Mark Foote

For Theravadin Buddhists, democracy is the name of the game when it comes to decisions of the order. Except that the group that would remain the Theravadins decided after the vote in B.C. 349 to take their dry sleeping robes and go home, what a bunch of party poopers! Intuitions we have about the way the world works rarely conflict with our everyday experience. At speeds far slower than the speed of light or at scales far larger than the quantum one, we can, for instance, assume that objects have definite features independent of our measurements, that we all share a universal space and time, that a fact for one of us is a fact for all. As long as our philosophy works, it lurks undetected in the background, leading us to mistakenly believe that science is something separable from metaphysics. But at the uncharted edges of experience — at high speeds and tiny scales — those intuitions cease to serve us, making it impossible for us to do science without confronting our philosophical assumptions head-on. Suddenly we find ourselves in a place where science and philosophy can no longer be neatly distinguished. A place, according to the physicist Eric Cavalcanti, called “experimental metaphysics.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/metaphysical-experiments-test-hidden-assumptions-about-reality-20240730/ I know, not what you were referencing...

"... there is in fact an account of the First Schism which gives just such a date, namely the tradition of the Sammitya school recorded by Bhavya (Bhavaviveka) and the Tibetan historians (probably following him). This account places the event in B.C. 349.... On this occasion a monk, about whose name there are disagreements..., put forward five grounds, of which four concern the question of the nature of an arhant... and none have any direct bearing on the discipline. An assembly took place... and the majority, it would appear, voted in favour of these grounds. This majority constituted itself into the Mahasamgha.... The minority which rejected the grounds, and which apparently included a number of the most senior monks, refused to submit to this decision and constituted themselves into the School of the Elders, the Sthaviravada. ... We seem led to the conclusion that the two parties were less far apart than at first sight they appear to be, except on the first ground [that an arhant can be seduced by another person]. The Sthaviravada were categorical that an arhant was by nature beyond the reach of any possible seduction; the Mahasamgha allowed an arhant to be seduced in a dream. Between these opinions no compromise could be found.... No compromise having been reached, the two parties separated and became two schools of Buddhism. Afterwards they gradually came to disagree on several more grounds, partly through working out the implications of their positions. In particular the nature of the Buddha was reconsidered. In the Tripitaka he is not apparently distinguished from any other arhant, except that he had the exceptional genius necessary to discover the truths unaided whilst the others were helped by his guidance. The Sthaviravada remained closer to this conception, though gradually they attributed a higher status to the Buddha, eventually complete 'omniscience', especially in the more popular propaganda. The Mahasamgha, on the other hand, having relaxed or at least not made more stringent the conditions for an arhant, found it desirable to make a clear distinction in the case of the Buddha; he was a being of quite a different nature, far above other human beings or perhaps not really a human being at all. They thus began that transformation of the Buddha, and his doctrine, which led step by step to the Mahayana...." ("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, Motilal Banarsidass 2nd ed p 217-218) At least as far as Warder could discover, the original Mahayanists split from the rest of the tradition because they believed an arahant could have a wet dream. I personally like the Bodhisattva vow in Mahayana Buddhism, the commitment to hold off personal enlightenment until all enter at once. The idea, as I understand it, is that the Bodhisattva will continue to suffer the consequences of desire for sensual pleasure, desire for becoming, and desire for not-becoming (ignorance) until all can be freed from these three cankers altogether. That allows for wet dreams and more, and justifies it as a great sacrifice on the part of the Bodhisattva. Yes, it's laughable, and yet I do better in an environment that encourages some freedom from the rules. I myself am only looking to realize Gautama's way of living more often, the mindfulness that he said was primarily his way of living in the rainy season (when presumably he did a lot of sitting)--the way of living that he described as "perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too" (SN 54.9, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 285). As I wrote in my book (yes, I have a book!--should be in print again soon): Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice. I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern. Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism. (Appendix--A Way of Living)

Even a mind in thought, a full concert venue, a rush hour freeway, or a hill of ants on a hot day can be seen to be still. To learn what to look for generally requires pointing by a realized teacher. "Case 29", from "The Gateless Gate", by Ekai (called Mu-mon). Yes. I would say the mind is only really still when it is without will, intent, or deliberation, and the activity of the body can occur solely by virtue of the location of the mind. Mumon's commentary, according to Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps: The sixth patriarch said: “The wind is not moving, the flag is not moving. Mind is moving.” What did he mean? If you understand this intimately, you will see the two monks there trying to buy iron and gaining gold. The sixth patriarch could not bear to see those two dull heads, so he made such a bargain. Wind, flag, mind moves, The same understanding. When the mouth opens All are wrong. (tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps [1934], at sacred-texts.com) Wikipedia on Senzaki: "a Rinzai Zen monk who was one of the 20th century's leading proponents of Zen Buddhism in the United States." I trust this translation of the commentary, some are not so good! Makes me think of Gautama's declaration that speech ceases as "one-pointedness" is laid hold of--more correctly, "determinate thought" that gives rise to speech ceases. When the mouth opens, when "determinate thought" that gives rise to speech commences, no "one-pointedness. I disagree, that the teachings of the sermons in the Pali Canon that form the basis of Theravadin practice are different from the teachings that form the basis of Zen practice, except as regards the transmission of the teaching. With regard to transmission, Gautama, refused to name a successor (DN 16, PTS vol. ii p 107). I understand why the Zen tradition felt it necessary to claim otherwise, but honesty is a virtue, no?

If you're referring to the quotations I cited above--evidence of what?

yes, but... Dogen Zenji says, “Water does not flow, but the bridge flows.” You may say that your mind is practicing zazen and ignore your body, the practice of your body. Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving. Your legs are practicing zazen with pain. Water is practicing zazen with movement, yet the water is still while flowing because flowing is its stillness, or its nature. The bridge is doing zazen without moving. (“Whole-Body Zazen”, Shunryu Suzuki; June 28, 1970, Tassajara [edited by Bill Redican]) Suzuki is riffing on a poem by the 6th century C.E. Chinese Buddhist monk Fuxi: 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, p 2.) I'm not sure what Suzuki was trying to say with "Water is practicing zazen with movement, yet the water is still while flowing because flowing is its stillness, or its nature" and "The bridge is doing zazen without moving", other than to say it's perfectly acceptable if the bridge is not flowing and the water is not still. I think it helps to look at his remarks in the context of the original poem. Something I wrote about the bridge and the water, back in 2021: The place where consciousness occurs suddenly becomes the source of action of the body, the place seeming to flow from moment to moment, while action based on volition or habit ceases entirely, or falls still.

“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) I read that to say that Gautama was aware of both his consciousness and his body. He described the above as one of the psychic insights he had while in the fourth concentration, one of the insights that lead up to his enlightenment (DN 2). 'When the mind is "awake" and still, there is just sensation and awareness of it': Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving. (“Whole-Body Zazen”, Shunryu Suzuki; June 28, 1970, Tassajara [edited by Bill Redican]) The ease of reflex activity in the body occasioned by the place of occurrence of consciousness can remain constant, even if the location of consciousness shifts, provided the body is open to the free occurrence of consciousness. The ease goes away, the activity occasioned by the place of occurrence of free consciousness remains.

"so much that they refer to fellow humans as something 'other'"--Nungali. Join with me then, Nungali, in applauding Stirling for writing the entire paragraph quoted above without a single use of the pronoun, "you". Everyone here knows that we're only talking to ourselves, right? Nobody else here, except the cat: But seriously, I like it when we address ourselves. "... arrived at by allowing the mind to come to a stop"--yes, but once a person is altogether "here", practice occurs and "the fundamental point" is actualized, right? When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. (“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Kazuaki Tanahashi, included in his “Enlightenment Unfolds”) Dogen continued: When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point… (ibid) (Dogen was convinced he was talking to someone else--so sad.) I would say the activity of the body can be entirely “reflex movement” occasioned by the placement of attention. To remain awake as the location of attention shifts and activity of the body takes place is “just to sit”. The freedom of “your way at this moment” is touched on in daily living through “your place where you are”. That’s my take. Find the place, remain awake and find the way at this moment--practice occurs and the singular point of consciousness is actualized.

It's not about the value of physical labor before and after enlightenment, although as I said in my last reply, the Zen idea of enlightenment quoted in your recounting of the saying is different from Gautama's. Miraculous power and marvelous activity Drawing water and chopping wood. (Pangyun, a lay Zen practitioner, eight century C.E.) Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there. (The Gospel According to Thomas, pg 43 log. 77, ©1959 E. J. Brill) The weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of inhalation, as though lifting a heavy bucket or a heavy stone; the weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of exhalation, as though cleaving a tough block of wood. I would say it's about "one-pointedness" of mind, that these activities are conducive to the experience of consciousness at a single point in the body. So let's all get up, drop body and mind like in the way before your mother was born... while seated and more-or-less stationary!

I'm with Nungali, near-death experiences are only near-death experiences. I don't think they really tell us much about actual death. I'm not a believer in rebirth, either, although that doesn't say there isn't some phenomena there. I'm just not sure it has anything to do with the intention in a person's actions. Gautama seemed to imply that ceasing volitional actions of the body and possibly of the mind was conducive to a final rest that was more than simply not being reincarnated. At the same time, he declared that attainment of the states in which volitional actions of the body or body and mind cease was not necessary to the wisdom that provided complete destruction of the cankers, and that the cessation of volitional actions did not guarantee that wisdom (MN 70). This, after so many of his sermons recount his attainment of that wisdom with the cessation of volition in the body (and the exploration of various psychic powers), and one recounts his attainment of that wisdom after the cessation of volition in the mind. I would guess he could see that there were individuals in India who were freed, so to speak, without the concentrations, and likewise individuals among his followers who had attained the cessation of volition in actions of the mind (feeling and perceiving) and yet were not freed. I continue to believe that transmission in the Zen world is primarily based on the ability to relinquish volition in the actions of the body in seated meditation, Gautama's fourth concentration. That is actually quite different from the complete destruction of the cankers, that Gautama identified as the consequence of enlightenment. It's also different from the experience of zazen getting up and walking around, which is the kind of surprise expression of the spirit in the body that I think you are looking for. Perhaps of interest to you, Tommy, would be the fact that the first psychic result that Gautama experienced in route to his own enlightenment was the insight that consciousness is bound to the body; he described it as like a jewel strung on a thread, that is bound by the thread. I was a teen in the San Francisco Bay Area in the sixties, and through a friend I was able to try LSD several times. I can say that there is a feeling on the drug that everything makes perfect sense, like the way I used to feel after I listened to an Alan Watts lecture, but like the Watts lecture the effect wears off after a day or two. Not the way to come to spirit, in my experience, I gave it up long ago.

Thank you! The original was a little out of focus, but here it is--down at the Family Duck:

Yeah, all that makes me think of the guy who is holding onto a rope which is anchored on a roof edge. The guy is holding onto the other end of the rope. All the while standing on the rope and walking out into the middle of nowhere. Up in the air by holding onto the rope? Yea, fancy words and lots of dancing around to produce a wonderful show. All of which still makes no sense to me. I guess I am lost and always will be. Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks. As I mentioned, the word "spirit" is derived from words for the breath. I would say, spirit is the necessity in the movement of breath. As to how you find it, if you feel you have lost track of it ... As Shunryu Suzuki said, following the breath is only a preparatory practice: … 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) Suzuki described shikantaza in more detail: So most teacher may say shikantaza is not so easy, you know. It is not possible to continue more than one hour, because it is intense practice to take hold of all our mind and body by the practice which include everything. So in shikantaza, our mind should pervade every parts of our physical being. That is not so easy. (“I have nothing in my mind”, Shunryu Suzuki, July 15, 1969) Gautama spoke similarly about the mind pervading the body: … 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 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original) “The pureness of mind” Gautama referred to is the pureness of the mind without any will or intent with regard to the activity of the body. In Gautama’s teaching, the extension of “purity by the pureness of mind” belonged to the last of four concentrations. The initial concentration is induced, said Gautama, by “making self-surrender the object of thought”: … the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought initial and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. (SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol V p 174; parentheticals paraphrase original; “initial” for “directed”, as at SN 36.11, tr. PTS vol IV p 146) In my experience, “one-pointedness” occurs when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a singular location in the body, and a person “lays hold of one-pointedness” when they remain awake as the singular location shifts. Gautama described the “first trance” as having feelings of zest and ease, and he prescribed the extension of those feelings: … (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 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original) Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey that the weight of the body accompanies the feelings of zest and ease. The weight of the body sensed at a particular point in the body can shift the body’s center of gravity, and a shift in the body’s center of gravity can result in what Moshe Feldenkrais termed “reflex movement”. Feldenkrais described how “reflex movement” can be engaged in standing up from a chair: …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 78) “Drenching” the body “so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” with zest and ease allows the weight of the body to effect “reflex movement” in the activity of the body, wherever “one-pointedness” takes place. In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a “hypnic jerk”. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation. (Just to Sit) If you want to get in touch with spirit, relinquish volition in the activity of the body until you have conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation, from inbreath to outbreath and from outbreath to inbreath. If you want to be in touch with the "great spirit", then do the above, and extend friendliness and compassion without limit: [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 111; tr. Pali Text Society vol III p 79) 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” (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “ether (n.),” March 2024): 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]) 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) and the way to let the great spirit move me.

The practices you list sound like a great way to keep yourself together, in what can sometimes seem like the overwhelming noise and now the anonymity of the modern world. Good luck, if you are job searching!

Why do I suddenly feel like Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs? Alias, "The Wizard of Oz"! All kidding aside, be careful what you wish for. I am hoping to publish my book soon, and my producer thought a biography would be a good thing. This is what I came up with: My life has been 50 years trying to figure out how the zazen that gets up and walks around fits into a normal life, and likewise trying to figure out how zazen sits zazen so I can sit as long as I feel I need to sit without wrecking my knees. As to "spirit": Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, from Latin spiritus ‘breath, spirit’, from spirare ‘breathe’. (Oxford Languages, dictionary publisher) I stumbled into the zazen that gets up and walks around by telling myself I was going to be aware of every breath in and every breath out all day long for an entire day, back in '75. You can read my take on all that, in my The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind. That wasn't the same as discovering zazen sitting zazen, for me. My best take on that is Just to Sit. That's going to be the last essay in my book before the appendix. The whole thing is A Natural Mindfulness, absolutely free to download, hopefully coming soon to Amazon as a paperback. Turns out, they'll publish anything, so it might happen. The book opens with Waking Up and Falling Asleep. I continue to believe that's the best place to find it.