Mark Foote

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Posts posted by Mark Foote

  3. Posted

    On 5/16/2025 at 11:31 AM, Cobie said:

     

    Okidoki it’s your truth, good for you. You look so nice in your profile picture so I will also agree, yes popular. :)
     


    As long as we're in the unpopular opinions thread, yes, I am so nice!  ;)

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  5. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    9 hours ago, Cadcam said:

     

    As a person begins to retract from wanting, one of the first things to go is lust. In order for this to subside, one must be free from the draw of beauty. When beauty dies, so too does the preference for it over things that are not beautiful to a person. This can lead in all sorts of directions.

     

    For myself, I find that I am no longer compassionate,  I do not have the empathy I once did. It takes a lot for me to be moved by either beauty or suffering. I find that life plays out like a movie that I have no attachment to: I'm just viewing it and not moved by it. This liberation can lead to negative behavior.
     

     

     

     …I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of sensual lust, if not already arisen, or, if arisen, to cause its more-becoming and increase, as the feature of beauty (in things).

     

    In (one) who pays not systematic attention to the feature of beauty, sensual lust, if not already arisen, arises: or, if already arisen, is liable to more-becoming and increase. …I know not of any other single thing of such power to prevent the arising of sensual lust, if not already arisen: or, if arisen, to cause its abandonment, as the feature of ugliness (in things). In (one) who gives systematic attention to the feature of ugliness (in things) sensual lust, if not already arisen, arises not: or, if arisen, it is abandoned.

     

    (AN 1.11, 1.12, tr. Pali Text Society vol I pp 2-3)

     

    On the other hand:

     

    So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Vesālī, at the Great Wood, in the hall with the peaked roof. Now at that time the Buddha spoke in many ways to the mendicants about the meditation on ugliness. He praised the meditation on ugliness and its development.

     

    Then the Buddha said to the mendicants, “Mendicants, I wish to go on retreat for a fortnight. No-one should approach me, except for the one who brings my almsfood.”

     

    “Yes, sir,” replied those mendicants. And no-one approached him, except for the one who brought the almsfood.

    Then those mendicants thought, “The Buddha spoke in many ways about the meditation on ugliness. He praised the meditation on ugliness and its development.” They committed themselves to developing the many different facets of the meditation on ugliness. Becoming horrified, repelled, and disgusted with this body, they looked for a suicide weapon. Each day ten, twenty, or thirty mendicants committed suicide.

     

    Then after a fortnight had passed, the Buddha came out of retreat and addressed Ānanda, “Ānanda, why does the mendicant Saṅgha seem so diminished?”

     

    Ānanda told the Buddha all that had happened, and said, “Sir, please explain another way for the mendicant Saṅgha to get enlightened.”

     

    “Well then, Ānanda, gather all the mendicants staying in the vicinity of Vesālī together in the assembly hall.”

    “Yes, sir,” replied Ānanda. He did what the Buddha asked, went up to him, and said, “Sir, the mendicant Saṅgha has assembled. Please, sir, come at your convenience.”

     

    Then the Buddha went to the assembly hall, sat down on the seat spread out, and addressed the mendicants:

     

    “Mendicants, when this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated it’s peaceful and sublime, a deliciously pleasant meditation. And it disperses and settles unskillful qualities on the spot whenever they arise.

     

    In the last month of summer, when the dust and dirt is stirred up, a large sudden storm disperses and settles it on the spot.

     

    In the same way, when this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated it’s peaceful and sublime, a deliciously pleasant meditation. And it disperses and settles unskillful qualities on the spot whenever they arise. And how is it so developed and cultivated?

     

    It’s when a mendicant—gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut—sits down cross-legged, sets their body straight, and establishes mindfulness in their presence.

    (SN 54.9, tr. Sujato)
     

     

    Gautama goes on to explain what he means by mindfulness, in the context above. I have summarized that mindfulness:

     

    1) Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation;

     

    2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

     

    3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

     

    4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation.

     

    (Applying the Pali Instructions, edited)

     

     

    You might try that.

     

     

  6. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    Oh yes, free willy still exists, though not its star:


    Keiko (c. 1976 – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979, and widely known for his portrayal of Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of being prepared for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.


     

    KeikoOrcaFreeWillyDec98.jpg

     

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  7. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 5/13/2025 at 10:36 AM, old3bob said:


    Don't know about all of that Mark but i will say:

    to surrender will takes will,

     



    True that Gautama said:
     

    Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.
     

    (SN 48.10; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 174)

     

     

    What I find is more like:

     

    The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.
     

    (Common Ground)
     

     

    Involuntary.

     

    Likewise with regard to the "thought applied and sustained" of the first concentration:
     

    Applying and sustaining thought would appear to be a preparatory practice, but in Gautama’s “intent concentration”, the thought comes out of necessity in the free placement of attention in the movement of breath. When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention draws out thoughts initial and sustained, and brings on the stages of concentration.

    (Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)
     

     

    Again, involuntary.

     

    Nan-yueh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent; they are not to be defiled."

     

    (“Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, Carl Bielefeldt, p 138)

     

     

    Not defiled through the exercise of will.

    From my current post:
     

    Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress.
     

    A frailty in the structure of the lower spine emerged in the 1940’s, when research demonstrated that the discs of the spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight...

    (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

     

    A lot of useful kinesiology in that post, some of which I only discovered through research in the course of writing it.

     

     

  8. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    6 hours ago, old3bob said:


    Don't know about all of that Mark but i will say:

    to surrender will takes will,

     


     

    Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity.

     

    The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point.

    (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)
     

     

    How to use the mind becomes "quite clear":
     

    So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom.
     

    (“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added)
     


    For me, it's always been more about getting out of my head, how to use my mind, than anything else. The will only has to do with a clarity of view regarding suffering.  

    The trick, though, is that thicket of thorns. If the root cause of suffering is ignorance of being, then I must find a way  to open to the point to point occurrence of embodied self-location as the source of activity, and that opening is the opening of the nerve exits between the vertebrae of the sacrum and spine. 



     

     

     

     

    dermatomes-Thibodeau-Patton-1999.jpg

     


    Regarding the concentration in which activity of the body is purely by virtue of the location of consciousness, by virtue of the "embodied self-location", Gautama said:
     

    … it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth. 

    (MN 119, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III p 134)

     


    Feeling over the surface of the entire body, in each of the dermatomes of the chart above. How those nerve exits come to be open in sitting, is the topic of my latest post.

     

  9. Posted

    22 hours ago, Cadcam said:


    I think there is a particular something within each of us that is uniquely you. It's the combination of parts and pieces that results in a voice that emanates from the mind. It's made up of our voice, our experiences,  our impulses and choices.
     

     

     

    The teaching of Gautama the Shakyan is that the impulses and choices cease in successive states of concentration, first the impulses and choices in speech, then in the activity of the body, then in the activity of the mind.

     

    The question is how to arrive at these states of concentration, of which Gautama said:
     

    Lack of desire even for the attainment of (any of the concentrations) has been spoken of by [me]; for whatever (one) imagines (a concentration) to be, it is otherwise.

     

    (MN 113, tr. PTS vol III pp 92-94)

     

     

     

     

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  10. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 4/20/2025 at 1:26 PM, Mark Foote said:

     

    indoctrination

    cow pies in a pasture of words

    stepping lively now

     

     

     

    stepping lively now

    leaping, as it were, through space

    words flow unconscious

     

    words flow unconscious

    from the unenlightened hand 

    worse than misplaced feet 

     

    worse than misplaced feet

    in a pasture, thick with stuff

    haiku-writing 'roo  

    haiku-writing 'roo

    bouncing around the outback

    tall eucalyptus 

     

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  12. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 4/27/2025 at 8:50 PM, Tommy said:


    Feng Shui is Chinese words for wind, water. Its meaning is more than just the wind and the water. It is a philosophy of how to harmonize people with their environment by optimizing the flow of energy. So direct translation loses meaning. That is my point. If one is looking to translate text written in another language then lots of meaning may be lost in the translation. Language is not just words but a reflection of the culture in which the language developed. So, even though cell phones are called dian wah. They are also called 手机 or hand machine. Which in a different industry would bring in a whole other meaning. :rolleyes:
     



    So true, that translation can make all the difference.  I am fond of the Pali Text Society translations of the first four Nikayas, and of the Cleary brothers translations of so many Ch'an texts. I would not have been able to begin with these texts, without these translations.

    F. L. Woodward of the Pali Text Society translates the two feelings that are characteristic of the first concentration as "zest and ease".  Others have translated these terms as "joy and bliss". I'd be lost, without Woodward.

    Sometimes, though, the off-beat translation speaks to me.  I like Nishijima's translation of a line in Dogen's "Genjo Koan" about birds and fish:
     

     

    …each one realizes its limitations at every moment and each one somersaults (in complete freedom) at every place…


    ("Genjo Koan", Nishijima-Cross)
     

     

    Nobody else translates it that way.

     

     

     

     

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  13. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 4/23/2025 at 11:48 AM, S:C said:


    What about the diamond sutra and/or the heart sutra? 
    Is it implied there indirectly or am I mis-interpreting? 
    @Taoist Texts pls don’t leave me hanging here…

     

    is that correlated to what @stirling meant by reactions to it could either be the recognition of “I AM” or “emptiness/possibilities”?

     

    people need to get outta their diamond cage @Mark Foote ?

     

    what am I missing here?
     



    If you get right down to it, it's the history of mathematics in the first half of the twentieth century.

     

    The mathematicians of the day were keen to put all of mathematics on an axiomatic basis.  Sort of like, Euclid's Geometry, Redux--set up some axioms, and all of the known mathematical truths of the day would fall out as theorems.

    Along comes Kurt Godel, who demonstrates with logic and the properties of prime numbers that if your axioms are consistent, you cannot generate all that is known to be true in mathematics from them, and if you can  generate all that is known in mathematics from a set of axioms, then you can also generate contradictory "truths" from those axioms.

    IMHO, the two-truths doctrine is just accepting a set of axioms about reality that yield contradictions, and regarding that as inevitable. 

     

    Nah. There's a whole school of mathematics that rejects the law of the excluded middle (if it's not x, then it must be y). The reason most mathematicians are not eager to sign up as "intuitionists", as that school is called, is because it's not possible to generate all the beautiful results of modern mathematics from the logic the intuitionists are willing to accept.

    To me, the beauty of the teaching in the first four Nikayas is that there is an outline of a way of living, a way of living that Gautama said:


    … if cultivated and made much of, (the concentration) is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too.

     

    (SN 54.9, tr. Pali Text Society vol. V p 285)

     

    Gautama declared it to have been his way of living before his enlightenment, as well as after (same chapter, different sermons).

     

    He is intentionally taking the emphasis off enlightenment, probably because of the incident recorded in the same chapter where scores of monks a day "took the knife", or committed suicide. Seems Gautama had preached on the virtues of mindfulness of the ugly aspects of the body, just before he took a three week retreat, and the monks got hysterical. When Gautama returned, his attendant Ananda said, "it were well, Lord, if the Lord were to teach some other method of gnosis." The result was a lecture on the concentration that "is something peaceful and choice", which he called either "the concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing" as in the chapter above, or "the (mind-)development that is mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing", if you prefer MN 118 (Anapansati).

    Just finished a post titled "The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns"--all about that practice, if you're interested. Not about two truths.

     

    Not what it sounds like, the "intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing". Amounts to "just sitting", if you can swallow the thicket of thorns and see your way clear to leap out of the diamond trap:

     

    But usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit.
     

    (“The Background of Shikantaza”; Shunryu Suzuki, Sunday, February 22, 1970, San Francisco; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

     

     

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  14. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 6/2/2024 at 5:56 PM, stirling said:

     

    First jhana is concentration on the sensation of piti. There is still thought. I don't think it is possible that thought and one-pointedness co-exist.

     



    Finished a post that I think gives a better explanation of this. I'll quote the part I think is particularly relevant, then give a link to the post in case you're interested in the context.
     

    In the mindfulness of Gautama’s most famous sermon (Satipatthana, MN 10), the mindfulness of feelings consisted of a mindfulness of the pleasant, the painful, and the neither-pleasant-nor-painful. In the mindfulness that was Gautama’s way of living, however, the mindfulness of feelings consisted of a mindfulness of feelings of zest and ease, feelings that he also identified as belonging to the first concentration (SN 54.1, tr. PTS vol. V p 279; SN 48.10; tr. PTS vol. V p 174).

     

    In my experience, the feeling of ease associated with concentration is the feeling of ease that arises from activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness. Activity of the body can follow automatically as the location of consciousness leads the balance of the body. Automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness has a feeling of ease, and initially a feeling of energy (or “zest”) as well.

     

    Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity.

     

    The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point.

    (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

     

    Maybe a better explanation of "one-pointedness", from the same post:

     

    Modern neuroscience now includes the study of the “bodily self”:
     

    A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders (embodied self-location).
     

    (Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3403-09.2010)

     

    The “self (that is) localized at a specific position in space” is commonly associated with consciousness. The Indian sage Nisargadatta spoke about “the consciousness in the body”:
     

    You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness.
     

    (Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality]; ISBN 978-9385902833)

     

    The specific position in space of “the consciousness in the body” is often assumed to be fixed somewhere behind the eyes. Zen teacher Koun Franz suggested that the location is not fixed:
     

    … as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture (legs crossed in seated meditation) and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.
     

    (“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site, parenthetical added)

     

    Franz spoke about “letting go” to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head. Gautama spoke about “making self-surrender the object of thought” in order to “lay hold of one-pointedness”:
     

    Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.
     

    (SN 48.10; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 174)

     

    Laying hold of “one-pointedness” is having the experience of embodied self-location wherever consciousness takes place.
     

    Consciousness can be fixed in place by the exercise of will, as Gautama explained:
     

    That which we will…, and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied:–-this becomes an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness….
     

    But if we neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness.

    (SN 12.38; tr. PTS SN vol. II p 45; “persistance” in original)

     

    A surrender of the exercise of will, of intention and deliberation, is necessary to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head, to allow a laying-hold of “one-pointedness”.

     

    (ibid)

     

     

  15. Posted

    Raftery

    Me Rafteiri, the poet, full of hope and love
    with eyes without light, silence without pain,
    going down my journey with the light of my heart,
    faint and weary at the end of my way;
    now see me facing the Wall
    playing music for empty pockets'.

    ("Antoine Ó Raifteirí (also Antoine Ó Reachtabhra, or Anthony Raftery; 30 March 1779 – 25 December 1835)[1] was an Irish language poet who is often called the last of the wandering bards." --Wikipedia)

     

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  16. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

     

     

     

    …And again, Ananda, [an individual], not attending to the perception of the plane of no-thing, not attending to the perception of the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, attends to the solitude of mind that is signless. [Their] mind is satisfied with, pleased with, set on and freed in the concentration of mind that is signless. [They] comprehends thus, ‘This concentration of mind that is signless is effected and thought out. But whatever is effected and thought out, that is impermanent, it is liable to stopping.’ When [the individual] knows this thus, sees this thus, [their] mind is freed from the canker of sense-pleasures and [their] mind is freed from the canker of becoming and [their] mind is freed from the canker of ignorance. In freedom is the knowledge that [one] is freed and [one] comprehends: “Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the (holy)-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more of being such or so’. [They] comprehend thus: “The disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of sense-pleasures do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of becoming do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of ignorance do not exist here. And there is only this degree of disturbance, that is to say the six sensory fields that, conditioned by life, are grounded on this body itself. [One] regards that which is not there as empty of it. But in regard to what remains [one] comprehends:  'That being, this is.' Thus, Ananda, this comes to be for [such a one] s true, not mistaken, utterly purified and incomparably highest realisation of emptiness.

     

    ("Lesser Discourse on Emptiness", Culasunnatasutta, tr. Pali Text Society MN III 121 vol III p 151-2; emphasis added)

     

     

     

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, Tommy said:


    So back to the question. The self, Does it exist?

     

    I have read the answers and it has brought more questions. As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?
     

     

     

    I can't say, about what happens after death, if anything.

    Lately I've been fascinated to discover, that Gautama taught concentrations including one that he claimed was the attainment that set him apart from his teachers, but declared enlightenment to be something apart from any attainment in concentration. A "perfect wisdom", a "profound knowledge"--he first associated these with the fourth initial concentration, then with the final signless concentration, then averred that such "wisdom" or "knowledge" was not automatic even with the final attainment in concentration.

     

    But to return to the question of the self.  Right now, I am writing about something from the field of neurobiology:
     

    A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one's bodily borders (embodied self-location). 

    (Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3403-09.2010)

     

    I write about it in this context:

     

    A surrender of the exercise of will, of intention and deliberation, is necessary to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head, to allow an experience of “embodied self-location” wherever consciousness takes place.

     

    What I'm realizing is that some people are very good at allowing an experience of "embodied self-location" wherever consciousness takes place.  Especially a handy talent to have for an athlete, as the automatic response of the body follows from embodied self-location.
     

    I believe that there are enumerable people for whom the sense of self is a strength, because they associate it with "embodied self-location". They have a freedom of consciousness, consciousness can take place anywhere in the body and produce activity in the body and mind in a way that's natural and healthy.

    It's only the folks who get lost in their heads and can't "leap out of the diamond cage", as Yuanwu put it, who need to learn to be truly selfless. And for them, all the books are a thicket of thorns that must, as Yuanwu also said, be swallowed with care.

     

     

  20. Posted

    On 4/16/2025 at 11:30 AM, Taomeow said:

     

    Walking without legs,

    flying without wings, longing

    without an object.

     

    Without an object

    to flesh out in a haiku,

    it gets so Western.

     

    It gets so Western,

    a haiku set in the mind

    instead of nature.

     

    Instead of nature,

    we observe figments of our

    indoctrination.

     

     

     

    indoctrination

    cow pies in a pasture of words

    stepping lively now

    • Like 3

  24. Posted

    2 hours ago, Tommy said:

     

    To me. it seems the Koan is just another crutch for the student to use in order to focus his concentration and be able to maintain the silence. This allows the awareness to depart from this mind. 

     

    Of course, I do not know if any of this is true. But, I try to make things simple for me to understand.

     

     

     

    Sounds pretty much right to me, not that I have any authority to say so.

    Reading your remarks, I'm thinking, "one hand clapping, the kind of dull thud you get when the thoughts come to an end, and you find awareness broadening out involuntarily."

     

    I've heard some Zen teachers give readings of the koans that I knew for a fact were wide of the mark, but then--they were Soto teachers.  Maybe Rinzai teachers know better than to stick their necks out!  ;)

    • Like 1

  25. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    On 4/10/2025 at 8:32 PM, Lairg said:

     

    The Absolute is the construct used by humans to refer to that which is unchanging.

     

    Decades ago I noticed that what was unchanging always retreated before me.  That still continues.

     

    Perhaps human concepts do not map what is Real

     

     

     

    "Everything changes, work out your own salvation"--last words of Gautama the Shakyan

     

    Some real stuff:
     

    The frailty of the lower spine emerged with studies made in the 1940’s, studies that established that the discs of the lumbar spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight.

    In the 1950’s, D. L. Bartelink concluded that pressure in the “fluid ball” of the abdominal cavity takes load off the structure of the spine when weight is lifted  (“The Role of Abdominal Pressure in Relieving the Pressure on the Lumbar Intervertebral Discs”; J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1957 Nov; 39-B(4):718-25). The pressure in the “fluid ball” is induced by activity in the abdominal muscles, and Bartilink was able to establish that in weight lifting, the pressure induced is proportional to the weight lifted.

    Bartelink theorized that animals (as well as humans) make use of pressure in the abdominal cavity to protect the spine, and he noted that breathing can continue even when the abdomen is tensed:
     

    Animals undoubtedly make an extensive use of the protection of their spines by the tensed somatic cavity, and probably also use it as a support upon which muscles of posture find a hold…

    Breathing can go on even when the abdomen is used as a support and cannot be relaxed.

    (ibid)


    In the 1980’s, Gracovetsky, Farfan and Lamay suggested that in weight lifting, the abdominals work against the extensor muscles of the spine to allow the displacement of the fascial sheet behind the sacrum and spine:


    If this interpretation is correct, it would partly explain why the abdominal muscles work hard during weight-lifting. They apparently work against the extensor muscles. Furthermore their lever arm gives them considerable effect. In fact, we propose that the effect of the abdominal muscles is two-fold:  to balance the moment created by the abdominal pressure (hence, the abdominal muscles do not work against the weight lifter) and to generate abdominal pressure up to 1 psi, which would help the extensors to push away the fascia.

    It is essential that the supraspinous ligament and the lumbodorsal fascia be brought into action to permit weight lifting without disk or vertebral failure. … It must be kept in mind that in some circumstances ligament tension may reach 1800 lb., whereas no muscle can pull as hard.

    (Gracovetsky, S., Farfan HF, Lamay C, 1997. A mathematical model of the lumbar spine using an optimal system to control muscles and ligaments. Orthopedic Clinics of North America 8: 135-153; bracketed added)

     

    Dr. Rene Cailliet summarized these findings:
     

    In the Lamy-Farfan model the abdominal pressure is considered to be exerted posteriorly against the lumbodorsal fascia, causing the fascia to become taut…. thus relieving the tension upon the erector spinae muscles.

    (“Low Back Pain Syndrome”, ed. 3, F. A. Davis Co., pp 140-141)



    Farfan, Lamay and Cailliet referred to the “lumbodorsal fascia”. That fascia is now more commonly referred to as the “thoracolumbar fascia”.

    There may be another factor at work in the stretch of the thoracolumbar fascial sheet. Behind the sacrum, the fascia can be stretched rearward by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. As H. F. Farfan noted:
     

    There is another peculiarity of the erector muscles of the spine. Below the level of the fifth lumbar vertebra, the muscle contracts in a compartment enclosed by bone anteriorly, laterally, and medially. Posteriorly, the compartment is closed by the lumbodorsal fascia. When contracted, the diameter of the muscle mass tends to increase. This change in shape of the muscle may exert a wedging effect between the sacrum and the lumbodorsal fascia, thereby increasing the tension in the fascia. This may be one of the few instances where a muscle can exert force by pushing. 

    (“Mechanical Disorders of the Low Back”, H. F. Farfan;1973 Lea & Febiger; p 183)
     

    Farfan mentions a “wedging effect” on the “lumbodorsal fascia” caused by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. The extensor muscles run in two sets behind the spine, one on either side of the vertebral column, and the wedging effect of the extensors on the thoracolumbar fascial sheet can therefore alternate from side to side. That is likely the source of the commentary made by Ch’an teacher Yuanwu in case 17 of “The Blue Cliff Record”:

     

    … Hsiang Lin said, “Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome.”  If you understand this way, you are “turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind.”

    (“The Blue Cliff Record”, Yuanwu, tr. Cleary & Cleary, ed. Shambala, p 114)

     

     

    From The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns.