Emotions are the path

[Mark Foote]

On 3/7/2024 at 1:06 PM, S:C said:

 

@Mark Foote, I am sorry, that there was a scam on the site, - I hadn't visited it, and I don't use google chrome. I'm glad you find a better sense of timing through meditation, however I get confused about the difference of 'the cessation of doing' and 'the cessation of breath' (which is not a thing one should get confused about) and I admire your dedication to the classical writings. 

 

 

 

S:C, you had nothing to do with that site, it was simply the first thing presented in the search results.  Odd that Google doesn't recognize that clicking on that link will give a Google warning, and place that site a lot further down in the search results.

Can I say that I admire you responding to everybody's two cents, as you did there.  Makes us all feel appreciated, whether we deserve to feel that way or not...

 

About the cessation of "doing something". Shunryu Suzuki said:

 

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

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

 

Regarding the difference between "the cessation of doing" and "the cessation of breath"--keep in mind that Gautama defined "action", or "the activities", in terms 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 p 294)

 

And what are the activities?  These are the three activities:–those of deed, speech and mind.  These are activities.

(SN II 3, Pali Text Society vol II p 4)

 

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 Vol IV p 85)

 

…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.

(SN IV 217, Pali Text Society vol IV p 146)

 

The meaning of "inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased" can therefore be read:  "(determinate thoughts in) inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased".  Not that the breathing has ceased, but that "doing something" with regard to the activity of the body in inhaling and exhaling has ceased.

Moshe Feldenkrais spoke of upright posture in which both "doing something" through the exercise of volition and "doing something" simply by virtue of habit have ceased:

 

…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. 

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

 

What Gautama taught was a way to sit down and arrive at the cessation of "doing something" with regard to the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation.  Suzuki referred to that as "just sitting", or shikantaza.  Gautama further taught a way of living that involved regular experience of the cessation of "doing something" in daily life--he described that way of living as "something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living, besides."

Gautama also taught that there are states of concentration that lead to the cessation of "doing something" with regard to actions of feeling and perceiving (that's mentioned in the quote above, about the gradual ceasing of the activities).  That would be the ceasing of "determinate thought" in feeling and perceiving, the cessation of habit and volition in activity of the mind.  That's the attainment associated with Gautama's enlightenment, his insight into the four truths.

 

Edited March 9 by Mark Foote