Mark Foote

the every man's dream bright stars before summer dawn mountains dark and blue illusions shattered bright stars before summer dawn mountains dark and blue (thanks, Cow Tao, for keeping me straight. I was at Sonoma Mountain Zen Center yesterday for a one-day sitting, and when I walked down the road at 4:30am, the sky was just lightening- I'm cheating, but both are true!)

I think it's true that when I suffer, there is a path; when I don't, there isn't. For me the main significance of the teachings is that knowledge plays a role in freedom. DO is really a part of that, useful sometimes for that, and there is nothing that has significance outside of its relationship to each other thing, without exception. How's that.

moving the fingers tapping the keys, red, white, blue right here, here, no news

the warrior's dance one sense after another, all at once- who moves!

Fast thread here, but I'm not unhappy to have spoken out of turn- there is a happiness in the practice that this site puts forward, in so many ways and with so many voices, and I hope that is what brings all manner of people here. I hope that SSW returns to his happiness, that has always been the path.

"Fungible commondity?" love that! I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have two part time jobs no benefits with my girl here in the garage and a bar within 2 miles where people dance to records on Saturday night. Compost, no fungi. I can sit the lotus, for 40 minutes, with only a little numbness. Most times. Left side on top now is easier than right side on top, whoa, what's that about! I have full confidence in the place of mind, because I have seen action out of breath with the impact of consciousness and feeling. My success, if you could call it that, has been because I felt I could give everything up, and yet I believed in the movement of breath as the key to an inner life. I think without the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths, as it were, it's easy to become to self-effacing and do myself harm. At the same time, I have to let it go, because I am dedicated to harmlessness- is that because I was raised on Rachel Carson and peace-love, or what? may all beings be happy, if any succeed than all succeed, here's to us all each and every.

The realization of dependent origination, don't need no stinkin' rug underneath this mind! no self in cause and effect, kind of freedom. OK. place, stretch that breathes, feeling; place, stretch that breathes, feeling. Thinking, place. Feeling. Ugly duck, walking- wake up, wake up, go to sleep!

There's no request stop that can be made; place to die, do we come to that?

The quote about the unborn is from the fifth sutta nikaya collection. Last I read, historians regard this collection as of later composition than the other four, and probably less accurate as a representation of the actual teachings of Gautama who became known as the Buddha. I think the birth stories, Jataka, are also from this collection. I personally find it suspicious, because the other nikayas cite anhiliationism and eternalism as errant views, and the passage quoted is eternalistic in viewpoint. If you need something unchanging, that would be change as a factor in life. How's that. I like the four mindfulnesses (particularly in the chapter on the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths in the fifth sanyutta nikaya, but that's another story) that close with "only to the extent necessary for mindfulness, and grasps after nothing in this world".

In "Buddhist India" Ward tells of the final conference after the death of the Gautamid before the order split. There were five main differences between what became Therevadin and what became Mahayana. One of them was the omniscience of the Buddha. The differences were reconciled around the notion that a Buddha was only omniscient with regard to the dharma, not with regard to worldly phenomena. As I've said on Tao Bums before, the point that could not be agreed was whether or not an arahant could have a wet dream, be seduced by a succubus. Something like that. Doesn't exactly sound like the Mahayana that we know, the compassion for all beings that holds off personal enlightenment for the sake of others? Yet I think it rings true, because it means that the mahayanist enters into the suffering occasioned by delusion for the sake of other beings, and that means acts are committed that an arahant (supposedly) could not commit. I'm thinking everybody is right tonight, God help me. the cessation of perception and sensation, which is beyond neither perception and sensation nor not perception and sensation. Marked by a happiness. The pride of clinging to existence, the craving to be reborn, giving rise to the asavas, which cease with the cessation of volition in perception and sensation. Attending on sense object, sense organ, consciousness arising from the contact of sense object and sense organ, impact out of the occurrence of consciousness, and feeling associated with impact, fevers of mind and body decrease, and happiness of mind and body is experienced. Right view, right intent, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration develop and go to fruition, right speech, right action, and right livelihood are already well-attended- so in one observing thus, abiding thus (something like that) with regard to the six sense-fields. does anybody think that the reason we have this much brains is directly related to our lack of a tail? Why do I exert so much energy to wag the tail that I don't have? How come all I have is consciousness, impact, and feeling that breaths and wags? Woof?

I see now that I am paranoid and imagine that people are talking about me when in fact they are not. Hmmm, stay tuned for voices, and possibly past lives. I agree with 'Songs, that reality can't be apprehend; I disagree, that there is no such thing as view (in relationship to other things) that is conducive to an end of suffering. Is it possible to share so much as a fart? I think it was Sawaki, the Japanese teacher, who said it was not. Can we teach ourselves without a teacher? Can we teach each other? Can we say something significant to another that is not significant to us, personally? Can we know what we're going to say before we start writing and still speak to ourselves?- doesn't feel like we can, maybe that's just me. Kate, have you seen Apepch7's writings?

some don't swear at all some laugh out loud at haiku some fall off their seat

Didn't mean to speak disparagingly of the jhanas. Not really a Buddhist, except that I believe he was right about suffering, that right knowledge is a knowledge of things as they really are and the truths about suffering are part of that. Have you seen my animation? Ice cream melting under a hat, is here: ok, dirty trick to get you to watch it, there is no ice cream under the hat, but it's short and I like it.

hypnagogia hallucinations prior sleep moves on the water

Hey, get me a cone! Also agree that actually all the states exist to one degree or another or none. Get me two cones! The cessation of the activities I hope we can agree is the cessation of volition in habitual activities, and the progression is given as speech, inhalation and exhalation, perception and sensation. Yes, the Gautamid saw past lives and karma in the fourth jhanna, according to the texts, especially in the wee hours of the morning. Good time for a couple of cones. Interesting to me that the net result of extending the mind of friendship in 10 directions is the fourth jhana, I could find the text if anybody is interested. Of extending compassion, the mindfulness of infinite ether (space, or the medium of breath?); of extending joy, the mindfulness of infinite consciousness; of extending equanimity, the mindfulness of no-thing. After which all hell breaks loose, ice cream everywhere, kids crying...

I'm familiar with that notion of bones floating in the fascial web, and I think it's a good one. For my purposes, the key piece of science is that the fascial tissue can generate nerve impulses to cause muscles to contract, and that fascia on opposite sides of the body can do just that in alternation: "reciprocal innervation", which I believe is what keeps us upright without conscious effort. It's not that any group of muscles is contracted all day long, but that the muscles work in alternation, and their activity is instigated by the stretch of fascia. I got this from John Upledger's books, at least he described the phenomena of reciprocal innervation. Upledger says the cranial sacral rhythm is about a six second cycle; check out a great interview with him here: Share Guide, interview with John Upledger He talks about the mechanism with regard to the saggittal suture and the rhythm in the interview. In one of his books, he talks about his first experience with the rhythm, where he was trying to hold the dural sack still for a surgeon; Upledger was watching a heart monitor and a respiration monitor, and neither one corresponed to the movements he was experiencing. Shunryu Suzuki had an interesting description in one of his lectures: "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." that's at: "Whole Body Zazen" from cuke.com

are self-revealing yet the self that is revealed is not the true self is not the true self a measure of what's within lightning bug, and dark

it is dead easy to go ass over teacup on these marbles- card?

(thanks for picking me up on that one, CowTao- I get a little weird sometimes) wonder of wonders where I am is what I am, doing nothing- ha!

leaves us all in knots, and stitches; here's the good news, play it for me, Sam

act but do not act who can know, and know nothing? the cat looks askance

why not change channels? English to Au' au, mayhaps- do a world of good (ha ha! know you would if you could!)