Mark Foote

You came back with salt you left to buy something sweet tell me a story

This morning a second question has occurred to me, and that is: why do they sit 40-50 minutes in the lotus, when most hatha yoga postures are only assumed briefly? My answer would be, because we work loose, first the sacrospinous ligaments, then the sacro-tuberous ligaments, and finally the sacro-ilial ligaments. We work loose by settling in and accepting the stretch that already exists as consciousness takes place, relaxing as we breath in and out. When we have feeling over the surface of the whole body, then the impact of consciousness and feeling sits, the hit in "just hit sit", or shikantaza. Equanimity toward pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings is a part of this. Equanimity and relaxation in the face of the involuntary reciprocal innervation of muscle pairs around the pelvis and the sacrum and throughout the body takes a little time to come on, after the humdrum of our daily habit. I would remind everybody of Cheng Man-Ching's description of the fourth stage in the development of chi: chi penetrates to the skin and hair. Likewise, the Gautamid described the fourth of the initial jhanas as purified equanimity, the cessation of volition in in-breaths and out-breaths, and as feeling like "a strip of cloth wrapped around the head and the entire body". For me, I walk on my feet sitting down, until I feel the exchange between my upper legs and my sacrum under the pelvis, kind of the forward angles of "the ox crosses the wooden bridge". With luck I can let go and ride the wind, as it were. The wind gets up, when it's time; that's how it goes for me, and I usually sit between 30 and 50 minutes. A little numb in the top foot when I get up. Answering questions people don't ask, for myself, of course! Thank you; Mark

An old man shuffled over and sat down on the chair next to the stage. "Young man", he said, "you should quit eatin' dem stinkin' mushrooms; sittin on air, is dat what a public education is worth. When I was your age, I just phantasized about women; take my advice, stick with your ass and get happiness while you can. By da way, you dropped this..."

I like the suggestions that everyone has given; I haven't tried the machine. If I really can't sleep, I sit the lotus for awhile. Stretch my legs & sit. The space of falling asleep is the same space as waking up, actually; the mind moves freely, the rhythms of the body use the mind instead of vice-versa. So try to wake up with your mind, relax, and see what happens. 'Course, this is waking up by letting the mind go, and making the inside like the outside. Hope I can sleep tonight!

(sorry for the repeat!)

Hi, effilang (hey, bums), Are you familiar with cranial-sacral osteopathy? Allopathic medicine has yet to acknowledge that there is a significant respiration in the changes of fluid-volume in the dural sac (around the brain and spinal cord and all the way to the tailbone), but I think Sutherland was onto something. Upledger convinced me, through his writings. ok, cut to the chase, the volume of fluid changes in the tissue sack that surrounds the brain, according to Upledger about 14 times a minute. Pressure changes in a closed system are instantaneous throughout the system, per hydraulics. The spine flexes and extends with the changes in fluid, and the arms and legs rotate inward and outward. The sacrum pivots on the pelvis, forward and back, side to side on the diagonals, and even around the vertical axis of the spine. The sphenoid and occiput in the skull flex and extend. The nerves that control the changes in fluid volume are in the sagittal suture, at the top of the skull. When you sit the lotus, you isolate the movement of the sacrum on the pelvis. You can observe the stretches in the ligaments between the sacrum and the sit-bones of the pelvis, between the sacrum and the tuberosities of the pelvis in front on either side, and between the sacrum and the pelvis. You can observe actions in the muscles of the legs and pelvis that occur involuntarily as a result of these stretches, and the reciprocity of actions between paired muscles. You can observe action initiated by the cranial-sacral rhythm through the stretch of ligaments between the sacrum and the pelvis. "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." Fuxi, approx. 500 C.E. Yes, consciousness is the bridge, yet the right amount of openness to feelings of pain and the right amount of detachment from the pleasant is necessary if we are to sink and realize our involuntary motion; I myself needed a way to say, yes, this is part of the stretch in existence as my consciousness occurred just now, so that I could relax and stay open. I can sit the lotus, usually 30-40 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night. Sometimes my feet go to sleep, less so as I realize that I belong to these respirations and this consciousness, they do not belong to me. So to speak. I think my explanation is more straightfoward at the website below my signature; thanks, all, have a good night- yers Mark

you've landed us in the muck; another nice mess you've gotten me in! (Stan's the man, Ollie!)

You guys are making me laugh, and the school teacher loaned me the Harry Potter book, and I don't have to give it back! Nyah nyah! happiness has no sense of time... thanks.

Picking up a volume of long forgotten lore, the man from Mars pondered, nearly napping; like the tapping of a librarian on his skull, he suddenly realized what his eyes had read, although there were no pictures: "Whatever happiness, whatever joy, Ananda, arises in consequence of these five strands of sense-pleasures, it is called happiness in sense-pleasures. Whoever, Ananda, should speak thus: 'This is the highest happiness and joy that creatures experience'- this I cannot allow on [their] part. What is the reason for this? There is, Ananda, another happiness more excellent and exquisite than that happiness. And what, Ananda, is the other happiness more excellent and exquisite than that happiness? Here, Ananda, a [person], aloof from the pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, enters and abides in the first meditation that is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness and is rapturous and joyful. This, Ananda, is the other happiness that is more excellent and exquisite than that happiness." (Majjhima-Nikaya volume one 389-399, Pali Text Society edition volume ii pg 67) Quoth the librarian, softly: "shhh!- snore no more!"

chasing the ol' cat the child at last comes to rest the cat at rest still

Remember the Alamo When help was on the way It's better here and now, I feel that good today. I'd like to take a walk But not around the block I really got some news I met a man from Mars. He picked up all my guitars And played me traveling songs. And when we got on ship He brought out something for the trip And said, It's old but it's good Like any other primitive would. (from "Ride my Llama" by Neil Young)

'Damn, Rene, didn' you say the library was just right here? Walkin' for miles now, I ain't seen no library! Man, how we gonna define happiness if the library be closed by the time we get there...

Hi, Marbles (and all you bums out there)- line 4 is poetic license. Not flag, not wind, mind is moving- you know, that one. Interesting that the pine and bamboo draw a breeze; if we are wild and rooted, I think sometimes we draw a breeze as well. If you blow on a tinder fire, you do indeed feed the flames- but if a draft catches a sputtering candle, likely that's that, over and done. I agree with the unlearning part, yet the danger is in assuming too big a role in the process. The muscles of the pelvis move in response to stretch, the very place we rest on is in motion if we relax and sink into the stretch, yet the mind must be with what is uncomfortable as well as with what is comfortable before we ride and our legs feel as though we walk.

from Fuxi (500 C.E.?): An 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 From Wuzu (1100 C.E.?): ... Charmingly, the pine and bamboo draw a clear breeze. Nother favorite, from Alexandra David-Neel: Nirvana means an extinction, or rather, the action of a breath which blows upon a flame and extinguishes it. So "an empty hand charmingly draws a clear breeze that blows upon a flame and extinguishes it". Rene was not there, in a very real sense. Ha ha!

This is a beautiful thread, I think, for the honesty of the people and the sharing. Thanks, all. I heard Dr. John Lee speak about progesterone on the radio in Mendocino one day, and he was fascinating. A guy from Minnesota, treating women who were at risk for ovarian or mammarian cancer but suffering osteoporosis, in a family practice in Mill Valley, CA. Went to hear him speak at the Mendo Middle School gymnasium. Asked him about progesterone and joint pain, and he said it seemed to help his patients with arthritis, so I went for it. Rub 1/4 teaspoon of Progest on a different spot each day, knock off for a week or two weeks every so often. Why bother with sexual cultivation, you can get the real thing in a tube?- is what I sometimes wonder. As Dr. Lee said, the message of estrogen to cells is divide and multiply (and I suspect that's the message in testosterone too), but the message of progesterone is mature. In the third trimester, the levels of progesterone in a woman's body are amazing. Ok, I wouldn't do it to try to live forever, but if you have joint pain or osteoporosis you could check out Dr. John Lee's "what your Dr. may not tell you about menopause", or the companion books "what your Dr. may not tell you about premenopause" & "what your Dr. may not tell you about breast cancer". The latter not written by Dr. Lee himself. I can't say what sexual cultivation in Taoism is really about, but I think hormones is the most likely guess, personally. As to my sex life, could be better! But you know what, I'm fine; my friends are golden, and when my heart was pulsing 133 the rest didn't matter (they fixed that). kickin' in for fun, y'all- Mark

Thanks for your thoughts, MB (& who knew, hat eating could be a topic on Tao Bums?) it's possible to debate the Gautamid's notion that consciousness arises based on sense-contact, or his notion that attachment, aversion, and ignorance condition the occurrence of consciousness, but for me the vital presence in what he had to say is when I recognize that the place of occurrence of consciousness is no longer spontaneous if the feeling of pain or pleasure associated with the occurrence of consciousness is grasped. If the place of occurrence of consciousness is no longer spontaneous, the function of the location of consciousness in generating the activity of the body out of stretch is absent, and the tea cup sits on the table staring back at whomever tries to lift it without the exercise of will! that's what I meant. Seems like some of us don't believe it's possible to do nothing, and yet everything will be done?...

Peace, love, spare change? on the Tao Bums site, who could imagine! When we are experiencing the confusion and imbalance of contact in the six senses, who among us can let go and allow the occurrence of consciousness to function in the relaxed stretch already in existence, to act? If the conversation about awareness or about dependent origination can pick up a cup of tea, I'll eat my hat. love, Mark

Hi, Mikaelz, I would agree that teachers I have met are mostly trying to repay a debt to their teachers, and they live difficult lives. Although I acknowledge that the presence of a teacher is a gift, and can show us something about living that we may have never been exposed to before, I also wonder if the traditional methods of transmission of Eastern religions cannot be combined with a better exposition of the groundwork through the methods of Western science. I'm a pragmatist, when it comes to the end of suffering, and I thoroughly believe it's right there happening in all of our lives constantly and we just overlook it. Not that I believe life is suffering. I believe that the four truths and the rest of the Gautamid's teachings apply when suffering exists, and otherwise they are just the sound of the wind through the trees. I agree with you that the translations from the Chinese can make all the difference in the world. There have been several excellent translations on this website, that's one of the amazing things about it! yours, Mark

lol yeah well the way some characters around these woods put it, might as well be chopping water. I swear they are holding their breath! uh-oh, I've done it now...

Love that!- "the objective world ever stirs the mind". Things as it is, as Shunryu Suzuki said. ANYBODY GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!?! ha ha, love you guys, even when my mouth is full of marbles! less'ee, now, right foot first, then left... no, wait, left foot then... hmmm.

I was just explaining the teachings of the Pali sermon volumes regarding karma, on account of "thuscomeone" asked for an explanation. Does volition cease in perception and sensation? Yes, suddenly. Is the means of that cessation obtainable through words and texts? Not actually. Does it have to do with the end of suffering? The exercise of will, intent, these are the things that are spoken of in the Pali cannon in association with becoming in the future. If you are looking to live the life of purity to realize an end of suffering, then the cessation of speech, of body, and of mind are your compass, the very ground under your feet- are they not? yers Mark

hey, tathagatha, how ya doin'! I think our "takes" are always going to be in flux, but given that fact of existence, I'd like to mention the things I find important in grabbing the rope lift. First, it's about suffering, as far as the truths the Gautamid had to offer. If suffering exists, then practice and the truths have meaning, and only if suffering exists. The Gautamid taught a practice that begins with sitting cross-legged and holding the body upright. He stated that his own practice was the intent contemplation of in-breaths and out-breaths, both before and after enlightenment. He taught that by attendence to sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness arising with sense-organ/sense-contact, impact connected with consciousness, and feeling connected with consciousness and impact (with regard to each of the six senses), all the factors of enlightenment develop toward fruition. In my experience, when I am just sitting, sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness, impact, and feeling sit the posture. That means the experience acts, with no intermediary. And the experience can get up and walk around. Shunryu Suzuki made a beautiful explanation that somebody captured on video, here: The Gautamid spoke of the cessation of the activities, which he said was gradual. These are the cessation of the activity of speech, the cessation of the activity of body, and the cessation of the activity of mind. By activity, he meant volitive action. Thus the cessation of the activity of speech is not necessarily the cessation of speech, the cessation of the activity of body is not necessarily the cessation of movement, and the cessation of mind (or of perception and sensation) is not necessarily the cessation of the occurrence of perception and sensation. Speech ceases in the first rupa jhana (material elements trance), the influence of volition on the in-breath and out-breath ceases in the fourth rupa jhana, and the influence of volition on perception and sensation ceases in the fifth arupa jhana (immaterial elements trance. Karma is connected with the exercise of volition. The ignorance involved in the exercise of volition creates a station of consciousness, the station of consciousness gives rise to sense-contact that ultimately results in the identification of self with the material, with feeling, with mind, with activity, or with consciousness. The identification of self is suffering. As to where all this is hiding, I hope we can drop like a baby and roll like a log today. yers, Mark

Thanks, Mr. V- now a beautiful afternoon, think I'll go to the sugar-skull making demonstration in Walnut park today, part of the "Dia De Los Muertos" fun in Petaluma in October. Cheers! ('..')