Mark Foote

Tommy, you might like my penultimate post (on my own site)--starts like this: 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) In my teenage years, I became keenly aware of the “creeping vines” of my mind. I read a lot of Alan Watts books on Zen, thinking that might help, but I soon found out that what he had to say did nothing to cut off the “creeping vines”. I was looking for something Shunryu Suzuki described in one of his lectures, though I didn’t know it at the time: 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. (“Breathing”, Shunryu Suzuki; November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added) Here's the conclusion of my post--the references to "your way at this moment" and "your place where you are" are from Dogen's "Genjo Koan": The freedom of “your way at this moment” is touched on in daily living through “your place where you are”. That’s Yuanwu’s “place of peace and bliss where you stop and rest”. 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. If you're interested: “The Place Where You Stop and Rest”

Ahem... how about a modern resource? Mark Foote bridges ancient wisdom and modern science in this remarkable exploration of seated meditation. Drawing on Gautama Buddha's original teachings, Zen masters from Dogen to Shunryu Suzuki, and contemporary research in biomechanics and neuroscience, Foote reveals how natural, automatic movement in the body emerges when we surrender volition and allow consciousness to find its own place. For practitioners seeking to understand the relationship between body and mind in meditation, A Natural Mindfulness is an invaluable guide.

batten the hatches haiku thread in for a ride geese visit, fly south

Photo by the West Marin Feed, I believe of Bolinas Bay, north of San Francisco.

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])

Reading the "Welcome" remarks of @Steve Clougher today introduced me to the Neiye, a Chinese text that may be the ancestor of other Chinese texts on inner cultivation. AmberOwl was so kind as to post a translation he put together, that's here. I wrote a post (on my own site) recently about advice I might give to a first-time meditator. That's here. My conclusion was: ... I expect I will tell him to let the place where his attention goes do the sitting, and maybe even the breathing. I am talking there about what Feldenkrais described as "reflex movement", automatic movement triggered initially by a weighted "one-pointedness" of mind, and then simply by "one-pointedness". As I wrote in an earlier piece: 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) I sit first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, and generally by at least the end of the sitting the place where my attention goes can do the breathing. Generally I can return to that during the day, should the necessity arise. 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) The emphasis there is on a regular practice, and "this level" I believe refers to practice where "the place where attention goes does the breathing". Yuanwu emphasized that the key is regular practice, and that some time may pass before the necessity of a return during the day becomes fully apparent.

I'd never heard of the Neiye (Wikipedia's spelling)--really wonderful, for the history and what little substance from the work Wikipedia saw fit to offer. Thanks for that!

I finished that post, if you're interested: Just to Sit.

Instant karma!

zerostao, that was quite a list! I did like the classics, prior the modern era. Back at ya, some:

I would recommend the Pali Text Society translations of the Nikayas (the sermons). They can be found online, though not by the Pali Text Society. Folks can PM me if they can't find the link. There are also translations by modern, Western Theravadin monks, for example on the suttacentral.org site: https://suttacentral.net/pitaka/sutta?lang=en The suttacentral texts allow for side-by-side Pali and English, if that's of interest. I notice that on their home page, the suttacentral folks speak of the four principal nikayas, and I would stick to those. According to A. K. Warder in his "Indian Buddhism", the fifth Nikaya, the Khuddaka Nikaya, was a work of later composition that was not included in the sermon collections of many of the early schools. I would also observe caution with regard to sermons attributed to Gautama's disciples, rather than Gautama. Gautama was careful to limit what he had to say, I believe to avoid contradictions, but his disciples in many cases stepped right in it (so to speak). Some favorites for me: MN 118 and MN 119. The whole SN 54.1 chapter (SN 54.1 - SN 54.11, at least). MN 70, for stating what is and is not enlightenment. DN 16 the story of Gautama's death, and DN 22, the long version of mindfulness. Googling the abbreviations here will likely return links to the sermon, for example "MN 118" (though generally not the Pali Text Society versions). I see that forestofclarity encourages recommending "your own resources". The above are my resources, maybe that's not exactly what he was encouraging? I do write, drawing from the first four Nikayas and from resources in the Ch'an and Zen traditions. I have collected the best of my writing, here: A Natural Mindfulness That's also the first eighteen pages of my website, here: The Mudra of Zen MIschief managed?

Thoughts on giving advice to a first-time sitter. https://zenmudra.com/zazen-notes/?p=2474

LIked the acoustic introduction!

I think the implication here is that Suzuki disagrees, and rightfully, I would say, with what most teachers say. Most meditators with even a few months of experience sitting at least 30 or so minutes at a time will have been through and past most of the jhanas and my have even experience cessation without realizing what they were looking at. Cessation is what you rest in, and continually reestablish in shikantaza. Reads to me like Suzuki is agreeing with most teachers, that "just sitting" is difficult. Certainly in the paragraph from another lecture about "following or counting breathing", he described shikantaza or "just to sit" as difficult: … 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) Actually, the space of the body is present, as "purity by the pureness of one's mind" is extended throughout 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, see also MN 119 PTS vol. III pp 132-134) The cessation of the fourth concentration, the concentration Gautama was describing above, is the cessation of inhalation and exhalation. I agree with you, that he's referring to the cessation of will or intent in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation. You might like this, from the piece I'm writing now: 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. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19) 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 and “one-pointedness” to effect “reflex movement” in the activity of the body. 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. ... I would say the activity of the body in the fourth concentration is entirely “reflex movement” occasioned by the ("one-pointed") placement of attention. To remain awake as the location of attention shifts and activity of the body takes place is “just to sit”. That's also "the cessation of inhalation and exhalation". The answer is that shikantaza is enlightenment in this moment. Where there is perfect being-ness shikantaza there are temporarily no cankers. This can be seen in your own practice. Ask yourself, when the mind is clear and still are there “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming"? Cessation is possible in this moment, and so is insight into it. Sure, except... most folks think that once enlightenment is attained, the cankers are cut off at the root, there is no return of the cankers. And that's how Gautama saw it, to the best of my knowledge. Temporary enlightenment as the basis for inka? Ok... I am not saying that shikantaza is not a basis for transmission in the Soto Zen lineage (and one I'm grateful for), just that Gautama's enlightenment was not his regular attainment of the fourth concentration, but the gnosis he realized through psychic powers in the fourth concentration. I do believe that shikantaza is vital to the mindfulness that was Gautama's way of living, and Gautama strongly recommended that way of living, saying everything else in his teaching could follow.