Mark Foote

squirrels and bluejays become a v. tasty meal add some salt, buddha (on the Tricycle haiku corner, I read that the 5-7-5 formula doesn't translate directly into English- I didn't follow the logic exactly, but on that site they were willing to consider other combinations. Myself, I kinda like the 5-7-5...)

flapjacks for buddha and his entourage- mostly squirrels and bluejays

acorns and drops them what helps take the bitters out so's ya can eat 'em (whew!) so's ya can eat 'em, ya gotta cook 'em way long like they did back when like they did back when we will do again, but now iron in the fire

I took a look at Facebook, and they only allow "like" and "comment", and they print the name of the person who hit the like button too (I think). That might be a way to go, if we have that option (pluses only)- that way people who liked a post but didn't find words to add a response could contribute, and nobody gets hurt. Do we have that option, I wonder?

I personally didn't want to answer the second or the third question, but of course I couldn't participate at all unless I did so. As I said on the other threads about the rating system, the question to me is how do we assess whether this feature benefits the discussion, or inhibits the discussion. I don't mind taking part in what I see as a rating experiment, but I wonder how we will know what the result if we don't state clearly in advance what it was intended to achieve? Is this a facebook-kinda social thingee intended to empower those who otherwise would remain voiceless, whose lives are too busy to actually put fingers to keys to express in words what they feel- do our discussions benefit from having a venue for such people to express themselves? I personally see the principal strength of Tao Bums as the willingness of so many people of such diverse backgrounds and opinions to actually put words to the feelings and understandings that are so intimate to us all- and maybe people have to be pushed on the stage in order to perform in this fashion, but if we open the forum to an audience that doesn't take their turn on the stage, I think we will find that it is a whole different forum. 1 cent, 'nother cent.

I posted this on Stig's original thread, but I'd like to offer it here as well; from the Tao Te Ching: In comparison, the sage, in harmony with the Tao, needs no comparisons, and when he makes them, knows that comparisons are judgements, and just as relative to he who makes them, and to the situation, as they are to that on which the judgement has been made. ok, ok, I realize that a moderator's life is not easy, and I appreciate the service that TTB moderators provide to the community at large- but are you looking for public support of decisions to ostracize individuals from the board- are you thinking you will shame the trolls out from under the bridges- are we thinking this is valuable feedback for some individuals? Hmmm, well, maybe so! How do you plan to assess whether this feature benefits the discussion, or inhibits the discussion? Do you have metrics you can discuss? I don't mind taking part in the experiment, but I wonder how we will know what the result if we don't know what it was intended to achieve. Thank you.

LOL!

In comparison, the sage, in harmony with the Tao, needs no comparisons, and when he makes them, knows that comparisons are judgements, and just as relative to he who makes them, and to the situation, as they are to that on which the judgement has been made. ok, ok, I realize that a moderator's life is not easy, and I appreciate the service that TTB moderators provide to the community at large- but are you looking for public support of decisions to ostracize individuals from the board- are you thinking you will shame the trolls out from under the bridges- are we thinking this is valuable feedback for some individuals? Hmmm, well, maybe so! How do you plan to assess whether this feature benefits the discussion, or inhibits the discussion? Do you have metrics you can discuss? I don't mind taking part in the experiment, but I wonder how we will know what the result if we don't know what it was intended to achieve. Thank you.

cobras wait silent ancient medicine intact who will hear them, now?

Focus on the occurrence of consciousness, the impact of the occurrence of consciousness on the fascial stretch in existence as consciousness occurs, and the ability to feel opened by activity generated by the fascial stretch. That sounds pretty heavy-handed, yet it's really a matter of being able to realize the inhalation or exhalation at the moment, as the autonomic nervous system intends the inhalation or exhalation to be. Chen Man-Ch'ing in "Thirteen Chapters" (the Wile translation, page 17) says, "with this method of circulating the ch'i, it overflows into the sinews, reaches the bone marrow, fills the diaphragm, and manifests in the skin and hair." So I would say look to the reciprocal activity generated by the stretch of sinews (ligaments and fascia can generate nerve signals to cause muscular contraction to relieve their stretch), look to pitch, yaw, and roll where awareness takes place (informed by the structure of the body, no doubt), let the ability to feel allow the movement of breath to be realized, let the occurrence of consciousness and impact open the ability to feel throughout the body to the surface of the skin. From the Pali Suttas, where Gautama describes the feeling of the fourth of the inital meditative states: "... it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body not covered by the white cloth. Even so, ... (a person), having suffused this very body with a mind that is utterly pure, utterly clean, comes to be sitting down; there is no part of the whole body that is not suffused by a mind that is utterly pure, utterly clean." (PTS Majjhima Nikaya III 134, parentheticals paraphrase original). Now the rupa jhannas are marked by increasing equanimity of mind, and this is the purity that the Gautamid refers to. I remind myself to include each thing in the possibility of awareness, yet realize the activity out of the current sense of place in consciousness, and use that activity out of stretch to allow a natural breath. The equanimity follows with a witness of how attachment to the content of feeling, aversion to the content of feeling, or ignorance of the content of feeling can condition the subsequent place of occurrence of consciousness; the witness frees the occurrence of consciousness to take place anywhere in the body, on the skin, outside. Sort of like the mind just before falling asleep, when it moves freely- at least that's my experience of it.

I believe it's not about an exercise of volition that affects the movement of breath, but rather a relinquishment of volition that affects the movement of breath. This would be a hard concept for Chunyi Lin to express in an interview so I don't blame him for casually making it sound otherwise. So to be clear, my impression is that it's not something he "does" all day long so much as it is something that his training and his presence causes to happen automatically in him all day long. The second piece of what he said is also interesting, and I think tends to confirm my impression: "When you do Reverse Breathing focus on your skin that is even better." As I state in my thread elsewhere on Tao Bums (titled "reverse breathing, illustrated"): "The autonomic respirations coordinate through the place of occurrence of consciousness to cause action that opens the nerve channels between vertebrae; thus, the place that consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, through the body to the surface of the skin and in the senses."

Reverse breathing: the ilio-lumbar ligaments (yellow) engage in the movement of breath. The autonomic respirations coordinate through the place of occurrence of consciousness (illustrated with a gyroscope) to cause action that opens the nerve channels between vertebrae; thus, the place that consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, through the body to the surface of the skin and in the senses. We all know what it feels like to stretch, and how close stretch can be to pain; a lot of my practice is learning what is stretching at the moment, and how to relax and allow stretch and activity to reciprocate as consciousness takes place. The length of the movement of breath can be a guide to healthy stretch and the subsequent involuntary activity, both with the breath in and with the breath out. With that in mind, the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in inhalation tends to result in reciprocal activity that draws upward and inward, while the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in exhalation tends to result in activity that sinks downward and forward. This is my experience, when the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, and I believe this is because the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 4th lumbar vertebrae engage on the inhalation (they are vertical), and the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 5th lumbar vertebrae engage on the exhalation (they are horizontal). When the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, reverse breathing is already taking place, even though each breath is completely natural.

sorry mate, forgot. ancient and twisty, right, then; straight on, bottoms up

I have cheated, and added to my initial remarks on this thread an explanation that should have been there from the first; the thread is about reverse breathing, but I really didn't explain what the illustration had to do with reverse breathing. For those who are opening the thread for the first time, I added it to my remarks at the start of the thread. For those who may be following this thread, I will repeat it: We all know what it feels like to stretch, and how close stretch can be to pain; a lot of my practice is learning what is stretching at the moment, and how to relax and allow stretch and activity to reciprocate as consciousness takes place. The length of the movement of breath can be a guide to healthy stretch and the subsequent involuntary activity, both with the breath in and with the breath out. With that in mind, the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in inhalation tends to result in reciprocal activity that draws upward and inward, while the impact and feeling as consciousness takes place in exhalation tends to result in activity that sinks downward and forward. This is my experience, when the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, and I believe this is because the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 4th lumbar vertebrae engage on the inhalation (they are vertical), and the ilio-lumbar ligaments from the pelvis to the 5th lumbar vertebrae engage on the exhalation (they are horizontal). When the length of the movement of breath guides the stretch and activity as consciousness occurs, reverse breathing is already taking place, even though each breath is completely natural. "...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)

Not a'tall, not a'tall! I think I've spent most of my life hunched over, because I had no sense of the balanced activity between the psoas and extensors. Of course, that's an oversimplification; I just never got the bicycle-riding as far as the breath that coordinates stretches in the pelvis and lower back, and the "movement" of consciousness. oh well. I hope I'm making up for lost time. Glad to hear they didn't fuse ya, or otherwise overdo it- so many have had it overdone, OMG.

fat chickens don't fly who knew they could sing!- caged beasts I take no delight

exactly, and I don't know if it's just my stage of ripeness or what (hope I don't stink too much), but my intuition for the length of the exhale, for the length of the inhale is my key to the stretch and activity to place awareness. In reality, I don't so much place awareness as my necessity in the breath, stretch, and activity places awareness. That's the trance, I guess; weight underside and extend, as Koichi put it. L5/S1, nerves to the sole of the foot? If you have that motion that is the breathing connected with awareness, you have some support at l5 from ilio-lumbar on exhalation, and I wonder how that can be- I guess that's possible if they didn't remove transverse processes. I'm no anatomist, so I'm guessing at these relationships (but to read most anatomy books, they have no idea of the big picture, so I might as well guess). The dorsal fascia can provide support too; my guess is if the balance is right the fascial web is suspended in the correct locations, even though you have no disc l5/s1. I can sit the lotus, but I lose feeling sometimes at the sole of the feet; I think I need to relax the extensors and let the head bones move more, I think I need to forget it. Ha ha!

I read somewhere that the dragon is attempting to grasp the secret of the sun, and this is a story I love; however, I'm open to dragon eggs, as well!

That's an interesting point, Kate- my personal belief and experience is that the movement of breath never stops, and the moment where people think it stops is the moment where the body, the mind, and the balance meet- the entrance to the trance states, if the focus is on realizing through intuition the relaxed stretch and the shift of feeling necessary to the movement of breath.

That's so exciting to me to hear. When I was just starting out I practiced a figure-eight thing in the lower abdomen, walking around the panhandle in S.F. (1975); I thought of it as the hummingbird way (because I have a vivid imagination!), and although I've gone away from it over the years I still think it's an interesting practice. Right now I think more about juggling three balls, so that one is always in the air and there's a sense of weight and gravity in continuous motion. Of course, this doesn't specify the direction of motion like the figure-eight practice! The three balls could be described (I suppose) as jing, qi, shen, although I think of them as impact of the occurrence of consciousness in the fascial stretch, activity generated out of stretch in support of the movement of breath, and single-pointedness of feeling. If I relax into the stretch as consciousness occurs, and look to realize the length of the movement of breath, I have a continuity of single-pointed mind- provided I exclude nothing! When I sit, I look to the sacrum and especially the sacrospinous ligaments, I look to the gastroc-soleus (in back of the calf), the sartorius, and the piriformis, I look to the extensors and to the attachments of the extensors to the temporal bones behind the jaw on either side of the head- and I hope to let go for the juggling. The juggling usually has a pointedness of mind or feeling that returns to the space around which the psoas muscles move, moving in alternation with the extensors- the tan-t'ien. Sometimes a figure-eight.

The pelvis going from side to side is my attempt to illustrate the movement of the pelvis in three directions, corresponding to pitch, yaw, and roll. It's mostly yaw, yer right!- hopefully my next project will be 3ds-Max. Thanks for the tip from Zhang Sanfeng! (p.s.- it's better in flash, you can start to see the stretches of the ilio-sacral, sacrospinous, and sacrotuberous ligaments that lead to the activity that moves the pelvis in three directions- the flash version is here: http://www.zenmudra.com/ilio_lumbars_pulmonary_respiration.swf) - these stretches are initiated by the movement of the sacrum in the cranial-sacral rhythm, but the sacrum doesn't move freely without the support of the lower spine provided by the ilio-lumbar ligaments in the movement of breath.)

Thanks, Sean, for all you do to make communication about "unproveable" realities possible! Although I don't know Chunyi Lin, I'm very grateful to him for taking the time to give me (among others) a better sense of what he is teaching, and where he's coming from. Very uplifting to read, and I appreciate the acceptance he demonstrated and the positive response he contributed with each question. I am an amateur at Tai-Chi, and at sitting the full lotus, and at being a "love radiator" as Chunyi Lin puts it, yet even an amateur can say that we have two struggles here: one is to heal ourselves, which is how the interview opens, and the other is to find the words and actions to communicate the means of healing to others. Even though we are talking about "unproveable" realities, I believe we can find a Western vocabulary to describe relationships that demonstrate these realities exist. This is like physicists discovering the existence of habitable planets thousands of light years away by examining perturbations in the orbits of their stars; the planets themselves are unobservable, but their existence is demonstrated in the effect they have on the stars we can track. I have no intention of practicing reverse breathing. That doesn't mean I don't do reverse breathing some of the time, especially in the lotus or on the dance floor, and maybe it's useful to some people to very deliberately start out to do reverse breathing some of the time. I look to see how the place that my consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, in the instant. I recognize that there's a stretch in existence throughout the fascial structure of my body as consciousness takes place, and that the autonomic respirations coordinate through the place of occurrence of consciousness to cause action that opens the nerve channels between vertebrae; thus, the place that consciousness occurs has impact and opens feeling, through the body to the surface of the skin and in the senses. We all know what it feels like to stretch, and how close stretch can be to pain; a lot of my practice now is learning what is stretching, and how to relax and allow stretch and activity to reciprocate as consciousness takes place. The length of the movement of breath can be a guide to healthy stretch and the subsequent involuntary activity, both with the breath in and with the breath out. The recognition that aversion to pain, attachment to pleasure, or ignorance of neutral sensations can condition the subsequent place of occurrence of consciousness is vital to me, as this recognition precedes a witness that is itself the end of suffering at the moment. The natural mind, as it were, has within it the end of suffering; we are all healers, and I think it's important to let ourselves be healed rather than to set out toward any particular breathing.

my mothers gravestone rests in the moonlight- a hill far away calls me

(whoops!- )

If you are just sitting, then things tend to settle lower in the body. Things settling lower, the stretches initiated between the sacrum and the pelvis through the motion of the sacrum bear more weight. These stretches generate activity in the muscles of the legs and the pelvis, and the alternation of stretch and activity allows the movement of breath to find its natural course with a lower center of balance. The ability to feel opened up through a lower center of balance in the natural movement of breath continues when you get up. That would be my explanation of why the meditation leaves you more flexible, even though no overt stretching occurs. I think relinquishment is attractive to people, the determination to give something you want up for a perceived higher good is attractive to people, and maybe women are more sensitive to this than guys; I would guess.