Mark Foote

 

human nature.

Hats off to Nungali and Jung for already complifying "human nature", but I thought I'd give everyone else a chance.

 

 

My thanks to all the Dao Bums, for the inspiration.

New post:

“The Place Where You Stop and Rest”

 

 

2 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

Simplify:
 

"The metaphors of sky and spaciousness are often used to describe the nature of mind in Dzogchen."
 

 

The water is clear right through to the bottom;
A fish goes lazily along.
The sky is vast without horizon;
A bird flies far far away.

("Lancet of Seated Meditation", Hongzhi Zhengjue [by imperial designation the Chan Master Spacious Wisdom], tr. Carl Bielefeldt, "Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation", p 200)

 

 

On 7/21/2025 at 4:29 PM, Mark Foote said:

 

emptiness is form

from one moment to the next

have a cup of tea

 

 

 

have a cup of tea

I'm sick of tea, can't we have

all the forms filled out

 

2 hours ago, Cobie said:

context decides the

meaning: form is emptiness, 

emptiness is form.

 

 

 

emptiness is form

from one moment to the next

have a cup of tea

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Thank you for giving your perspective. My experience is different. My experience is that my natural state is to be aware. It was only by tensing my body that I could enter the lie of unawareness. So in my experience unawareness requires action, while awareness is the result of stopping this action.

 

 

 

My abbreviation of Gautama's four "arisings of mindfulness"--he was even harping on about the four arising just before he checked out:

 

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.

 

What has that got to do with the "profound knowledge", or "intuitive wisdom", that Gautama cited as the essential ingredient of enlightenment--bearing in mind that enlightenment to Gautama implied the complete destruction of the craving for sense-pleasures, the craving “to continue, to survive, to be” (tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato), and the craving not “to be” (the craving for the ignorance of being)?

 

Not a lot, since Gautama said the mindfulness that was his way of living was his way of living before he was enlightened as well as afterward. Everything to do with "stopping", though, in my opinion. A unique aspect of Gautama's teaching was that he separated "stopping" with regard to habit and volition in inhalation and exhalation from "stopping" with regard to habit and volition in feeling and perceiving, and taught that the former preceded the latter.

Nevertheless, as I am writing now:

 

In one of his letters, twelfth-century Ch’an teacher Yuanwu wrote:
 

Actually practice at this level for twenty or thirty years and cut off all the verbal demonstrations and creeping vines and useless devices and states, until you are free from conditioned mind. Then this will be the place of peace and bliss where you stop and rest.

Thus it is said: “If you are stopping now, then stop. If you seek a time when you finish, there will never be a time when you finish.”

(“Zen Letters:  Teachings of Yuanwu”, tr. Cleary & Cleary, Shambala p 99)

 

... When the body rests from volition, so does the mind, even in the midst of activity. In my experience, that is how the “creeping vines” of the mind come to be cut off.
 

 

 

6 hours ago, stirling said:

 

It requires learning to stop doing.
 

 

Tell 'em to stop, stirling--make 'em stop!  

 

The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you–begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood.
 

By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain to it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.

("The Zen Teaching of Huang Po On the Transmission of Mind", tr. John Blofeld, Part One)

 

On 7/15/2025 at 10:11 AM, Thrice Daily said:

Expressed true feelings

like milk shared before the scorn

a true life saver 🛟 
 

 

a true life-saver

but what's a mother to do
when the smile runs out?

 

In "Awareness Through Movement", Moshe Feldenkrais wrote:

 

In most cases where an action is linked to a strong desire, the efficiency of the action may be improved by separating the aim from the means of achieving it. A motorist in a desperate hurry to reach his destination, for instance, will fare better if he entrusts the wheel to a man who is a good driver but not desperate to reach the destination in time.

Serious obstacles to performance may occur when both the action and the achievement of the aim depend on the old section of the nervous system--old in the evolutionary sense--over which our control is involuntary. These actions might include sex, falling asleep, or evacuation of the bowels. The action may be performed as if the aim were the means, and sometimes as though the means were the aim.

(HarperSanFrancisco paperback, 1990, pp 82-83)
 

 

Feldenkrais used getting up out of a chair to illustrate his method of separating action from achievement of the aim. A recap, from a post I'm composing now for my own site:

 

 

Moshe Feldenkrais wrote of how people can be unaware that they actually hold their breath in getting up from a chair. He explained why that is so:
 

The tendency to hold one’s breath is instinctive, part of an attempt to prevent the establishment of shearing stresses or forces likely to shift the vertebrae horizontally, out of the vertical alignment of the spinal column that they constitute.

(ibid, p 83)

Feldenkrais described how the tendency to hold one’s breath in standing can be overcome:

 

…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.

(ibid, p 78)

 

Feldenkrais stipulated, there must be “no muscular effort deriving from voluntary control”:

 

… 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.

(ibid, p 76)

 

My friends, how do you contact "reflex movement in the old nervous system", so as to keep your action separate from the achievement of the aim?
 

On 7/13/2025 at 6:20 AM, Sherman Krebbs said:

Does anyone have experience cultivating qi from mosquito bites?  Asking for a friend  ...  who happens to be covered in them...  like acupuncture, but mosquito bite acupuncture. 

 

and what is the buhddist attitude towards mosquito bites, do you scratch them or not?
 

The card-carrying Theravadin monks are not allowed to kill them (so they get the novices to clean the water tanks).

 

Learned that from Tim Ward's book, "The Great Dragon's Fleas". Good book, full of odd bits and pieces he gathered in traveling Southeast Asia in search of wisdom (and not really finding it).

 

 

On 7/13/2025 at 10:20 AM, Cobie said:

be free of it all

the body knows how to breath 

i just let it be. 

 

I just let it be

consciousness retained with place

place retained with mind

place retained with mind

free after all, with it all

going fishing, then

 

 

9 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

I don't think there is a strict division between "enlightened" and "not enlightened"--- it is on a spectrum.

 

One classic Advaitic definition is that realization starts with tattva jnana, or knowing reality, followed by manonasa, the destruction of the mind (in this case, the mind's thinkative and clinging nature) and a thinning of mental habits, vasana kshaya. This thinkative mind and mental habits is usually what we take to be "us," so the '"you" is in the way. The result is the natural cessation of fear, doubt, and suffering.

 

The usual indications are a lack of reactivity, spontaneity, an expansive view, etc. The mechanical habits of mind is very apparent in most of us, and the lack of it also seems apparent. 

 

 

 

"(the) thinkative mind and mental habits is usually what we take to be 'us'"...

 

It were better… if the untaught manyfolk approached this body, child of the four great elements, as the self rather than the mind. Why so? Seen is it… how this body, child of the four great elements, persists for a year, persists for two years, persists for three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, persists for forty, for fifty years, persists for a hundred years and even longer. But this… that we call thought, that we call mind, that we call consciousness, that arises as one thing, ceases as another, whether by night or by day.
 

(SN 12.61, tr. Pali Text Society vol II p 66)

 

Gautama spoke in many lectures about his enlightenment, which took place in or after the fourth or the final concentration, depending on the lecture, but was really a matter of "profound knowledge" or "intuitive wisdom" (MN 70) , a kind of gnosis that followed his witness of "past habitations" and "future arisings".

With his enlightenment, he said, the three cankers were no longer present in him, they were like palm trees that had been cut off at the root, never to grow again. The cankers:
 

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.

 

(One Way or Another)

 

Where the confusion comes in:

 

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.

(ibid)

 

  

On 7/2/2025 at 12:17 AM, Thrice Daily said:

 

I can’t stop grinning 

Crystals sit in my pocket

kings deep in the whole wide world
 

 

 

"kings deep" is just a

tad over five syllables...

whole world, just one place

 

11 hours ago, Apech said:

To all American Bums.

 

🇬🇧💂💂🇬🇧
 

 

 

 

 

On 6/29/2025 at 11:18 PM, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

Eckhart Tolle explains the difference as:  zoning out (falling asleep, drinking alcohol, watching TV) is "falling below thinking"; while alert  awareness, alert presence is "rising above thinking."

 

 

falling below thought
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9531996-so-does-tv-watching-create-inner-space-does-it-cause#:~:text=So when watching television%2C the,has a strong addictive quality.

 

My favorite quote, about thought:

 

 

As (one) abides in body contemplating body, either some bodily object arises, or bodily discomfort or drowsiness of mind scatters (one’s) thoughts abroad to externals. Thereupon… (one’s) attention should be directed to some pleasurable object of thought. As (one) thus directs it to some pleasurable object of thought, delight springs up in (one’s being). In (one), thus delighted, arises zest. Full of zest (one’s) body is calmed down. With body so calmed (one) experiences ease. The mind of one at ease is concentrated. (One) thus reflects: The aim on which I set my mind I have attained. Come, let me withdraw my mind [from pleasurable object of thought]. So (one) withdraws (one’s) mind therefrom, and neither starts nor carries on thought-process. Thus (one) is fully conscious: I am without thought initial or sustained. I am inwardly mindful. I am at ease.
 

(Gautama repeats the above for “As (one) contemplates feelings in feelings…”, “… mind in mind…”, “… mind-states in mind-states, either some mental object arises, or…”)
 

Such is the practice for the direction of mind.

 

And what… is the practice for the non-direction of mind?

 

(First,) by not directing (one’s) mind to externals, (one) is fully aware: My mind is not directed to externals. Then (one) is fully aware: My mind is not concentrated either on what is before or on what is behind, but it is set free, it is undirected. Then (one) is fully aware: In body contemplating body I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease.

 

And (one) does the same with regard to feelings… to mind… and mind-states. Thus (one) is fully aware: In mind-states contemplating mind-states I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease.

 

This is the practice for the non-direction of mind.

(SN 47.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol. V pp134-136)

 

 

5 hours ago, Lataif said:

Please:

 

(1) Both Yoga (with prana) and QiGong (with chi) have a practice of "breathing into the body".

 

(2) I discovered how to to do this without anyone instructing me how to do it.

 

(3) But I have difficulty describing how exactly I do it . . . or how someone else might do it.

 

(4) It's not (in my experience) only "intention" or "attention".  

 

(5) There seems to be some preliminary orientation of the mouth and throat involved.

 

(6) If you try, for example, to make a "hissing sound" with an open mouth (like a cat) . . . that seems to be close.

 

(7) You tighten the muscles in your mouth in some way (that I can't explain well) . . . and exhale . . . and it's at that point that the intention to direct the breath in a certain direction in the body becomes possible.

 

(8) Any ideas on this (?)

 

Thanks . . .
 

 

 

That's interesting. To what end, do you direct the breath?

 

23 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

if i said "no idea what Joy Division is"

would that be an unpopular opinion?
 

I know telling stories is pretty unpopular here on Dao Bums, so here goes...

Back when I lived above Hamburger Mary's in San Francisco, I met the former drummer of the Avengers, one of the first San Francisco punk bands.

Dan turned me on to a bootleg tape of Joy Division, or what he said was a bootleg tape, then he borrowed some money. Poor Dan, got hit by an MG he didn't see when he stepped out between two parked cars in the Panhandle, he was still walking with a cane years later. 

The lead singer of Joy Division hung himself, very dramatically. The rest of the band went on to form New Order, and unlike Joy Division, New Order was a success.

Let's see if I can find a Joy Division video that will embed, for you. Here's one:

 

 

7 hours ago, stirling said:

Quote

 

Quote

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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

 

 

Given a presence of mind that can “hold consciousness by itself”, activity in the body begins to coordinate by virtue of the sense of place associated with consciousness.  A relationship between the free location of consciousness and activity in the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, “practice occurs”.  Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested in the activity of the body.

This is too complicated, IMHO. It's all really simple. No places, relationships, activities, or placement. This moment just is, and there is a simple awareness of that which belongs to no-one and no-thing - pervades the field of phenomena. Arriving at this simple understanding is hard for us humans, especially those of us with the burden of education. It took me years to realized what a handicap it was for me.
 

Is Dogen saying something there, when he says "find your place where you are", when he says "practice occurs", and when he says "actualizing the fundamental point"?

 

Quote

 

Practice is just being, without contrived concepts about how to go about it. You can find practices with massive to-do lists, but they all eventually point to this simple being. The Zen you got mixed up in so long ago is all about this simple "being" right from the start... the Theravada that interests you much less so, though they point at the same understanding.
 

 

What's the difference between "just sitting" on the couch watching the Simpsons, and the "just sitting" that is shikantaza? 
 

 

The Theravada doesn't interest me. The first four Nikayas of the Pali Canon interest me, as do the writings of Yuanwu and Dogen.

 

 

On 6/26/2025 at 9:07 PM, Mark Foote said:

 

 

Ah, Joy Division, RIP!

 

 

If I said Joy Division was a great band, would that be an unpopular opinion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8lgsVXiXZg&list=RDg8lgsVXiXZg&start_radio=1#t=20s

The link could not be embedded because www.youtube.com does not allow embedding of that video.

Ok, I know the lead singer of New Order was not a member of Joy Division. Still, if I said New Order was a great band, I fear that would not be an unpopular opinion.

 

2 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

reverse breating, golden

living men sit, don't lie down
dead men lie, don't sit

 

dead men lie, don't sit

have a cup of tea; living...

have a cup of tea

 

 

5 hours ago, Thrice Daily said:

Meld into more shapes

Everything is emptiness

reverse breathing, golden
 

reverse breating, golden

living men sit, don't lie down
dead men lie, don't sit

 

(Dead Man's Zazen

生夾坐不臥 While living, one sits up and lies not,

死去臥不坐 When dead, one lies and sits not;

元是臭骨頭 A set of ill-smelling skeleton!

何爲立功課 What is the use of toiling and moiling so?

A gâthâ by Hui-neng, T'an-ching)

 

 

8 hours ago, stirling said:

it’s an excellent question to examine carefully. It is in fact everywhere in the field experience, and nowhere at all. You aren’t really doing Shikantaza until this is something that you can see properly. This is why Shikantaza is not different from enlightened mind. Everything is Mind. You are liberating all phenomena in the moment that labeling them stops.
 

 

 

“... 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... 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; see also AN Pali Text Society vol IV pp 202-203)

 

 

From something on my site:

 

On a forum site I frequent, someone wrote:

 

Even if you have no identity, you still exist. As what? The spirituality that I follow would say “as existence”, or “as pure consciousness”.

 

 

I was reminded of Nisargadatta, a famous teacher who lived in India in the last century:

 

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. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself.

(Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers)

 

 

“The consciousness should give attention to itself”—in thirteenth-century Japan, Eihei Dogen wrote:

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.

(“Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version; tr. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, p 176)

 

 

That’s a poetic way to say “the consciousness should give attention to itself”.

 

I used to talk about the location of consciousness, but a friend of mine would always respond that for him, consciousness has no specific location. As a result, I switched to writing about the placement of attention:

 

There can… 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.

(Response to “Not the Wind, Not the Flag”)
 

 

In his “Genjo Koan”, Dogen wrote:

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

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

 

 

Given a presence of mind that can “hold consciousness by itself”, activity in the body begins to coordinate by virtue of the sense of place associated with consciousness.  A relationship between the free location of consciousness and activity in the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, “practice occurs”.  Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested in the activity of the body.

("Take the Backward Step")

"A friend of mine would always respond that for him, consciousness has no specific location"--that's another friend of mine, Stirling, not you!--your point of view on the nature of consciousness is widely shared, I know.  As far as realizing the cessation of volition in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, and so "just sitting", I"m not sure how that point of view enters into practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

i've only listened to the first song so far, it is beautiful.

i look forward to hearing the rest.  

Volume is fine when i play it, no adjustment needed.

 

i like the different art for each song also. very nice.

Adding it to my play list.

 

 

Now I've listened to the first four songs.  So far my favorite tracks are #1 and #4.

What a great collection this is.  I upvoted on you tube.

 

 

Thanks, BigSkyDiamond!

I'll hope that when you get to it, you like the rest of songs as well. 

 

Returning to the OP:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made a recording of myself and some friends back in 1969, doing some traditional songs, some originals, and some covers (the covers are me covering John Fahey tunes). Dug it out for a friend a couple months back, and this week decided to make a YouTube video out of it.

Have to turn it down right away, maybe I could have done better on the volume...