Mark Foote

On 6/15/2025 at 6:55 AM, Bogge said:

Hi, 

I saw another post where the OP asked for strategies for clearing out the emotion of anger.

He got linked to the six sounds of qigong or something along those lines. 

It made me realize I have a completely different perspective on emotions. I always have thought of emotions are something you deal with mentally, they are ego that you as a seeker need to clear away with introspection, meditation, right view, etc. Something you have accumulated over lifetimes of wrong action. 

But I remember when taking huge doses of Iodine intense anger would sweep over me for a few seconds and after that I felt so much lighter. It most likely detoxed something in my liver. It made me ponder on the possibility of emotions are something that can be healed in the body, because they come from the body. If that makes sense?

Either way I am interested in more input and other perspectives and where emotions come from, how we can deal with them, and so on.

Thanks. 
 

 

 

You might like Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence". 

 

He writes that responses get stored by the amygdala, reactions to situations picked up in very early childhood and beyond, and when the circumstances that gave rise to those responses are duplicated the amygdala overrides the cognitive centers of the brain to react.

 

Out-of-hand emotional responses is his focus, like a sudden anger.

 

I think Bindi's right, not so much "how we can deal with them" but how we can learn about our human condition from them.

 

 

Shot this last night. Have to listen to it a few more times, no doubt. Mark does Dylan.
 

 

On 6/11/2025 at 5:47 PM, BigSkyDiamond said:

islands float in air,

astonished eyes shine and smile

enthusiasm
 

 

 

enthusiasm

for Van Gogh's starry night is

an understatement

 

an understatement

the gratitude we all have

one day at a time

 

 

 

On 6/9/2025 at 8:13 AM, 心神 ~ said:

 

What about when the wish is gone, but the body still holds the energy? When the mind and heart accept, but the body remembers?

 

 

 

I find there's no substitute for sitting with the anger, waiting for compassionate insight. The feeling is there physically in the body until my mind (and body) can work out what really happened, why somebody did what they did, such that I realize a compassionate release.

 

Can take days, but it's there when I sit until it's released.

 

 

On 6/9/2025 at 8:01 AM, Taomeow said:

 

I know it's a serious matter, but I can't resist offering my favorite movie scene dedicated to anger management:

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEE7xzwogMc

 

 

 

I know it's serious, but one good clip deserves another ("it's good, it's good, it's good."):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXuazYI_YU

 

 

21 hours ago, Nungali said:

... and actually E HE , the gamekeeper now owned all the animals and as gamekeeper he was the one that   governed the what and how of  ALL those animals and how they should be utilized   )  . 
 

 

 

A very unpopular opinion, amongst the original inhabitants, no doubt!

 

I still have faith, that the gift of the sciences of the peoples may combine with the gift of the sciences of the so-called modern world (those sciences sometimes a curse) to see humanity living in peace across the globe.

 

To realize a change in myself, should be all that's really necessary, I think. How's that for unpopular.

 

 

 

I tend to reread the works of Yuanwu a lot, principally Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu. I think the only English translation currently available is by the Cleary brothers, but I like their translations.

 

I think Carl Bielefeldt's "Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation" is excellent, I refer to the translations he makes in the book a lot. I didn't realize how much material Dogen lifted from Chinese sources until I read Bielefeldt's book.

 

I also come back to "The Gospel of Thomas", I have a translation made in the 1950's that I bought in the '60's that I like ("The Gospel According to Thomas", coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, pg 18-19 log. 22, ©1959 E. J. Brill).

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind is one I return to time and again.

 

Currently halfway through Buddhism of Wisdom and Faith by Thich Thien Tam, and can see myself rereading it again.

 

 

 

VajraFist, you might want to look up the lectures in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", and see what Suzuki actually said.

 

I do some comparison, here:

 

What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said

 

More of What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said

 

A friend of mine turned me on to lectures by Dick Baker, former abbot of S. F. Zen Center and of Crestone Zen Center, on "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind".  I think you had to have a password to view them. Anyway, Baker only read from "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" and described what it was like in the early days of SF Zen Center, he had almost nothing to say about the content of the lectures. That's what sparked my interest, so I went to David Chadwick's cuke.com and looked up a couple of lectures. 

 

In more than one case, I believe Shunryu Suzuki's meaning was distorted in the editing of "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind".

 

 

1 hour ago, Surya said:

So, I am journaling at this moment, and came to think about the concept of Euidaimonia. Lets go.

 

For Aristotle, the good life is about striving to realise one's own potential in the best possible way. This is the purpose of all life. A seed can realise its potential and become a flower. For humans, it is about realising their potential as rational and thinking beings.

 

Think of a flower. If you wather it, give it enough light, maybe feed it a little, then it will grow and bloom... Human beings can flourish like plants too
Nigel Warburton

 

Eudoaimonia is somewhat tricky to translate. Literally, it means “to live well,” but “human flourishing,” as in the quote above, captures its essence better. Don’t confuse this with being happy; it refers to a state of being. A state you achieve by acting virtuously. It should be noted that they did not use the word in the same way we use virtue today:
‘The Greek word for virtue is “ARETE”. For the Greeks, the notion of virtue is tied to the notion of function (ERGON). The virtues of something are what enable it to perform excellently its proper function. Virtue (or arete) extends beyond the realm of morality; it concerns the excellent performance of any function.’

Cognates (to arete) includes sanskrit Rta (from where we get dharma), avestan areta (order) and middle high german art (innate featureI). There seems sot be some kind of red thread here, namley cosmic law. If you live in accordancec to it, the gods will reward you.

 

This would be (1) individual:

 

As well as (2) universal (or close to it, anyway, as we share in being human):

And how do we achieve this? 

  Hide contents

 

Thats how 

 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

PS: This is not very in depth (very shallow acctually), and I would prefer to post this in the personal practice thing you got going on (but I dont have one). Anyhow, I hope it is of interrest to some of you, and feedback is always welcome.

 

@Nungali

 

hmmm.  That didn't go bold, the way I expected--the mysteries of Dao Bums.  He's the man, for eudaimania.

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Apech said:

diamond in the dust

dirt distinguished from carbon

is carbon as well.

 

 

 

is carbon as well

as can be today, or not?

that is the question

 

that is the question

whether 'tis nobler, all that...

pickled carbon, yum

 

pickled carbon, yum

down at the lake, algae blooms

ducks glide by in pairs

ok, only one duck here, not exactly gliding:

 

Glad to see this thread is still going great guns.

Is this opinion popular, or what:

 

Ain't it hard to stumble, and land in some muddy lagoon

'Specially when it's nine below zero and three o'clock in the afternoon

(Outlaw Blues, Bob Dylan)

 

 

Dylan is worthy of the Nobel Prize in literature, don't you think? 

 

Here's one that's always popular:
 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Mint breeze enfolds me.

Don't know about the people,

but scarecrows look cool.  

 

 

 

but scarecrows look cool

out in the fields, standing watch

wrists, very empty

 

("standing at the side road, listening to the billboard knock

well, my wrist was empty, but my nerves were kickin', tickin' like a clock"--

Black Crow Blues, by Bob Dylan

"black crows in the meadow, cross the broad highway; well it might sound funny, but I don't feel much like a scarecrow today")

 

 

I don't disagree with the doc or with forest. There have been folks who did their knees in, attempting to sit through pain in the lotus.

 

I know when Chadwick and I spoke for his podcast series, he described how he started out sitting the lotus, and then one day, after a few years of comfort in the lotus, suddenly it wasn't comfortable and he knew it was serious. He's been sitting half-lotus ever since.

 

Last I heard, Dennis Merzel aka Genpo Roshi sits Burmese posture, legs crossed but ankles of both legs on the ground. He said, if I'm not mistaken, that he sat the half-lotus for a decade, then the full lotus for a decade, and now he sits Burmese.

 

Also of interest, most Soto centers in Northern California have adopted 40 minutes as the standard practice period. Some, like Jikoji in Santa Cruz, will throw in an occasional 30 minute period. My understanding is that L. A. Zen Center has adopted a 35-minute standard period, although they begin their sesshin of 35-minute periods with one 50 minute period.

Shohaku Okumura studied with Kosho Uchiyama at Antaiji Temple in Japan, and received transmission there. At Antaiji, they sit a five-day sesshin every month, with 14 50-minute periods in the day. They sat like that something like 43 days straight, after the death of Uchiyama's teacher Kodo Sawaki.

 

Okumura has been sitting in a chair for years now, his knees won't permit him to sit on the floor anymore.

 

I myself sit a sloppy half-lotus, mostly with the left-side up now (in the last year). By sloppy, I mean my ankle rests on the calf of the opposing leg, not on the thigh. Sometimes when I sit right-side up, my foot slips off the opposing calf after a while, and I continue in the Burmese posture that results.

I sit for 40 if it's doing me good. 35 is fine, even 25 if I have difficulties. I can sit in a chair, but even the half-lotus with the left-side up seems like more of a learning experience for me at this point than a chair.

 

My posture has always brought correction at Zen Centers. I'd like to think it's gotten better in the past year, but doing more than "holding their back erect", as Gautama described it, seems heavy-handed to me.  It's one thing for a teacher to describe the posture that they find when they sit, and another to prescribe a posture--I appreciate the former, and ignore the latter. From my last post on my site:

 

Gautama began his instructions on mindfulness with advice on the appropriate setting, and on the posture to adopt:

 

Herein… (one) who is forest-gone or gone to the root of a tree or gone to an empty place, sits down cross-legged, holding (their) back erect, arousing mindfulness…

 

(MN 119, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 130-132)

 

 

That Gautama’s mindfulness was his way of living implies that once he had aroused his mindfulness, he could continue that mindfulness in other settings and in other postures.

 

At the start of his descriptions of the fourth concentration, Gautama noted that:

 

(A person)… comes to be sitting down…

 

(ibid, p 134)

 

 

Nevertheless, I believe that once Gautama had attained the fourth concentration, he could surrender activity of the body to the free location of consciousness in any posture.

 

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

"Gone to the root of a tree"--there are folks out there, especially in India, who sit the lotus on the bare ground, but most Zen centers use a zafu as a kind of make-shift tree root (the zafu is the round cushion stuffed with cotton or kapoc). 

 

 

3 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

Since I have now just begun trying to do postures in a seated cross-legged position, and currently do not have the flexibility and range of motion to do that, the question i have is.....i don't want to go too far off topic in this thread, but i would like to hear from people in this forum on:  Why is sitting cross-legged so desirable and important?  Whether that is in this thread or steer me as a newcomer to another thread.

Thank you Mark Foote for all of this material to explore further.

 

 

More than two cents' worth, at no additional charge:
 

In research done at the close of the 1990’s, the ligaments that hold the sacrum to the pelvis (the sacroiliac ligaments) were shown to regulate activity in the gluteous muscles and the muscles of the lower spine (Indahl, A., et al., “Sacroiliac joint involvement in activation of the porcine spinal and gluteal musculature”, Journal of Spinal Disorders, 1999. 12[4]: p. 325-30.). I would say, based on my own experience, that the sacrotuberous, sacrospinous, and iliolumbar ligaments can also regulate activity in the muscles of the pelvis and lower back, and in the muscles of the lower abdomen.

 

Likewise, I believe that the ligaments between the vertebrae of the spine can regulate activity in the muscles of abdomen and chest, and the ligaments between the spine and the skull can regulate activity in the muscles of the neck and jaw.

 

In my experience, the relinquishment of willful activity in the body can depend on realizing a reciprocity in muscular activity, a reciprocity regulated by the stretch of ligaments. An appropriate stretch of ligaments can, in turn, depend on particulars in the alignment and stretch of the thoracolumbar fascial sheet.

 

I would guess that even when the spine is not under significant load, activity to align and displace the thoracolumbar fascial sheet is still engaged to provide support to the structure of the spine. Such support would serve to ease the nerve exits between vertebrae along the sacrum and spine, and the free occurrence of consciousness in the body I believe depends in part on such ease.

 

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

 

I used to love to watch the S. F. Giants, back when they were winning the Series. They had a closing pitcher who would always squat down before he threw a pitch. They also had an outfielder who did the same, before his at-bat. To open the sacroiliac joints without deep knee bends, I rely on the location of consciousness, and the ease connected with that location. Moshe Feldenkrais described that ease in connection with standing:

 

…good upright posture is that from which a minimum muscular effort will move the body with equal ease in any desired direction. This means that in the upright position there must be no muscular effort deriving from voluntary control, regardless of whether this effort is known and deliberate or concealed from the consciousness by habit.

 

…When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all.

(“Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 76, p 78.)

 

 

All I need is to find an ease of automatic activity in inhalation and exhalation through the location of consciousness at the moment, and the cross-legged posture becomes an asset.  The free location of consciousness in the body can also induce automatic activity in inhalation and exhalation, even though the feeling of ease is no longer present

The empty hand grasps the hoe handle
Walking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still

(“Zen’s Chinese Heritage”, tr. Andy Ferguson)

 

 

On 6/4/2025 at 6:18 PM, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

I am very much enjoying reading these long-ish posts, there are many points to comment on.  But I gotta ask first regarding section just above, why would these be removed: reference to craniosacral  rhythm and sphenoid?  I am asking because of my background, training, and experience in craniosacral therapy.    Thank you.
 

 

 

When I started my website, there were a lot of things in Upledger's work that were helpful to me in approaching the literature of Zen.

The essays in "An Unauthorized and Incomplete Guide to Zazen" were also written with Upledger's teaching in mind.  I still detect motion when I sit, but I'm no longer sure that the source of that motion is a cranial-sacral rhythm, although it may well be.  I wrote this, in one of the essays of the "Unauthorized" guide:
 

The sense of location as consciousness takes place can lead the balance of the body to accomplish from the inside what Dr. Upledger accomplished from the outside, namely, to reinforce movement in one part of the body with the rhythm of the cranial-sacral system in order to free up movement in another part.

 

(Alignment of the Spine and the Cranial-Sacral Rhythm)

 

 

Now, I simply write this:

 

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.

 

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

 

That's a story about fascial support for the sacrum and spine, provided by the interaction between the ligaments of the sacrum and spine and the various agonist/antagoniist muscle groups that can be regulated by those ligaments.

With that approach, I am in accord with the teachings that Chen Man-Ch'ing attributed to the classics of  Tai Chi regarding the stages in the cultivation of ch'i. I outline those stages in A Way of Living. 
 

I also find that approach more useful in my practice. It's about freedom, a freedom of consciousness:

 

I would guess that even when the spine is not under significant load, activity to align and displace the thoracolumbar fascial sheet is still engaged to provide support to the structure of the spine. Such support would serve to ease the nerve exits between vertebrae along the sacrum and spine, and the free occurrence of consciousness in the body I believe depends in part on such ease.

 

All the same, the specifics of the ligaments of the sacrum and spine, and particularly the ligaments that connect the sacrum and spine to the pelvis, are critical. I do utilize the metaphors Gautama provided for the states of concentration, and I do rely on the ease he described, yet I find I invariably have to set up a mindfulness of the ligaments of the pelvis, sacrum, and spine and how they function in inhalation and exhalation, at some point.

Is the "turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind" that Yuanwu spoke of a function of the cranial-sacral rhythm?  
 

 

59 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

thanks for sharing the intense experience/vison Taomeow...on a side note its good to know that there are benevolent beings that can see right into our past like watching a movie and have us see it with them for understanding its effect on us!  As for the future that was shown as likely (and karmic) possibilities although not written in stone.
 

THE MESOAMERICAN SACRUM BONE: DOORWAY TO THE
OTHERWORLD
Brian Stross
The University of Texas at Austin
 

 

I guess Dao Bums is having technical issues again. Half my post was lost, here. 

I wrote Brian, and he wrote back with encouragement, the mark of a great teacher as far as I'm concerned. My letter to Brian:
 

The Gospel of Mary and the Mesoamerican Sacrum Bone
 

He also has a paper on "the armadillo stool":

 

Seating and seats were important to the Classic Maya nobility, just as the short-legged stool is still an important item of household furniture for many modern day Maya and neighboring peoples. Identification of the stone armadillo as a ceremonial stool informs a brief discussion of forms and functions of the Mesoamerican seat in past and present times, and of the role of the armadillo in Mesoamerican thought.

 

(f No. 25, 2007 WAYEB NOTES ISSN 1379-8286 THE ARMADILLO STOOL)

Fascinating to look at the touch points on the figure in that carving, Taomeow, the sacrum being the primary one (and low on the sacrum, near the tail-bone). Also the ball of the foot, the knee, the base of the neck and points down the back. The nose. All about the thoracolumbar fascia, IMHO.

 

RIP, Brian Stross.

2 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

I don't know his work at all, but I've seen the structure of Time through ayahuasca-opened eyes.  The "present" was like an observation point from which I could look at Time in all directions, the easiest was looking down onto the past.  It was like a layered cake of winding rivers (or maybe of one river snaking this way and that way, its segments layered on top of each other), going all the way into deep infinity.  The layers were see-through, so I could look down at the recent past, further down at the past that was more remote, etc..  Rivers were not just loopy but some loops did indeed cause Time to flow backward.  I could focus on a particular section and "zoom in."  It also appeared that I could dive anywhere into that river from my observation point -- but it was as scary as jumping from the edge of a cliff into an abyss, so I didn't.  (I also didn't want to go UP but SHE dragged me there anyway and showed me the source of all that flow.  This source I should liken perhaps to a dripping sink or some plumbing piping underneath it -- Time we experience and everything in it was apparently a side effect of operations of that "sink," That World -- a very incomprehensible place where you couldn't tell biology from technology, a bit like one of those Borg cubes and a lot like one of those Mesoamerican bas reliefs.  SHE wanted to show and explain things to me but that place terrified me and I begged HER to get me outta there.)   
 

THE MESOAMERICAN SACRUM BONE: DOORWAY TO THEOTHERWORLD

Brian Stross
The University of Texas at Austin
 

I wrote to Brian, that's here:  The Gospel of Mary and the Mesoamerican Sacrum Bone

He was kind enough to respond, and encourage me. A teacher, was Brian, passed away now.  He also had a paper on the Mexican/Central American three-legged stool, which I guess was something that was given to someone when they became an elder of the community.

Sort of like:

 

… 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, Case 17; tr. Cleary & Cleary, ed. Shambala, p 114)

 

 

The three-legged stool.

 

 

 

On 5/18/2025 at 9:32 PM, Thrice Daily said:

Tall eucalyptus 

listening now quietly

places me back in 
 

places me back in

home is where the heart is, and

where the heart is, home

 

 

On 10/9/2024 at 5:46 PM, forestofclarity said:

 

Self Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness, trans John Myrdhin Reynolds

 

As for this sparkling awareness, which is called "mind," Even though one says that it exists, it does not actually exist. (On the other hand) as a source, it is the origin of the diversity of all the bliss of Nirvana and all of the sorrow of Samsara. And as for it’s being something desirable; it is cherished alike in the Eleven Vehicles.

 

With respect to its having a name, the various names that are applied to it are inconceivable (in their numbers).

 

Some call it "the nature of the mind" or "mind itself."

 

Some Tirthikas call it by the name Atman or "the Self."

 

The Sravakas call it the doctrine of Anatman or "the absence of a self."

 

The Chittamatrins call it by the name Chitta or "the Mind."

 

Some call it the Prajnaparamita or "the Perfection of Wisdom."

 

Some call it the name Tathagata-garbha or "the embryo of Buddhahood."

 

Some call it by the name Mahamudra or "the Great Symbol."

 

Some call it by the name "the Unique Sphere."

 

Some call it by the name Dharmadhatu or "the dimension of Reality."

 

Some call it by the name Alaya or "the basis of everything."

 

And some simply call it by the name "ordinary awareness." 
 

 

 

Or how about, "embodied self-location"?

 

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”.

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

 

On 11/14/2024 at 3:58 PM, forestofclarity said:

 

I've sort of changed my mind on the issue. I realized that the most important material thing isn't money, etc. but actually health. And not just for oneself, but as an offering for others. When you hear about some obstacle or issue some one is having, there's something that can be done. Or maybe we just release it out into the world as an offering. 

 

But even money for oneself--- if you use it for dharmic ends--- buying dharmic things made by people who now earn merit, or giving to teachers, or support monastics, or the poor, or supporting dharma activities--- then this is also a good thing. Plus the gains of the people who manufacture the metals, or deliver it, etc, it ripples out. Not to mention the inward ripples or the impact on those around me who may not be spiritual practitioners. 
 

 

 

As to this… right view comes first. And how… does right view come first? If one comprehends that wrong purpose is wrong purpose and comprehends that right purpose is right purpose, that is… right view. And what… is wrong purpose? Purpose for sense-pleasures, purpose for ill-will, purpose for harming. This… is wrong purpose. And what… is right purpose? Now I… say that right purpose is twofold. There is… the right purpose that has cankers, is on the side of merit, and ripens unto cleaving (to new birth). There is… the right purpose which is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a factor of the Way.

And what… is the purpose which is on the side of merit, and ripens unto cleaving? Purpose for renunciation, purpose for non-ill-will, purpose for non-harming. This… is right purpose that… ripens unto cleaving. And what… is the right purpose that is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a component of the Way? Whatever… is reasoning, initial thought, purpose, an activity of speech through the complete focussing and application of the mind in one who, by developing the [noble] Way, is of [noble] thought, of cankerless thought, and is conversant with the [noble] Way–this… is right purpose that is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a component of the Way.

 

(MN 117, translation Pali Text Society vol. III pp 115-116)
 

 

"Dharmic ends" I'm guessing would fall under "purpose which is on the side of merit". And I agree that health is wealth, and purpose on the side of merit is a good thing. Unavoidable!

 

 

18 hours ago, ChunMaya said:

 

Honestly, this resonates with me. Enlightenment to me isn't some distant goal to pursue—it's simply the natural result of purification. Like burning the haystack to reveal the needle.

 

At the core of it all, there seems to be one root canker that gives rise to the others: the sense of separation. In Sanskrit, it's called Avidya—the primordial forgetting of the true Self.

I see this as the true origin of evil. Separation hurts. And most human behavior is a compensatory attempt to soothe that pain—chasing status to feel significant, pleasure to mask the absence of real joy, becoming someone as a substitute for simply being.
 

Yes, and that's the real heart of the martial arts--or as Morihei Ueshiba put it:

 

Aikido is ai (love). You make this great love of the Universe your heart, and then you must make your own mission the protection and love of all things.

(Aikido Journal, "Interview with Morihei Ueshiba and Kisshomaru Ueshiba", Josh Gold, September 24, 2016)

 

 

The initial concentrations Gautama taught conclude with the cessation of volition in inhalation and exhalation. My description, as I've said, is activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation solely by virtue of the location of consciousness.

Gautama stated that the initial concentrations involved equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses:

 

… equanimity in face of multiformity, connected with multiformity… [which is] equanimity among material shapes, among sounds, smells, flavours, touches.

 

(MN 137, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III p 268)

 

The first four of the concentrations that could follow involved equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses:

 

… equanimity in face of uniformity, connected with uniformity. And what… is equanimity in face of uniformity, connected with uniformity? It is… equanimity connected with the plane of infinite ether, connected with the plane of infinite consciousness, connected with the plane of no-thing, connected with the plane of neither-perception-nor-nonperception.

(ibid)

 

I'm grateful that you are willing to indulge me, quoting from my posts at length. My own experience is limited--here is what I can say:

 

There’s a third line about actualization in “Genjo Koan”:

 

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Kazuaki Tanahashi.)

 

 

Kobun Chino Otogawa gave a practical example of that third line, even though he wasn’t talking about “Genjo Koan” at the time:
 

You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around.

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, this author’s recollection of a lecture at S. F. Zen Center in the 1980’s)
 

 

Activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness can sometimes get up and walk around, without any thought to do so.
 

Action like that resembles action that takes place through hypnotic suggestion, but unlike action by hypnotic suggestion, action by virtue of the free location of consciousness can turn out to be timely after the fact.  When action turns out to accord with future events in an uncanny way, the source of that action may well be described as “the inconceivable”.
 

I have found that zazen is more likely to “get up and walk around” when the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of friendliness and compassion, an extension beyond the boundaries of the senses. Gautama the Buddha described such an extension:
 

[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.

(MN 7, tr. Pali Text Society vol I p 48)

 

Gautama said that “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of the mind of compassion was the first of the further concentrations, a concentration he called “the plane of infinite ether” (MN 111; tr. Pali Text Society vol III p 79).

 

The Oxford English Dictionary offers some quotes about “ether”:

 

They [sc. the Brahmins] thought the stars moved, and the planets they called fishes, because they moved in the ether, as fishes do in water.

 

(Vince, Complete System. Astronomy vol. II. 253 [1799])

 

 

Plato considered that the stars, chiefly formed of fire, move through the ether, a particularly pure form of air.

 

(Popular Astronomy vol. 24 364 [1916])

 

 

(Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “ether (n.),” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1514129048)

 

 

When the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of the mind of compassion, there can be a feeling that the necessity of breath is connected to things that lie outside the boundaries of the senses.  That, to me, is an experience of “the plane of infinite ether”.

 

(The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind)
 

 

When I'm dancing (I love to free-style to rock n' roll), or out walking at night, I look to the location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, and if I can muster up a mind of friendliness and compassion and extend that, I am dancing with everybody else and walking with people I don't know--people who may have mixed intentions toward me.

If I feel apart, I am lacking some of the above. Not the only way to be one with what lies beyond, for sure. Very handy in mosh situations.

 

 

On 5/28/2025 at 2:36 PM, ChunMaya said:

 

I hadn’t come across the concept of the cankers before — but that’s an incredibly precise model. It explains why someone can have knowledge, training, even wisdom, and still be unconsciously driven by subtle egoic forces. It nails the underlying mechanics of craving, identity, and distortion far better than most frameworks out there. This kind of clarity should be taught from childhood — it’s foundational.
 

"... someone can have knowledge, training, even wisdom, and still be unconsciously driven by subtle egoic forces."  Nail on the head.

 

That's the subject of the essay I took the quote from (One Way or Another). That essay is about MN 70, a lecture where Gautama distinguishes seven different types of "persons existing in the world". The first has experienced the final, "signless" concentration and has also arrived at "intuitive wisdom", the second has arrived at "intuitive wisdom" without attainment in the concentrations, and the other five have not arrived at "intuitive wisdom" (the third, in spite of having experienced the final, "signless" concentration). 

Only the first two, said Gautama, have completely destroyed the cankers. The others have partially destroyed the cankers, but not completely.

Apparently "intuitive wisdom" is connected with the understanding Gautama spoke of, the understanding that consciousness is bound to the body, and also with the ability to see previous habitations and future comings-to-be. Gautama came to his understanding and vision either while in the fourth concentration (many lectures), or after the final concentration (one lecture), but per MN 70 these things are not automatic because of the concentrations.

I have to say, if I could see past lives and future, the cankers might well be cut off at the root in me, too!  

Meanwhile, Gautama did say that his mindfulness was "a thing perfect in itself", and he said that the particular version of mindfulness that was his own was his way of living both before enlightenment ("when I was as yet the bodhisattva") and after enlightenment ("the tathagatha's way of living"). He recommended his way of living (more about that here), and my effort is to realize that, and not the vision of previous habitations and future comings-to-be that would result in the complete destruction of the cankers.

Weird, huh--a Buddhist who's not into enlightenment, per se.  But then, what they offer in Zen is not actually the enlightenment of Gautama, where the cankers are completely destroyed--more like Gautama's way of living, in disguise.

 

 

On 5/28/2025 at 2:23 PM, ChunMaya said:

 

Thanks for your detailed post. That's super interesting about Gautama's description of abiding in the third concentration. I'm not familiar with his instructions but I feel like it lines up perfectly with something I stumbled upon in cultivation. Which is when sitting for cultivation in half or full lotus, before working on LDT, I will bring awareness/presence/beingness to MDT and still/release it. I read in Awakening to Reality that the root of mentation (thinking or endless thoughts) comes from the Huangting (Yellow Court) or MDT or whatever you want to call it. When that null point is disturbed, it creates a restless mind. And so stilling the MDT naturally stilled the mind, released internal tension in the breath (all the interconnected musculature and fascia related to breathing), and allowed natural concentration to take hold. I always do this step first before moving to LDT until stillness is reached, otherwise the session is useless. This seems to line up with what you posted with regards to Gautama, so thanks for that.
 

I think that pretty much parallels my own experience. 

Particularly when I lie down to sleep, my consciousness seems to end up just under the rib cage. In that case, all I need to do is stay with it, and I fall asleep.

 

When I sit, I seem to start with something like Gautama described, consciousness like bath powder that's been scattered in the bottom of a copper basin, moistened, that can be kneaded into a ball. Equally, I have to bring my center of balance low, relax the muscles around the lower abdomen and pelvis, and allow stretch in the ligaments that attach the sacrum to the pelvis. Yuanwu's bit about "turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind" has been useful to me.

Sometimes I'm almost a whole sitting before things shift to the vicinity of the MDT, and the placement of the jaw enters into things, but then my posture has always been terrible. I am learning new things now, I hope my posture improves.

I also find the first two lines in Gautama's short stanza about developing psychic power useful, the full stanza is:
 

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.
 

(Sanyutta-Nikaya 51.11; translation above, Pali Text Society vol. V p 235)

 

 

Mostly I think the first two lines are about relaxed activity in the muscles of the abdomen and in the extensors of the spine, such that stretch in the ligaments of the sacrum and spine can regulate reciprocal activity in the abdominals.

You can find my line-by-line on the stanza here, if you're interested:  The Gautamid Offers a Practice. (I edited the piece to remove the reference to the cranial-sacral rhythm and the sphenoid bone--I think the essay still makes sense, and I am  editing these remarks to remove my reference here to the sphenoid bone and the gland that sits in that bone).

I go through Gautama's metaphors for the four concentrations (leading to the cessation of volition in inhalation and exhalation) in my Applying the Pali Instructions. 

If I don't look to the location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, the whole thing falls down. At some point it's just relax, find the ease of that automatic activity, calm down, accept my mind, and look to the free location of consciousness, over and over. Not boring.

 

12 hours ago, ChunMaya said:

Pragmatically speaking, the level of evil in the world today (and since time immemorial) is closely tied to the amount of unconscious fear and unchecked desire people are carrying. At its root, it’s fear of suffering—not death, but suffering in all its forms. The more unconsciously someone fears suffering, the more likely they are to engage in evil actions: exploitation, theft, abuse, manipulation, etc. And the flip side is also true—the more someone is consumed by desire, the more likely they are to harm others in pursuit of relief, control, or gratification.
 

But underneath both fear and desire lies something even deeper: the illusion of separation. The belief that we are isolated, disconnected beings trying to survive alone in a hostile world. Once that illusion takes hold, self-preservation becomes the highest priority—regardless of who gets hurt. Layer on top of that a lack of self-awareness (ignorance), and you've got the perfect conditions for evil to flourish: people blindly reacting to internal chaos, with no understanding of the root causes driving them.
 

The three “cankers” were said to be three cravings:  “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” (DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340). When the cankers are “destroyed”, the roots of the craving for sense-pleasures, the roots of the craving “to continue, to survive, to be” (tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato), and the roots of the craving not “to be” (the craving for the ignorance of being) are destroyed.

... There is a lecture where Gautama described how, while abiding in the fourth concentration, he directed his mind to “the knowledge of the destruction of the cankers” (MN 4, tr. PTS p 29). That direction of mind, said Gautama, resulted in an understanding “as it really is” of what he called the four truths:  the existence of suffering, the arising of suffering, the ceasing of suffering, and the path leading to the ceasing of suffering. Once he had understood the four truths, he directed his mind to an understanding “as it really is” of a similar four truths with regard to the cankers, and subsequently realized both freedom from the cankers and knowledge of that freedom.
 

... If a person can exhibit a mindfulness like Gautama’s without having become enlightened, and can have “seen by means of wisdom” without having completely destroyed the cankers, then how can one know who to trust as a teacher?
 

Gautama’s advice was to go by the words of the teacher rather than any claim to authority, to compare the instructions of a teacher to the sermons Gautama himself had given and to the rules of the order that Gautama himself had laid down (DN 16 PTS vol. ii pp 133-136).
 

Nevertheless, activity solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness, the hallmark of the fourth concentration, has been conveyed by demonstration in some branches of Buddhism for millennia. The transmission of a central part of the teaching through such conveyance, and the certification of that transmission by the presiding teacher, is regarded by some schools as the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher.
 

The teachers so authenticated have in many cases disappointed their students, when circumstances revealed that the teacher’s cankers had not been completely destroyed. Furthermore, some schools appear to have certified transmission without the conveyance that has kept the tradition alive, perhaps for the sake of the continuation of the school.
 

(One Way or Another)

 

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, ChunMaya said:

 

This is true. In CST Wing Chun, we dont use LDT at all. Some students would come in from Tai Chi schools or Bagua with preconceived ideas that because we were an internal school, then we must be using LDT. Not the case. We use a completely different engine - our spine.
 

Something from my latest post, on my blog "zenmudra.com/zazen-notes", that might interest you:

 

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.
 

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.
 

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)

 

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”.

The Lamay-Farfan model presupposed a flattening of the lumbar curve, like that of a person bent over to lift weight from the floor, but acknowledged that the control of the ligament system afforded by activity between the abdominals and extensors could not be directly accounted for in the model. My assumption is that in the cross-legged posture, activity engendered by the location of consciousness can bring about at least a partial engagement of fascial support behind the spine.

 

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

 

Quote

And we do not include the shins when finding our center of mass, which would naturally mean it would sit around MDT. I call it center of leverage to be more accurate as it is not actually the MDT being used either. Most people don't realise that you can move the bodys' center of weight, as it is a barycenter and not a fixed thing. There is a Qi component at advanced levels but that Qi can not extend beyond the body.

 

From a different post, about a year ago--in my experience, the activity Gautama described frequently revolves around the MDT:

 

... That brings us to the third concentration. Gautama described the third concentration as like “water-lilies” of three different colors in a pond, lilies that never break the surface of the water:
 

… free from the fervor of zest, (one) enters and abides in the third musing; (one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease. … just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water-lilies, the plants are born in water, grow in water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one’s) body in zestless ease. 

(AN 5.28, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19, see also MN 119, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 132-134.)

 

The water-lilies I believe represent the influence of the legs, the arms, and the head on activity in the abdominals, and consequently on stretch in the ligaments of the spine. The feeling of a combined influence of the extremities in the abdomen could be said to be like lilies of three colors floating under the surface of some body of water.  The exact influence of each extremity remains unclear (zest ceases), yet with a sense of gravity and a stretch in particular ligaments, I can arrive at an ease.
 

Gautama declared that the sages abide in the third concentration. I remind myself that the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation tends toward coordination by the free placement of consciousness, and look for ease.

 

(Applying the Pali Instructions)

 

 

Quote

Whilst there is some overlap between systems, Neigong in my view is about building Yang Shen and ultimately retaining consciousness when the body dies. So to that end LDT development is important, but not necessary for martial arts power.

I would now have to say that 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.
 

Gautama taught that the feeling of ease ceases in the fourth concentration. Instead of ease, a “purity by the pureness of mind” is extended:
 

… (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind.
 

(AN 5.28, PTS Vol. III p 19)

 

The “pureness of (one’s) mind” is the pureness of the mind in the absence of any will, intention, or deliberation with regard to activity in the body.
 

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)
 

 

Udayin, as an emerald jewel, of all good qualities, might be strung on a thread, blue-green or yellow or red or white or orange coloured; and a [person] with vision, having put it in [their] hand, might reflect; ‘this emerald jewel... is strung on a thread, blue-green... or orange-coloured’–even so, Udayin, a course has been pointed out by me for disciples, practising which disciples of mine know thus: This body of mine... is of a nature to be constantly rubbed away... and scattered, but this consciousness is fastened there, bound there....
 

(MN 77, tr. Pali Text Society vol. II p 217)