Mark Foote

sorry mate, forgot. ancient and twisty, right, then; straight on, bottoms up

I have cheated, and added to my initial remarks on this thread an explanation that should have been there from the first; the thread is about reverse breathing, but I really didn't explain what the illustration had to do with reverse breathing. For those who are opening the thread for the first time, I added it to my remarks at the start of the thread. For those who may be following this thread, I will repeat it: We all know what it feels like to stretch, and how close stretch can be to pain; a lot of my practice is learning what is stretching at the moment, and how to relax and allow stretch and activity to reciprocate as consciousness takes place. The length of the movement of breath can be a guide to healthy stretch and the subsequent involuntary activity, both with the breath in and with the breath out. With that in mind, the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in inhalation tends to result in reciprocal activity that draws upward and inward, while the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in exhalation tends to result in activity that sinks downward and forward. This is my experience, when the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, and I believe this is because the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 4th lumbar vertebrae engage on the inhalation (they are vertical), and the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 5th lumbar vertebrae engage on the exhalation (they are horizontal). When the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, reverse breathing is already taking place, even though each breath is completely natural. "...Miraculous power and marvelous activity Drawing water and chopping wood." (Pangyun, a lay Zen practitioner, eight century C.E.) "Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there." (The Gospel According to Thomas, pg 43 log. 77, ©1959 E. J. Brill)

Not a'tall, not a'tall! I think I've spent most of my life hunched over, because I had no sense of the balanced activity between the psoas and extensors. Of course, that's an oversimplification; I just never got the bicycle-riding as far as the breath that coordinates stretches in the pelvis and lower back, and the "movement" of consciousness. oh well. I hope I'm making up for lost time. Glad to hear they didn't fuse ya, or otherwise overdo it- so many have had it overdone, OMG.

fat chickens don't fly who knew they could sing!- caged beasts I take no delight

exactly, and I don't know if it's just my stage of ripeness or what (hope I don't stink too much), but my intuition for the length of the exhale, for the length of the inhale is my key to the stretch and activity to place awareness. In reality, I don't so much place awareness as my necessity in the breath, stretch, and activity places awareness. That's the trance, I guess; weight underside and extend, as Koichi put it. L5/S1, nerves to the sole of the foot? If you have that motion that is the breathing connected with awareness, you have some support at l5 from ilio-lumbar on exhalation, and I wonder how that can be- I guess that's possible if they didn't remove transverse processes. I'm no anatomist, so I'm guessing at these relationships (but to read most anatomy books, they have no idea of the big picture, so I might as well guess). The dorsal fascia can provide support too; my guess is if the balance is right the fascial web is suspended in the correct locations, even though you have no disc l5/s1. I can sit the lotus, but I lose feeling sometimes at the sole of the feet; I think I need to relax the extensors and let the head bones move more, I think I need to forget it. Ha ha!

I read somewhere that the dragon is attempting to grasp the secret of the sun, and this is a story I love; however, I'm open to dragon eggs, as well!

That's an interesting point, Kate- my personal belief and experience is that the movement of breath never stops, and the moment where people think it stops is the moment where the body, the mind, and the balance meet- the entrance to the trance states, if the focus is on realizing through intuition the relaxed stretch and the shift of feeling necessary to the movement of breath.

That's so exciting to me to hear. When I was just starting out I practiced a figure-eight thing in the lower abdomen, walking around the panhandle in S.F. (1975); I thought of it as the hummingbird way (because I have a vivid imagination!), and although I've gone away from it over the years I still think it's an interesting practice. Right now I think more about juggling three balls, so that one is always in the air and there's a sense of weight and gravity in continuous motion. Of course, this doesn't specify the direction of motion like the figure-eight practice! The three balls could be described (I suppose) as jing, qi, shen, although I think of them as impact of the occurrence of consciousness in the fascial stretch, activity generated out of stretch in support of the movement of breath, and single-pointedness of feeling. If I relax into the stretch as consciousness occurs, and look to realize the length of the movement of breath, I have a continuity of single-pointed mind- provided I exclude nothing! When I sit, I look to the sacrum and especially the sacrospinous ligaments, I look to the gastroc-soleus (in back of the calf), the sartorius, and the piriformis, I look to the extensors and to the attachments of the extensors to the temporal bones behind the jaw on either side of the head- and I hope to let go for the juggling. The juggling usually has a pointedness of mind or feeling that returns to the space around which the psoas muscles move, moving in alternation with the extensors- the tan-t'ien. Sometimes a figure-eight.

The pelvis going from side to side is my attempt to illustrate the movement of the pelvis in three directions, corresponding to pitch, yaw, and roll. It's mostly yaw, yer right!- hopefully my next project will be 3ds-Max. Thanks for the tip from Zhang Sanfeng! (p.s.- it's better in flash, you can start to see the stretches of the ilio-sacral, sacrospinous, and sacrotuberous ligaments that lead to the activity that moves the pelvis in three directions- the flash version is here: http://www.zenmudra.com/ilio_lumbars_pulmonary_respiration.swf) - these stretches are initiated by the movement of the sacrum in the cranial-sacral rhythm, but the sacrum doesn't move freely without the support of the lower spine provided by the ilio-lumbar ligaments in the movement of breath.)

Thanks, Sean, for all you do to make communication about "unproveable" realities possible! Although I don't know Chunyi Lin, I'm very grateful to him for taking the time to give me (among others) a better sense of what he is teaching, and where he's coming from. Very uplifting to read, and I appreciate the acceptance he demonstrated and the positive response he contributed with each question. I am an amateur at Tai-Chi, and at sitting the full lotus, and at being a "love radiator" as Chunyi Lin puts it, yet even an amateur can say that we have two struggles here: one is to heal ourselves, which is how the interview opens, and the other is to find the words and actions to communicate the means of healing to others. Even though we are talking about "unproveable" realities, I believe we can find a Western vocabulary to describe relationships that demonstrate these realities exist. This is like physicists discovering the existence of habitable planets thousands of light years away by examining perturbations in the orbits of their stars; the planets themselves are unobservable, but their existence is demonstrated in the effect they have on the stars we can track. I have no intention of practicing reverse breathing. That doesn't mean I don't do reverse breathing some of the time, especially in the lotus or on the dance floor, and maybe it's useful to some people to very deliberately start out to do reverse breathing some of the time. I look to see how the place that my consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, in the instant. I recognize that there's a stretch in existence throughout the fascial structure of my body as consciousness takes place, and that the autonomic respirations coordinate through the place of occurrence of consciousness to cause action that opens the nerve channels between vertebrae; thus, the place that consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, through the body to the surface of the skin and in the senses. We all know what it feels like to stretch, and how close stretch can be to pain; a lot of my practice now is learning what is stretching, and how to relax and allow stretch and activity to reciprocate as consciousness takes place. The length of the movement of breath can be a guide to healthy stretch and the subsequent involuntary activity, both with the breath in and with the breath out. The recognition that aversion to pain, attachment to pleasure, or ignorance of neutral sensations can condition the subsequent place of occurrence of consciousness is vital to me, as this recognition precedes a witness that is itself the end of suffering at the moment. The natural mind, as it were, has within it the end of suffering; we are all healers, and I think it's important to let ourselves be healed rather than to set out toward any particular breathing.

my mothers gravestone rests in the moonlight- a hill far away calls me

(whoops!- )

If you are just sitting, then things tend to settle lower in the body. Things settling lower, the stretches initiated between the sacrum and the pelvis through the motion of the sacrum bear more weight. These stretches generate activity in the muscles of the legs and the pelvis, and the alternation of stretch and activity allows the movement of breath to find its natural course with a lower center of balance. The ability to feel opened up through a lower center of balance in the natural movement of breath continues when you get up. That would be my explanation of why the meditation leaves you more flexible, even though no overt stretching occurs. I think relinquishment is attractive to people, the determination to give something you want up for a perceived higher good is attractive to people, and maybe women are more sensitive to this than guys; I would guess.

In my experience, the lotus is about isolating the motion of the sacrum. I like John Upledger's explanation of that motion, based on his own research and the theories of cranial-sacral osteopathy: the skull bones, the spine, and the sacrum flex and extend with changes in the fluid volume of the dural fluid (ten cycles a minute, Upledger says here Shareguide Upledger interview). Isolating the motion of the sacrum is important, because the fundamental postural activity is generated by the stretch of the ligaments that connect the sacrum to the pelvis. There are ligaments between the sacrum and the wings of the pelvis, ligaments between the sacrum and the sit-bones (the sacrospinous ligaments), and ligaments between the sacrum and the front underside of the pelvis on the left and on the right (the sacro-tuberous ligaments). Stretched ligaments can generate muscular activity to relieve their stretch, without any exercise of volition; when the ligaments are paired there's a phenomena called "reciprocal innervation" that arises as ligaments alternate stretch and activity from side to side. The way to generate feeling for stretch and activity is to attend to the place of occurrence of consciousness, as necessary to realize the breath in or the breath out, and relax.

A circular moon the regular cries of geese nothing left to say (three things we love)

waking to a dream stomach rumbling, empty dream dreams and memory (partial patch of incomplete gong sound)

half empty of sound half empty of life, I sit waking to a dream

Lomistick, I'm wondering what you feel in the vicinity of the sacrum when you have this sensation. I pretty much sit with motion forward and back, side to side, and around all the time, and a lot of my practice is recognizing how the place of occurrence of consciousness leads the balance of the body to let weight rest on the ligaments that connect the sacrum to the pelvis (sacro-iliac, sacro-spinous, and sacro-tuberous), to satisfy the length of the breath in or out. Weight resting on ligaments creates activity with the cranial-sacral rhythm; key for me is the recognition of stretch as consciousness occurs, and relaxation into the impact/activity and feeling I have. What am I doing?- nothing; what's the point?- a witness of how attachment to the pleasant, aversion from the painful, or ignorance of the neutral feeling can condition the place of occurrence of consciousness frees the place of occurrence of consciousness, and in that freedom is the knowledge, I have done what there was to be done. More or less. HA HA!

Hey, Bagua-kid me not! What's it like for jobs in Reno right now- guess we can start dis'n Blasto now, I think he must be unable to reply...

a sudden presence basking in the autumn sun reeds clatter and bend

I'm looking for work in Northern California myself, but TTB makes a great break from Craigslist. If I may make a suggestion: when I write for TTB, I try for the most part to write to organize my thoughts for my own reference. I don't think everyone wants to take it to the extreme that I do, which is copying some of the things I write on other people's blogs and TTB to my own blog for my future reference, but I think it's important to always write first and foremost for myself. That way, 1) the exercise is still of benefit even if there are no responses; 2) I am being creative at finding a way to educate myself to realize my part in society (ie, find a job, here). ok, back to Craigslist

Would'a liked to have read that article, looks like the page is discontinued. I'm remembering something I read that said that certain genes don't kick in until in the presence of certain environmental factors. Here's an article, dated 2003: Can dormant genes be activated by environmental factors? Here's one from September 2010: Cells Get Stressed, Too from the latter: "Environmental factors such as pollution, bacterial toxins and tobacco smoke can turn on genes in cells that are supposed to be off, said researchers from the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark." I live in a house with a six-year old, whose teacher demanded the child receive treatment for ADHD. My six-year-old friend is reported to have better concentration in school now, and I think she is more focused here at home; maybe too much so, who can say. College kids are taking ritalin to pass exams, so I read. I drink a lot of coffee, which would on the surface seem to be a more organic alternative; lots of nice things said about coffee with respect to diabetes and colon cancer, I guess. I lived with a guy who was diagnosed as bipolar, or schizophrenic. He went nuts in his 19th year, which is pretty common among those who become schizophrenic (flipping out in their late teens, that is). This commonality alone makes me think there is some genetic or genetic/environmental basis to the disease. I'm not sure that avoiding drugs is going to be all that healthy either. As I've mentioned before on TTB, Dr. Michael Shames in Marin, California was part of a team that studied the population of a small town east of San Francisco that was exposed to a "non-toxic" chemical plume from a Chevron plant. Most of the runny noses and respiratory complaints were resolved within weeks of the release, but his team discovered that the immune systems of the people exposed remained kicked into high gear a year or so after the release. Dr. Shames concluded this was why many of his patients who were border-line low thyroid seemed to benefit from a prescription for thyroid hormone. Hashimoto syndrome is a depression of the activity of the thyroid gland because of hyper-immune system activity. The endocrine balance may be affected in other ways. Dr. John Lee, also of Marin, found that his patients benefited from doses of the hormone progesterone that were at levels within the range of normal human production; his patients saw an overall health benefit, not just with regard to women's post-menopausal difficulties. Another doctor whose name I can't recall saw the same thing using physiological (as opposed to pharmacological) doses of hydro-cortisol. Both Lee and the doctor prescribing hydro-cortisol were careful to use something molecularly identical to the human hormone, in low doses; progesterone is even available in skin creams without a prescription, it's absorbed transdermally. Lee and the doctor prescribing hydro-cortisol testified to the general improvement in health of their patients, yet both could only conjecture at why. I think Shames has the answer, and because our environment is so thoroughly saturated with pesticides and other "non-toxics" (more pesticides are used in the suburbs than on the farms, so I've read), there's no way out of a space-ship Earth mentality at this point. We're all an experiment, better hope we can figure out ways to stay alive until we get turned around toward Eden again.

I finally finished reading this thread; many wonderful bits and pieces, here. Somebody mentioned the five elements paired with ascending, descending, contracting, expanding, and rotating, and I have been thinking about something similar in my own practice- but not quite. My concern is pitch, yaw, and roll in my sense of location. You could say that this is due to the influence of the cranial-sacral rhythm on my sense of balance, as consciousness takes place. Pitch, that's the nose of the plane up or down, ascending or descending, extension or flexion of the spine. Yaw, that's the nose of the plane left or right; that's a little harder parallel, yet I suspect there is some left and right involved as the cranial-sacral rhythm causes the limbs to rotate inward with spinal flexion and outward with spinal extension. Why there is left and right is a good queston; I would guess because the sacral movements stretch the sacro-spinous ligaments and generate movement side-to-side, with consequent activity in the hamstrings and quads, and this activity stretches the ilio-tibial tracts on either side and causes activity in the sartorius muscles. Roll, that's the body of the plane rotating on the center-line, the cranial-sacral rhythm rotating the sacrum opposite to the rotation of the pelvis through the stretch of the sacro-tuberous ligaments and the consequent activity of the piriformis muscles. The rotation of the sacrum effects activity in the extensors, which move the temporal bones and the parietals, and thereby affect the nerves that control the cranial-sacral rhythm (on the sagittal suture). "Exhaling focus heaven": The cranial-sacral rhythm enters into the long or short of exhalation, and focuses the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness. "Inhaling focus earth": The long or short of inhalation and the focused sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness allows feedback between the cranial-sacral rhythm and the activity of the body that affects the nerves that control the cranial-sacral rhythm. This is also the miraculous power and marvelous activity of drawing water and chopping wood, but as Yuanwu said: "When you arrive at last at towering up like a wall miles high, you will finally know that there arent so many things." (Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu; trans. by Cleary & Cleary, page 83, ©1994 by J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary) I know, far-fetched, the parallel with the five elements...