity and relaxation in the face of the involuntary reciprocal innervation of muscle pairs around the pelvis and the sacrum and throughout the body takes a little time to come on, after the humdrum of our daily habit. I would remind everybody of Cheng Man-Ching's description of the fourth stage in the development of chi: chi penetrates to the skin and hair. Likewise, the Gautamid described the fourth of the initial jhanas as purified equanimity, the cessation of volition in in-breaths and out-breaths, and as feeling like "a strip of cloth wrapped around the head and the entire body". For me, I walk on my feet sitting down, until I feel the exchange between my upper legs and my sacrum under the pelvis, kind of the forward angles of "the ox crosses the wooden bridge". With luck I can let go and ride the wind, as it were. The wind gets up, when it's time; that's how it goes for me, and I usually sit between 30 and 50 minutes. A little numb in the top foot when I get up. Answering questions people don't ask, for myself, of course! Thank you; Mark

An old man shuffled over and sat down on the chair next to the stage. "Young man", he said, "you should quit eatin' dem stinkin' mushrooms; sittin on air, is dat what a public education is worth. When I was your age, I just phantasized about women; take my advice, stick with your ass and get happiness while you can. By da way, you dropped this..."

I like the suggestions that everyone has given; I haven't tried the machine. If I really can't sleep, I sit the lotus for awhile. Stretch my legs & sit. The space of falling asleep is the same space as waking up, actually; the mind moves freely, the rhythms of the body use the mind instead of vice-versa. So try to wake up with your mind, relax, and see what happens. 'Course, this is waking up by letting the mind go, and making the inside like the outside. Hope I can sleep tonight!