Mark Foote

lol yeah well the way some characters around these woods put it, might as well be chopping water. I swear they are holding their breath! uh-oh, I've done it now...

Love that!- "the objective world ever stirs the mind". Things as it is, as Shunryu Suzuki said. ANYBODY GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!?! ha ha, love you guys, even when my mouth is full of marbles! less'ee, now, right foot first, then left... no, wait, left foot then... hmmm.

I was just explaining the teachings of the Pali sermon volumes regarding karma, on account of "thuscomeone" asked for an explanation. Does volition cease in perception and sensation? Yes, suddenly. Is the means of that cessation obtainable through words and texts? Not actually. Does it have to do with the end of suffering? The exercise of will, intent, these are the things that are spoken of in the Pali cannon in association with becoming in the future. If you are looking to live the life of purity to realize an end of suffering, then the cessation of speech, of body, and of mind are your compass, the very ground under your feet- are they not? yers Mark

hey, tathagatha, how ya doin'! I think our "takes" are always going to be in flux, but given that fact of existence, I'd like to mention the things I find important in grabbing the rope lift. First, it's about suffering, as far as the truths the Gautamid had to offer. If suffering exists, then practice and the truths have meaning, and only if suffering exists. The Gautamid taught a practice that begins with sitting cross-legged and holding the body upright. He stated that his own practice was the intent contemplation of in-breaths and out-breaths, both before and after enlightenment. He taught that by attendence to sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness arising with sense-organ/sense-contact, impact connected with consciousness, and feeling connected with consciousness and impact (with regard to each of the six senses), all the factors of enlightenment develop toward fruition. In my experience, when I am just sitting, sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness, impact, and feeling sit the posture. That means the experience acts, with no intermediary. And the experience can get up and walk around. Shunryu Suzuki made a beautiful explanation that somebody captured on video, here: The Gautamid spoke of the cessation of the activities, which he said was gradual. These are the cessation of the activity of speech, the cessation of the activity of body, and the cessation of the activity of mind. By activity, he meant volitive action. Thus the cessation of the activity of speech is not necessarily the cessation of speech, the cessation of the activity of body is not necessarily the cessation of movement, and the cessation of mind (or of perception and sensation) is not necessarily the cessation of the occurrence of perception and sensation. Speech ceases in the first rupa jhana (material elements trance), the influence of volition on the in-breath and out-breath ceases in the fourth rupa jhana, and the influence of volition on perception and sensation ceases in the fifth arupa jhana (immaterial elements trance. Karma is connected with the exercise of volition. The ignorance involved in the exercise of volition creates a station of consciousness, the station of consciousness gives rise to sense-contact that ultimately results in the identification of self with the material, with feeling, with mind, with activity, or with consciousness. The identification of self is suffering. As to where all this is hiding, I hope we can drop like a baby and roll like a log today. yers, Mark

Thanks, Mr. V- now a beautiful afternoon, think I'll go to the sugar-skull making demonstration in Walnut park today, part of the "Dia De Los Muertos" fun in Petaluma in October. Cheers! ('..')

Hey, Vajrahridaya, I was referring to this part of what you said: "and Tibetan Medicine uses the findings to cure patients with the body..." I'm aware of hatha yoga, and the first part of your statement was about Indian healing systems, presumably including yoga for the body, but I don't think of hatha yoga in connection with Tibetan medicine. So your statement made me wonder if you were referring to some aspect of Tibetan medicine I wasn't familiar with. Beautiful night here in Petaluma, CA; hope you're having a fine time, wherever you are. yers, Mudlark

Ok, so there we have a three-some that I think is a pretty good match to jing-qi-shen: body, prana or winds, energy currents and mind system framework. There's a fascinating quote in gospel of Thomas purported to be from Jesus where he says something like if the body comes out of the spirit, that's a miracle, but if the spirit comes out of the body, that were a miracle of miracles. I think he adds something about how he's always amazed that "such riches can come out of such poverty", or words to that effect. Most folks I talk to about my practice are so concerned about what happens to their mind after they die, they cannot stand to look at the body at all. I'm wondering what cures are effected with the body, as opposed to winds or energy currents, and what that's like, if you know (or maybe you just misspoke?- that would be my luck).

I'm seeking a clarification from Vajrahridaya about his statement that jing would probably correspond to prana, or "inner wind", in the Tibetan tradition. How can you determine that Taoism is different from Buddhism without this essential clarification, are there elements that correspond to jing-qi-shen in the Tibetan tradition (putting aside the refuge tripitaka of buddha-dharma-sangha)? Ha ha, take that, Mr. M!

Fascinating! I'm a little unclear on "get transmission for sexual tantra"- meaning someone acknowledges the nagpa's declaration that for the nagpa there is no more of being such and such, that they (the nagpa) have laid down the burden, etc., and gives them a document of authenticity and permission to teach Buddhism (in some form or another), based on a practice which is explicitly centered around sexual union? Never heard that acknowledged by anyone before, but I'm not too disturbed to think it's true, since every act in this life is a part of practice in a sense (and I think sexual relations are a healthy thing, for people who love one another- for the most part!). Do you see a triumvirate in Vajrayana practice (other than Buddha-Dharma-Sangha), I'm wondering?

Hi, Apepch7, sure (I think!) I can... I played with hypnosis in middle school and early high school years, I did succeed in inducing trance in others and I think myself (using tapes, actually), but I didn't do much with it. The method of induction I used was a patter like "relax your entire body breathing in- relax your entire body breathing out; feel the weight of the body breathing in- feel the weight of the body breathing out", mostly around breathing in and out. As I mentioned before on this site, I got into veganism for a couple of years, and became a little spacey I think. Maybe six months after I started eating small amounts of egg, fish, and cheese again, I was sitting at my desk in a house on Cole St. San Francisco on the north side of the panhandle, trying to keep an awareness of breath throughout a day. I found myself rising from my desk, and as I retained my awareness of breath I moved to the door of my room. This was exactly like action from hypnotic suggestion, no will on my part involved at all, just witness; catch is, there was no suggestion (unless perhaps the suggestor was my subconscious mind?). I retained the feeling of the experience, and tried for years to get all my activity to come from that place. After awhile I realized that if I truly believed an action was necessary, "the windy element" would move my body to effect it, but like hypnosis I couldn't get "the windy element" to do anything I didn't truly believe in. I used to have a roommate who loved to go down to Gaylord's ice cream parlor with me and watch me eat; kind of trippy when the hand moves independent of the will, but hopefully I'm not so fanatic anymore. Years later, I did hear Kobun Chino Otogawa chide everyone at S.F. Zen Center as he closed a lecture, saying "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around". Question is, how do you set up the experience for someone else? I'm convinced that personal necessity is a big part of it, my practice at the time was to give up everything until I got down to what I absolutely needed. That's why I was a little spacey, you get to feeling subtle energies when you are giving things up like that. Trick is not to hurt yourself, and I think the meditation on in-breaths and out-breaths is like an anchor in that regard. A decade later I realized I still couldn't sit the lotus worth beans, and I set to studying kinesthesiology, at first from "low back pain syndrome" by Rene Calliet (hope I'm spelling that right) and articles he referenced, then fortunately through the works of John Upledger and other cranial-sacral practitioners. I now apply myself to realize "the windy element" in the simple actions of upright posture from one instance of consciousness to the next, and I find it is really keyed to the free movements of the sacrum, and the impact of sense contact on the stretch already in existence as consciousness takes place. My latest write references this toward the end (Zazen), though I admit the connection with hypnotic phenomena is not yet clear to me and not explicitly in that writing. Mark

Thanks for the video recommendation, the opening few minutes were very interesting; the graphic sure resembled the sphenoid, butterfly bone in the center of the skull with the pineal embedded in the center of it. I don't seek to transcend the senses, so I tuned out after awhile, but I appreciate the descriptions none the less. Mr. V, is it the Tibetan path you are on then? I'm not sure what part of jing they address in Tibetan Buddhism, but like Taoism there seem to be strains of Tibetan Buddhism that allow of intercourse under certain conditions. Not much acknowledged, I know the Dalai Lama said these are the monks that also eat shit, but that's about the only straight reference I've heard to it. And in Taoism, what, they want to retain the semen (shades of the novel Candy)? Well, I don't know if sexuality is the height of jing, or entering the eye of I-forget-who in the center of the brain as in the video of the Indian yogin; I think I will hope to experience whatever I can of the stuff I am made of, since there is nothing apart from that, so the Gautamid taught.

That is why we are Tao Bums, we love Johnny Cash!

I think the difference between Taoism and Buddhism is in the emphasis, primarily. I like the triumvirate, jing-chi-shen, as a description of the elements of practice. In the Pali Cannon sermons, the Gautamid speaks of "the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths"; he also speaks of consciousness, and of the phenomena associated with the occurrence of consciousness. Although the parallel is not exact, I feel as though the Gautamid adressed chi and shen, but did not directly address jing; indirectly, yes, but not explicitly. He de-emphasized phenomena associated with the serpent on Ascelpius's staff, so to speak. exorcist_1699, I appreciate your posts. I'm hoping you will be interested in an explanation of practice with pre-heavenly qi, post-heavenly qi, in kinesthetic terms. Cheng Man-ching, the Tai-Chi master, spoke of chi sinking to the tan-tien, circulating throughout the body, and finally overflowing the tan-tien to the tailbone and up the spine to the top of the head. He cautioned that no force must be used in the movement of chi from the tan-tien to the tailbone and up the spine, and that consulting a teacher or fellow students might be advisable. My experience is this: the flexion-extension of the cranial-sacral system at the sacrum stretches the sacro-spinous ligaments and the sacro-tuberous ligaments, and these ligaments induce reciprocal innervation in the muscles that hammock the pelvis off the hips and rotate the pelvis on the hips. As the pelvis rotates, the stretch of fascia behind the sacrum innervates the piriformis muscles and the extensors, and the psoas muscle is innervated in response to the activity in the extensors. The sides of the psoas muscle rotate the balance of the body around the vicinity of the tan-tien, before the sides of the psoas slide over the pubes to align the hips and permit the tip and rotation of the pelvis around the sacrum. Because the spontaneous place of occurrence of consciousness coordinates the autonomic respiration of breath and of cranial-sacral fluid, paying attention to nothing in particular (and yet excluding nothing) develops the rhythm of both respirations (pre-heavenly qi); because attendance to particular places is a part of the development of the stretches necessary to reciprocal innervation, qi also develops through the recollection of the sign of the concentration in practice, at the tan-tien, behind the sacrum, and elsewhere (post-heavenly qi). How important is the movement of the butterfly bone in the skull that terminates on the sides of the eye-sockets, I don't know, but I suspect equally as important as the free movement of the sacrum. Free movement of the sacrum depends on support for the lower spine in the movement of breath, in the ilio-lumbar ligaments (2 sets, the vertical set engaged in inhalation, the horizontal set engaged in expiration). The movement of breath, the cranial-sacral rhythm, and the free occurrence of consciousness, I think these three are present with different emphasis in all the spiritual teachings. Is it enough to just tell people to sit with the legs crossed and hold the body upright, to cover jing? Not for me, it wasn't enough, I couldn't find my way; I'm grateful for the Taoist teachings and the martial arts of China, particularly Tai-Chi and Xing Yi, and for the freedom to include an ordinary life as sacred that Taoism implies. I'm satisfied it will all work out, with a little good will.

I think we're fortunate to have the early works, both in the Tripitaka and in Taoism, apparently. And in the gnostic gospels. I read that the original summons to the five ascetics was, "come, live the life of purity to make an end of suffering". And at the end of his life, the Gautamid declared it was only necessary to observe the three principle rules (unfortunately nobody knows which three he was referring to). I met a Zen teacher in Palo Alto, and she was certain I should find a teacher, and work on my posture. I told her I had considered zazen my teacher, since the day it got up and walked around; I wonder if we cannot communicate now in the vocabulary of all three early teachings, and kinethesiology, and cranial-sacral therapy, talk to people about the funny intersection of will and hypnotic phenomena around the breath. I will take a chance, and dedicate my life to this, because I have no choice. Do you have a choice, when you take refuge, I wonder... I feel a stranger when you invoke the Buddhist idea, I have to say. I'm pretty much a failure, on the Buddhist trail alone, I'm afraid. I feel some life when I recall the practices in all three, however, and especially when I find that I have let go of being anyone again. How hard it must be to keep these institutions alive, my hat is off to all those who have, what an admirable life! yours, Mark

I love both of these things, especially "by no way can we attach to any impurity". And the triumvirate of jing-chi-shen is being good to me, I appreciate the voices (yours among them) who added that to the "Taoism different from Buddhism" dialogue. I have in my writing and in my practice concluded that the place of occurrence of consciousness acts, through reciprocal innervation (muscles signaled to contract through the stretch of fascia, in agonist/antagonist pairs throughout the body). Thus, consciousness before discrimination sits, and moves. Emptiness exploding into pieces, the moments of consciousness, the impact in the fascial stretch as consciousness takes place, the feeling. Jing the stretch in existence as consciousness takes place, chi the movement of breath, shen the occurrence of consciousness balanced between. My practice (Marblehead, ignore this!). ok, and $1.75 gets a cup of coffee here at Peet's. By no way can we attach to any impurity. The end of suffering, from the cessation of ignorance. The guest mistaking the host might want an end of suffering, the pure man breathing to his heals might too, yet for both by no way can we attach! Ha ha.

Hey, Mr. V., "Everything changes; work out your own salvation." you left me in the dirt with those relationships, quoted above, spinning dirty in the sky without a north to constellate with! yours, Mark

Tao may be spoken of and it is not a constant Tao. Its essence may be manifested and it is not a constant manifestation. As Wu, it marks the beginnings of all beings; As Yo, it is the mother for all beings. Therefore, As true Wu, it is to show its transmuting appearance (of Yo); As true Yo, it is to show its transmuting disappearance (into Wu). The two emanate from the same; They are different manifestations of the same. It is profound and profound. This is the gateway to all mysteries. Like that (I'm still reading the back pages). Nothin' but change, as far as the eye can see! I'd start another thread, but I'm not done with this one... love ya, ya'old blockhead! yers truly Mark

Well, I'm not Mr. V., and I thought I had something to say about this but now I'm not so sure. There are five skandas in the Gautamid's teaching, and the fifth is consciousness. They are identifications of self with phenomena, so the identification of self with phenomena of consciousness, the group of such identifications is the fifth skanda. The Gautamid also taught five arupa jhanas, abidings in nonmaterial "planes". These are the infinity of space (or ether), the infinity of consciousness, no-thing, neither perception nor yet nonperception, and cessation of (the activity of) perception and sensation. By activity was meant volitive activity. So the master would be correct in saying that the plane of the infinity of consciousness is succeeded by the plane of no-thing, as far as arupa jhanas are concerned, but I don't recall that a cessation of the skandhas is identified specifically in the sermon volumes. I'm probably wrong about that. The three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance (which lead to further-becoming) cease with the cessation of perception and sensation, that much I know. Returning to the discussion of dependent causation and the Tao existent before all creation, I think it's important to keep the baby when we throw away the bathwater. The Gautamid believed in the existence of small fairies, he stated as a given miracle the ability to stroke the sun and the moon with the hand, and at one point his teaching resulted in scores of his monks taking the knife every day for a couple of weeks. My personal mythology is that the death of a great spiritual teacher (so to speak) is accelerated by their inability to communicate the means of salvation to others, and that (I think) is really where the discussion should be aimed: what do these traditions have that we can receive, that can actually heal us, and that we can share with others? I agree with Mr. V. that there are parts of Taoism that the Gautamid might have rejected as eternalist (and which are echoed in much of the Buddhist world anyway), and I agree with whomever said that Taoist medicine (and the whole notion of Chi?) is onto something real that is not mentioned in the Gautamid's teaching (at least not directly). I personally believe that cranial-sacral osteopathy is the first western examination of the phenomena that underlies Chinese medicine, and that is only in its infancy. I like the idea of conserving energy, I don't even mind the idea of immortality, in the sense that Jesus spoke of entering heaven and heaven being within. I think the great spiritual teachings of the world are one thread, and if we don't come up with a way to communicate what it's all about in a way that people can understand soon, we will likely annihilate life on the planet. we should speak to the point.

I was there in SF on Cole St. in 1975; what a time. Learned to dance at Mabuhay in the early '80's. my miracle is one foot in front of the other, or whatever- tough to do anything when you discard the context of everything without discarding anything, but whatdyaknow, falling down hill is tougher. Love ralis with the great shot of the joker Heath, and Marblehead reminding me that we are discussing something- are we having fun yet? Serene, tell us to be nice, wouldya... they won't hear it from yours truly. love, Mark

wow, good one. Thanks for reading my stuff; those are my notes, talking to myself, trying to guide myself because no one else could teach me the lotus and all the things I needed to know to sit the lotus and not fall down when I stood up. I understand the surrender of things that you practiced, that was how I set out too; vegan and "do no harm" as a mantra, of sorts. And I can relate to experiencing suburban life as totally strange and bizarre and my desires as so much confusion that I had to try to give it all up. When I was 25, living off the panhandle in SF, my body got up from a desk and walked to the door; I had dedicated the day to following the movement of breath all day, and that's what happened. Later I heard Kobun Chino Otogawa admonish folks at the SF Zen Center with "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around", but by then I was already having a dickens of a time because I thought zazen should do everything in my life. After a while I saw that whatever I really believed in would cause "the windy element" to move my body, and I wasn't so hard on myself after that. So I am writing to find my way to an ordinary life. I missed something about upright posture when I came into the world and subsequently, and now I have to learn to sit and walk by myself, all over again. The great news is, my writing is working for me in that regard, somehow. I can sit the lotus 40 or 50 minutes in the morning, and I don't fall down when I get up (doesn't sound like great fun, does it, but I wouldn't trade it). check the write in my signature, that more directly concerns the end of suffering and ordinary, everyday life. I love that thing by Shunryu Suzuki too, about the blue jay reading the book; there's a video on youtube and on the SF Zen Center site, and I have an explanation down at the bottom of "the mudra of zen" you might like. The experience of the arupa jhanas, even of the rupa jhanas, is strange and extraordinary, at least to me; the linearity of the approach is appealing, but I am satisfied if I am vaguely aware that ease and absorption have stopped by, maybe a little joy at a particular thought, and whoa-ho! enough equanimity so that I can drop a few things. The bluejay reading the book, that is the cessation of volition in speech, body, and mind to me, and startlingly close at hand. When the bluejay is reading the book, relinquishment of activity of consciousness and feeling follows, I would say. Mark

Hi, Serene, Hi Vajrahradaya, hey Stig, hey MB, how's it goin', I do have a fuller explanation of the basis of my remarks, you can google "zen mudra" and find it, or click here: the mudra of zen As to the paragraph, let me start by saying that the original invocation by which the Gautamid inducted the five ascetics into the order was "come, live the life of purity to make an end of suffering." Regardless of what faith or teaching we ascribe to, I think no one comes to transformative religious experience apart from a deep dissatisfaction with personal suffering. One thing I like about Taoism is an emphasis on ordinary people, on living as an ordinary person, and I think the Chan teachers picked that up because I read it in their teachings too by the 12th century CE; nevertheless, underlying that life as an ordinary person is a life of purity, if making an end of suffering has become the touchstone. By a life of purity I mean the relinquishment of volition in speech, action, and mind. The Gautamid taught that the activities of speech, action, and mind cease gradually as the jhanas unfold. At the same time, as Dogen pointed out in his Fukan zazen gi, everyone experiences an end of suffering all the time, rather they specifically walk the path of purity and realize the cessation of perception and volition (activity of mind) or not (ok, Dogen didn't specifically say an end of suffering, but close enough). A unique aspect of the Gautamid's teaching to me is the description of ignorance as the origin of suffering. To me, the place of occurrence of consciousness is used by the autonomic respiration of the lungs and by the autonomic respiration of the cranial sacral system to coordinate being. When the Chan master Yuanwu said just be aware of where you are 24-7, he was pointing to the sense of location as consciousness takes place. When we ignore the sense of location of consciousness takes place, when mindfulness of that sense of location is called for, we suffer. Because we all snap back into the sense of location as consciousness takes place, the end of suffering presents itself; the beauty of the teaching is that there is nothing that can be done about any of this, yet somehow the witness of the how consciousness is conditioned by pain, pleasure, and ignorance frees the occurrence of consciousness. Not a volitive act. The Gautamid limited the scope of his teaching, I believe to allow consistency in his statements about the life of purity and the end of suffering. When we realize the teaching, we no longer have it, we have (as Shunryu Suzuki described it) each part of the body doing zazen independently. Each of the senses and the mind doing zazen independently. Conditioned origination exploded in pieces, whatdyaknow... I drink beer too, mostly to dance. I do not aim to be a Buddha, just an ordinary guy, what does that make me... ha ha ha! thanks, all; yours, Mark

Hi, all, Well lots of personal and interesting approaches to the journey being spoken here, and I'd like to jump on the raft and sink it purely by the weight of bodies! I liked the toothless Taoist (thanks, Marblehead). I like the dependant origination discussion, and the point about Taoism positing something somewhere as different from Buddhism, although there is a later sermon volume (the fifth Sutta collection) that includes the oft-quoted "if it were not for the unborn, there would be no buddha-nature" or words to that effect. A later attribution, not uttered by the man in India. I agree that the Buddhist analysis does not allow of a something somewhere, but I don't mind a feeling that our existence has relationships that came into being with the universe, as long as I accept that there may come a time when there is no existence. My personal wondering. I think the trick in any religion is how you funnel a living interaction of consciousness, impact, and feeling down to a teaching that can be of use to someone at sometime somewhere as they turn toward a living interaction. Everyone has the first principle. It's my belief that nothing can be communicated oneway, that the real art is finding the mystical communion of the shared symbol set, two arrows meeting in space. Dependent orgination, yes, but there is a happiness associated with the cessation of (volition in) perception and sensation, so said the Gautamid, and he acknowledged that this seemed to contradict the purified equanimity that proceeds the cessation. That's part of dependent origination to me, that we cannot resist the happiness associated with well-being. So we can drop it all. And emptiness explodes into pieces. Cleverly concealed in the high-phalutin' Chinese Taoist and Zen teachings are concrete descriptions of practice, very physical as well as very mental, and how to find a way in. The sacrum is a sacred bone, I think, and the lotus isolates the cranial-sacral rhythm at the sacrum; if you don't like the lotus, then the single-weighted posture of Tai-chi is the source of the movement, not volition, because the cranial-sacral rhythm causes the ligaments and fascia to generate motion as they are stretched. Strength from the ligaments. motion without motion. Three components described over and over. Sit upright, setting mindfulness of breath in front, holding onto nothing in this world. Jing, chi, shen. how'ma doin. Mark