Mark Foote

 

On 4/17/2024 at 10:13 AM, Taomeow said:

 

Wild blackberries!

"Cranberries" are also wild.

"Pretenders," more so.

 

 

"Pretenders", more so

Made me look up the lyrics

Fabulous, of course
 

 

On 4/16/2024 at 4:34 PM, silent thunder said:

The expression @ 1:30! 

So much kinship in my core, with this snippet...  so much expressed between tribe in the extreme intimacy of long path walking together.   As always, I learn from teachers who speak not a word of my language mind...

 

 

 

The cat says, make it stop!

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

Just holding opinions or views doesn't make you a troll.  To be a troll you have to present those arguments with a deliberate intent to cause a certain reaction or to mess with the person they are addressing.  So if he actually thinks the ideas he expressed he is not a troll, he might be wrong and confused - in which case a q&a like this would be the very place to put him right.  

 

 

I can understand that Maddie did not see any point in continuing a conversation with Salvijus.  

 

Salvijus, I would suggest that offering personal experience would be more conducive to advancing a practice than debating angels or devils on the heads of pins.  

Feelings are complex, my feelings on the topic are complex.  Maddie has offered a chance to dive into that.  

 

16 hours ago, Salvijus said:

You just need to have the last word even if it's something completely irrelevant... Lol

Okay you can have it. I will let this one go. 
 

 

 

My favorite band, in the '80's:

 

 

On 4/16/2024 at 1:39 PM, Salvijus said:

 

So if we all contain many incarnations of male lives and many incarnations of female lives. Why be fixated on changing the shape of your body? How is that supposed to make you feel better. Or make you feel more "real you"? 

 

Btw, I'm not trying to condemn any group of people. 
 

Salvijus--keep this in mind:
 

Being intersex is a naturally occurring variation in humans, and it isn’t a medical problem — therefore, medical interventions (like surgeries or hormone therapy) on children usually aren’t medically necessary. Being intersex is also more common than most people realize. It’s hard to know exactly how many people are intersex, but estimates suggest that about 1-2 in 100 people born in the U.S. are intersex.
 

There are many different ways someone can be intersex. Some intersex people have genitals or internal sex organs that fall outside the male/female categories — such as a person with both ovarian and testicular tissues. Other intersex people have combinations of chromosomes that are different than XY ( usually associated with male) and XX (usually associated with female), like XXY. And some people are born with external genitals that fall into the typical male/female categories, but their internal organs or hormones don’t.

 

(https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity/whats-intersex)

 

 

 

On 4/15/2024 at 12:38 PM, Maddie said:

 

The right totally manipulates Christians into voting for them. This is why the evangelicals act like Trump of all people is the second coming of Christ lol. 
 

 

 

It's complicated.  There was a study done on why poor people living on welfare in the USA would vote for politicians who declared flat-out that they were going to end those welfare benefits.

The answer turned out to be the fear in those same poor people of becoming the racial minority in their state, and the politicians who promised to cut off welfare were also the politicians who promised to keep down the minority.

I guess I can understand the fear that's at work there.  Just look at what the racial majority did to the racial minority in some states, and you can see why the majority would fear becoming the minority! 

 

On 4/15/2024 at 12:01 PM, blue eyed snake said:

 

For people born female a lack of estrogen will have severe repercussions on the body, we see that with women after menopause and the effects are not nice, to put it mildly. Think here connective tissue loosing strength and connectivity, organs prolapsing, teeth loose, joints hurting, plus of course osteoporosis.

 

 

 

The body produces estrogen from fat cells, so there is still estrogen in a woman's body after menopause.  Not as much, granted.

 

What there is not, is progesterone.  Many of the effects you mentioned are the lack of progesterone, particularly the onset of osteoporosis.

 

 

On 4/14/2024 at 12:06 PM, snowymountains said:

 

The chart is for the public healthcare system though and can only be compared to waiting times in the public healthcare system, as the times may reflect overall waiting times for public healthcare in Netherlands.

The 1 month waiting list I referred to was an approximate number for private practices btw, some will be fully booked, those that aren't typically will be able to offer some slots within a month.

 

Multiple disorders are difficult because they need a therapist who has experience in all of them, and this is indeed difficult to find, especially if they are from different clusters.

 

I can't know if the cases you have in mind do it for the buck, but if someone does not have experience in a disorder, the responsible thing to do is to refer to another professional who does. Doing otherwise will be harmful for the client.

 

 

 

Like to thank snowymountains for the education, regarding modern therapy.  

I, like Taomeow and blue eyed snake, largely see Western medical science as only useful in cases requiring intervention.  Chronic conditions appear to be largely beyond the capacity of Western medicine to treat effectively, although that may be changing with the new genetic science.  The medical/pharceutical complex is real, and chronic conditions where a new medication must be taken for life are where the private research money goes.

 

I've written about Dr. John Lee.  One thing he commented on was the way that people put their faith in their doctors, in our society.   He likened it to people in primitive cultures putting their faith in the witch doctor.  A person might well die, if their witch doctor put a curse on them, and the same is true for Westerners and Western medicos.

 

Another thing I've read.  About 10% of Western medicos have reliable medical intuition and use it.  They are witch doctors with a Western education, you could say.  They have to be careful, not to get outed.

 

I think I believe that.  I've also read that the best intuition is the best-educated intuition, so I try to study up before I hit the ouija board. 

 

On 4/13/2024 at 3:35 PM, Taomeow said:

 

Not on this specific topic as much as on this among all others I'm not very trusting of the motives of those who promote anything that happens to be fantastically profitable for the medical cartel.  The minds of the recipients of any and all of their offerings are manipulated very skillfully, in every possible area, and I'm not saying all of their offerings are corrupted by ulterior motives (money, power, 'fame and fortune' as a taoist would put it) -- but failing or avoiding to consider them as a factor is IMO a mistake in many cases. 

 

I don't know how sex/gender dysphoria would be different in this respect from a multitude of over-diagnosed, over-treated, mis-treated conditions going hand in hand with a multitude of under-diagnosed, under-treated, and again mis-treated conditions.  I could give a million examples...  For instance, antibiotics resistance is directly responsible for millions of deaths every year, yet research into new antimicrobials has been stagnating for decades, because, to quote a PubMed publication titled "There Is No Market for New Antibiotics,"  "By the early 1980s, private investment in antimicrobial research ebbed as a result of (...) a broader reorientation of private research and development (R&D) towards more focused investment in expensive yet lucrative noncommunicable (e.g., cancer and lifestyle) medications. The decline in private investment was exacerbated by the parallel closure of formerly successful public R&D efforts, as a result of the contemporary political emphasis on privatization and marketplace-oriented research."  In other words, they figured they get more bang for their buck if they invest in chronic conditions requiring continuous indefinite (often lifelong) use of their medications.  No one is interested in financing whatever can be cured by efficient new antimicrobials, hence their nonresearch, nondevelopment, and nonexistence.   (And no media>public outcry despite an incomparably wider population affected.)  Nothing personal -- they just don't care if millions die from this nonresearch and nondevelopment, as long as they can develop something that guarantees repeat customers.  

 

 

Hopefully folks read my comments about progesterone, above.

Dr. John Lee, who I mentioned, went around the country lecturing groups of women about the benefit of topical progesterone for treating osteoporosis among women who were at risk for ovarian or mammarian cancer.  He tried educating the doctors, but because malpractice is defined as not doing what the rest of the doctors are doing (regardless of the science), he didn't have success with that.  So, as he said, "I will educate the women, and they will educate their doctors."

At the time I heard him speak (1995), hormone replacement therapy was all the rage, consisting primarily of estrogen.  As Dr. Lee pointed out, when estrogen is not balanced with progesterone, there's a tendency for it to promote cancer.  And in the northern hemisphere industrialized nations, progesterone production drops off in a woman at menopause, if not before (not so in some other parts of the world).  

Dr. Lee told a story about a husband and wife team of doctors in San Francisco (Dr. Lee had a family practice in Marin for 30 years).  The husband would prescribe estrogen to a woman.  Within a few years, the woman would develop ovarian cancer.  The husband would refer them to his wife for the hysterectomy.  They were making quite good money.

You are right to be suspicious, Tao Meow--of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 4/13/2024 at 3:35 PM, Taomeow said:

 

Jesus quilt-knitting Christ...

 

On 4/13/2024 at 10:02 AM, idiot_stimpy said:

 

Suppression/repression vs transcendence is an interesting topic. 

 

Suppression is part of the illusion trying to fight another part of the illusion. Transcendence is seeing through the illusion entirely without needing to do anything. 

 

A belief held onto can cause internal conflict. Internal conflict is not healthy. One part of us holds onto a belief and another part a contradictory belief. We go to war within ourselves. 

 

Spiritual practice shows us we are not our beliefs. We are much deeper than just our thoughts.
 

 

 

Sorry to be so late to the thread!

My experience has been that physical actions of the body can take place without the exercise of will.  Imagine, if you will, the body as the planchette of a ouija board with unseen hands guiding it, and you will have an idea of the experience I am describing.  

 

Or here's Buddhaghosa's description, the famous 5th century C.E. scholar:

The air element that courses through all the limbs and has the characteristic of moving and distending, being founded upon earth, held together by water, and maintained by fire, distends this body. And this body, being distended by the latter kind of air, does not collapse, but stands erect, and being propelled by the other (motile) air, it shows intimation and it flexes and extends and it wriggles the hands and feet, doing so in the postures comprising of walking, standing, sitting and lying down. So this mechanism of elements carries on like a magic trick…

 

(Buddhaghosa, “Visuddhimagga” XI, 92; tr. Bhikku Nanamoli, Buddhist Publication Society pg 360)

 

 

You might think it was a form of auto-hypnosis, the power of suggestion, but there are peculiarities.  Most strikingly, the action that takes place can be in accord with a future that was unknown at the time the action took place, as though things beyond the boundaries of the senses were at play in the action.

 

For years after experiencing such action, I tried to always act through "the motile air", as Buddhaghosa put it.  In the process, I discovered that what I believe can effect action in much the same way--without the direct exercise of volition, wriggling the hands and feet.  What I understand from that is that it's very important to get the beliefs right, and to always be open to new facts and to science.

Our beliefs become our actions, whether we will that to take place or not.  To that extent, we are our beliefs.

 

 

On 4/13/2024 at 8:19 AM, Maddie said:

 

The fact that there is so much misunderstanding is the main reason why I wanted to start this thread even though I'm generally a pretty shy person. But yes drag queens are a stage act not an real life identity. 
 

 

Tommy Dorsey was pretty incredible, Buddhist teacher at S. F. Zen Center, former drag performer.

He was very kind to me when I stayed at the Center for a week in '76.  

Ran into him at Hamburger Mary's once, asked him what he was doing there and he said, "oh, you know, burgers and drinks" or something to that effect (Mary's was a LGBTQ watering hole in '80's, in south of Market SF, and I lived in an apartment upstairs).  I think he had a Buddhist rosary on, can't remember if it was around his wrist or his neck, but the juxtaposition of the Buddhist wear and the bar caused me to pose the question.  

 

1 minute ago, Maddie said:

 

Pills, but I got tired of not sleeping through the night. 
 

 

That would be progestins, then.

Dr. Lee said that with the topical, the body will shut down absorption when it has enough.  An advantage to the topical.

I've spoken to a lot of people about topical progesterone.  Only one of them said they didn't like the way it made them feel.  The difficulty with estrogen is the way it promotes breast and ovarian cancer, that friend did suffer breast cancer a few years back.  She's alright now.

.

 

Just now, Maddie said:

 

I actually had been taking progesterone, but I recently stopped because it was affecting my sleep cycle. 
 

 

That's interesting!  

Were you using a topical, like Progest, or some other form of the hormone?  

 

 

On 4/12/2024 at 10:21 AM, Maddie said:

 

Yin/Yang indeed lol. 

 

There have actually been a number of psychological changes that have occurred since I began transitioning. When I began my medical transition I was put on a combination of testosterone blockers and estrogen pills. This completely changed my body chemistry from male to female. This had a dramatic effect on my emotional life and perceptions. 

 

For one thing I cry much  easier. Before as a man I would rarely cry, maybe once every few years. It wasn't that I was not trying to, it just didn't happen. Now I cry easily several times a week, and often for not obvious reason. This was one of the first changes I noticed. 

 

My sense of smell has become more sensitive as well. While many years of cultivation has made me sexually indifferent I perceive men differently than I used to. I used to be completely indifferent to a man's appearance aside from the obvious of realizing a well groomed in shape man was better looking than an unwashed bum (no offense Dao Bums). Now I find attractive men catching my eye in a way that they had not before. I am still not sexually attracted to them (nor am I to women) but I find them more aesthetically pleasing. 

 

Now here's one that I don't care for but you take the bad with the good. I have lost significant amounts of muscle strength, especially upper body strength. When I was in college I did jujitsu and did not find sparing with men to be difficult on a strength level, but now I am significantly overpowered when sparring with men. I guess the plus side is this forces me to rely on technique more, which is how its supposed to be in jujitsu lol. 

 

Those are a few of the more obvious changes that I was able to think of off the top of my head.  
 

 

 

Late-comer to the thread.  Thanks, Maddie, for putting yourself out there for our edification!

 

Wanted to mention the third hormone.  As Dr. John Lee used to say, "the chemical message of estrogen to cells is go forth, multiply, while the chemical message of progesterone is mature."

Which makes unbalanced estrogen carcinogenic.  Just saying, you could do worse than to look into topical progesterone--Dr. Lee worked with "Transitions for Health", a company owned and run by women in Oregon last I heard, to develop the progesterone cream the company sells as "Progest".  I use it daily for three weeks out of the month, then break for a week, per the doc's instructions.

Testosterone apparently doesn't really balance estrogen, or the doc wouldn't have recommended progesterone for men, which he did.  By the way, the medicos all confuse progesterone with progestins, but progesterone is molecularly identical to human progesterone, and the progestins are a molecule or two different.  That was done, the change by a molecule or two, to produce a compound that could be patented.  Progestins have side effects, in the physician's desk reference, while progesterone does not.

 

Available at your local Whole Foods.

 

I cry at dog-food commercials, so what!!

 

 

4 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

 

This reminds me of a dharma talk by Mike Luetchford called 'wobbling through life'. He likened shikantaza to riding a bicycle, where at first you tend to 'wobble' between external and internal distraction, until a natural balance arises. 
 

 

 

I used to enjoy the comments and discussion on Brad Warner's posts, back in the time when he left the discussion open.  Long ago.  Mike also studied with Gudo.  I haven't read their translation of Shobogenzo, but I did appreciate one part of their translation of Genjo Koan, to set up that one part, here's a piece of the translation by Paul Jaffe:

 

When fish swim in the water, no matter how much they swim the water does not come to an end. When birds fly in the sky, no matter how much they fly, the sky does not come to an end. However, though fish and birds have never been apart from the water and the air, when the need is great the function is great; when the need is small the function is small. Likewise, it is not that at every moment they are not acting fully, not that they do not turn and move freely everywhere, but if a bird leaves the air, immediately it dies; if a fish leaves the water, immediately it dies.

 

... So, if there were a bird or fish that wanted to go through the sky or the water only after thoroughly investigating its limits, he would not attain his way nor find his place in the water or in the sky. If one attains this place, these daily activities manifest absolute reality. If one attains this Way, these daily activities are manifest absolute reality. 

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Paul Jaffe (1996), in Yasutani, Flowers Fall (Boston: Shambhala), 101-107)

 

 

My comment on that, in my piece about Genjo Koan, was:

I like the phrase “it is not that at every moment they are not acting fully, not that they do not turn and move freely everywhere”; Gudo Nishijima goes so far as to translate this as “each one realizes its limitations at every moment and each one somersaults [in complete freedom] at every place”

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Gudo Wafu Nishijima, from “Understanding the Shobogenzo”, Windbell Publications 1992).

 

 

One-pointedness, when attention is placed as a function of the movement of breath and can take place anywhere in the body--"somersaults [in complete freedom] at every place".

 

 

4 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

 

My question I suppose is how do you correct yourself when you notice that an imbalance has occurred - I.e. distracted by thought. Do you note the content of your thought, relax and then let them pass? Or do you just sit and hope that your mind eventually shuts up?
 

 

 

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 V 154-157, Pali Text Society SN V p 135-136)

 

When I wrote about my approach, I was basically writing about my experience of the four arisings of mindfulness, the actionable elements of the thought applied and sustained by Gautama in the first concentration (marked by one-pointedness of mind):

 

I begin with making the surrender of volition in activity related to the movement of breath the object of thought. For me, that necessitates thought applied and sustained with regard to relaxation of the activity of the body, with regard to the exercise of calm in the stretch of ligaments, with regard to the detachment of mind, and with regard to the presence of mind. I find that a presence of mind from one breath to the next can precipitate “one-pointedness of mind”, but laying hold of “one-pointedness of mind” requires a surrender of willful activity in the body much like falling asleep.

 

(Response)

 

The difficulty is in doing nothing, while simultaneously relaxing, calming, detaching, and "presenting".   Gautama spoke of feelings of  zest and ease that are simultaneous with one-pointedness--increasingly I find that I must attend to ease, in order to arrive at a moment when one-pointedness "somersaults [in complete freedom] at every place".

I wrote recently about the "scales" I'm practicing these days, and I touched on how I arrive at a feeling of ease:

 

Gautama spoke of suffusing the body with “zest and ease” in the first concentration:

 

 “… (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.” 

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19; see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-1342)

 

 

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey a sense of gravity, while the phrase “not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” speaks to the “one-pointedness” of attention, even as the body is suffused.

 

If I can find a way to experience gravity in the placement of attention as the source of activity in my posture, and particular ligaments as the source of the reciprocity in that activity, then I have an ease.

 

("To Enjoy Our Life")

 

Necessity is the mother of invention, but I find the Gautamid an invaluable resource.  

 

 

4 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

 

I've started working through a course by (Dharma Drum inheritor) Guo Gu on silent illumination. His teacher Sheng Yen taught a staged approach to the meditation rather than just throwing students in the deep end with the vague instruction to 'just sit'. It starts with progressive relaxation and then awareness of the body as an initial 'tether' for the mind.

 

 

Guo Gu, amazing teacher.  One thing I didn't say about finding ease (in the piece I quote from above) is that the sensation is like the feeling in the body coming out of sleep.  That kind of ease.  But ease gives way as the activity of the body comes out of the location of awareness alone, a one-pointed location that can shift and move--just sitting.

 

 

50 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

... dokusan is good...
 

 

My understanding is that dokusan is a rare occurrence in Soto Zen in Japan.
 

 

50 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

... a more limited scope than advertised.
 

 

 

On the tin? 

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

Does Buddhism do what it says on the tin? 
 

 

 

Love it, thanks stirling!

 

 

On 4/10/2024 at 2:18 PM, Mark Foote said:

 

truth veiled trickery

top-down foolery--and yet,

the cherry tree blooms

 

 

 

the cherry tree blooms

and next to it, the apple

celebrating spring

 

 

On 4/14/2024 at 8:12 AM, Tommy said:

 

Doesn't Shikantaza carry with it some caveats? Such as without the crutch of watching breath, the mind can wander more easily? That over time, the attention is easily lost in the midst of ideas and thoughts that arises while sitting with no focus? IDK. It is not an easy practice for me. Probably some will find it as good a method as any? Still, there are plenty of methods available. Guess it depends upon the person?

 

 

 

When I sit, I look for an experience of the placement of attention out of necessity.  That necessity can come out of the breath, or out of a particular frailty in the structure of the lower spine in the movement of breath, or even from somewhere beyond the boundaries of the senses.  Essentially, I am turning the light to look at the placement of awareness out of necessity, particularly as a sense of gravity fines the location of awareness to a point (a point that can shift and move).

 

Regarding the mind--here's something from a post on my own site, entitled "What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said":

 

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)

 

 

The mind is “concentrated in the breathing” when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention. If the presence of mind continues the placement of attention by the movement of breath, then the role of the mind is clear–that’s the way I read the transcript.

 

Suzuki ended his lecture by asserting that “without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom”. Gautama the Buddha also mentioned freedom, in the context of “the ceasing of action”:

 

And what… is the ceasing of action? That ceasing of action by body, speech, and mind, by which one contacts freedom,–that is called ‘the ceasing of action’.

 

(SN IV 145, Pali Text Society IV pg 85)

;lllllllll

 

The action that could be expected to cease was a particular kind of action, the action of “determinate thought”:

 

… I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought.

 

(AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 294)

 

 

I wrote about the “ceasing of action”... :

 

A central theme of Gautama’s teaching was the cessation of “determinate thought” in action, meaning the cessation of the exercise of will or volition in action. A cessation of the exercise of will could be attained, said Gautama, through the induction of various successive states of concentration. As to the initial induction of concentration, Gautama declared that “making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind”.

 

I begin with making the surrender of volition in activity related to the movement of breath the object of thought. For me, that necessitates thought applied and sustained with regard to relaxation of the activity of the body, with regard to the exercise of calm in the stretch of ligaments, with regard to the detachment of mind, and with regard to the presence of mind. I find that a presence of mind from one breath to the next can precipitate “one-pointedness of mind”, but laying hold of “one-pointedness of mind” requires a surrender of willful activity in the body much like falling asleep.

 

(Response)

 

 

When the location of attention can shift anywhere in the body as a function of the movement of breath, and the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation follows solely from the location of attention, there is a feeling of freedom.

 

 

 

(I apologize for the dupe)

On 4/13/2024 at 2:43 PM, Vajra Fist said:

I've done a few years of breath meditation. Once you've built a foundation in stabilising the mind, typically in zen you either dive into koan or switch to shikantaza, depending on the teacher or school.

 

I've always found the idea of koan study slightly unappealing. In particular breaking your mind, pushing and sweating only to be constantly rebuffed by the teacher. Certainly it doesn't seem like a practice that could be feasible outside of sesshin.

 

Generally, shikantaza - also called silent illumination in caodong chan - or 'just sitting', appeals a lot to my lazy arse. There's a few dojos near me with teachers in the Nishijima/Kodo Sawaki Soto lineage, and I'm curious to give it a go. 

 

But a lot of Rinzai practitioners are quite scathing of shikantaza. They say its really only a practice that can be safely employed after kensho. That is when it becomes a reflection of the enlightened mind.

 

Prior to that threshold, they say that by sitting without any effort or attempt to cut through delusion, you're effectively just 'stewing in your own hindrances'.

 

Soto teachers say this enlightened mind is already present, and by sitting in this way it naturally emerges.
 

 

 

In one of his lectures, Shunryu Suzuki spoke about the difference between “preparatory practice” and “shikantaza”, or “just sitting”:

 

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; San Francisco, February 22, 1970; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki said that directing attention to the movement of breath (“following breathing… counting breathing”) has the feeling of “doing something”, and that “doing something” makes such practice only preparatory.

 

Although attention can be directed to the movement of breath, necessity in the movement of breath can also direct attention, as I wrote previously:

 

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.

 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages.

 

... Again, a [person], putting away ease… enters and abides in the fourth musing; seated, [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 III 25-28, Pali Text Society III p 18-19, see also MN III Pali Text Society III p 92-93; bracketed material paraphrases original)

 

“Pureness of mind” is what remains when “doing something” ceases. When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)
 

 

Returning to your question, Vajra Fist, which I think is an excellent one--I would contend that what Gautama described as the "fourth musing" is shikantaza.  Gautama often described four "musings" followed by "the survey-sign" of the concentration, a kind of overview of the body that followed the fourth musing.  My impression is that he could use the survey-sign to recall the fourth musing as circumstances dictated.

And I would contend that a person who becomes adept at returning to the first musing, and at recalling the fourth musing in a natural rhythm of mindfulness that takes place in the first musing, is generally considered enlightened.

That's not the attainment that marked Gautama's enlightenment, however.  That was Gautama's way of living.  Gautama's enlightenment involved the further deliverances, four concentrations and the final cessation of "doing something" in actions of feeling and perceiving, the actions of the mind.

So to answer your question:  yes, to actually practice shikantaza requires an experience:
 

When the location of attention can shift anywhere in the body as a function of the movement of breath, and the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation follows solely from the location of attention, there is a feeling of freedom.
 

(What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said)

 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something...”

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

but it's not the same as enlightenment.  Passes for enlightenment often enough, though.

 

 

Quote

 

Is shikantaza only something that should be practiced when you're close to kensho, or have already experienced kensho. Or is it a viable path to enlightenment even for beginners?

 

 

 

Here’s Gautama, speaking about intervals of practice that can “develop mindfulness of death acutely”—the intervals are moments that call for a presence of mind with the placement of attention:

 

…whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food… for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’ — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely…

 

(AN 6.19 PTS: A iii 303 p 218; Maranassati Sutta: Mindfulness of Death (1) tr Thanissaro Bhikkhu; “effluents” rendered as “cankers” in the PTS translation by F. L. Woodward)

 

 

The presence of mind with the free placement of attention is shikantaza, provided there is "one-pointedness"--here’s a picture of Issho Fujita demonstrating “one-pointedness” at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center:

 

 

 

 

On 3/17/2024 at 5:22 AM, Elysium said:

Hey Mark, how did you reach the Lotus position? I can barely do half-lotus and how good I do it is a matter of question. I did notice however, that meditation quality is increased with half-lotus compared to good old cross-legged.
 

 

I cleaned up my response to your question, Elysium, and posted the result on my site:
 

Knees on the Ground

 

 

A friend tells me he had some success doing exercises, but I've never had great luck that way.  

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, moment said:

electricity

powers dianshi big lies

truth veiled trickery

 

 

 

truth veiled trickery

top-down foolery--and yet,

the cherry tree blooms

 

 

On 4/3/2024 at 8:03 AM, blue eyed snake said:

 

 

 

 

… 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-lillies, 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 III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134)

 

 

About Gautama’s analogy for the third state of concentration (white, red, and blue lotuses that never break the surface of a pond):  I believe Gautama’s analogy refers to the balance of the legs, arms, and head around the place of occurrence of consciousness.

The ox-herding picture of a flute-playing individual riding an ox similarly demonstrates the involvement of the limbs and the jaw with the weight and balance of the body, in the movement of breath.