Mark Foote

... Famous saying attributed to the Sixth Patriarch's disciple Nan-yüeh Huai-jang (667-744): The [Sixth] Patriarch asked [Nan-yüeh], "Where do you come from?" Nan-yüeh answered, "From Mt. Sung." The Patriarch said, ''What is it that comes like this''' Nan-yueh replied, "To say anything would be wrong." The Patriarch said, "Then is it contingent on practice and verification (hsiu-cheng)?" Nan-yüeh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent; they are not to be defiled." ("Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation", Carl Bielefeldt, p 138)

That's key for me, the part about "it already animates their bodies". There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. (Common Ground) When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration: … there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen. (Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com) (Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages) I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my “complicated, difficult” daily life, I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom. ("To Enjoy Our Life", emphasis added)

You asked for it, NaturaNaturans! “To Enjoy Our Life” (from zenmudra.com/zazen-notes) A friend of mine recommended a particular approach to practicing musical scales. She starts with the minor scale on a particular note, say, C minor. She follows with the major scale on the same note (C major), and then the relative minor of that major (A minor). She continues in this fashion four rounds, then picks up the next day with the minor scale beginning a step higher (D minor). In three days, she’s made a circuit of scales. I’ve tried in the past to practice scales, but found myself giving up in short order. The organization in her approach is helpful to me, and though I’m not practicing as regularly as she does (she’s a performing musician, as well as a teacher), I have begun to practice. I wrote to my friend: The striking thing to me about my experience on the cushion these days is that I am practicing some kind of scales, as it were. Gautama outlined the feeling of four states, the initial three and then the “purity by the pureness of [one’s] mind”, the fourth. I’ve described that “pureness of mind” as what remains when “doing something” ceases, and I wrote: When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath. The rest of the scales are looking for a grip where attention takes place in the body, as “one-pointedness” turns and engenders a counter-turn (without losing the freedom of movement of attention); finding ligaments that control reciprocal innervation in the lower body and along the spine through relaxation, and calming the stretch of ligaments; and discovering hands, feet, and teeth together with “one-pointedness” (“bite through here”, as Yuanwu advised; “then we can walk together hand in hand”, as Yuanwu’s teacher Wu Tsu advised). In the months since I wrote my friend, I’ve had some time to reflect. There are some things I would add, on my practice of “scales”. Gautama spoke of suffusing the body with “zest and ease” in the first concentration: “… (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 III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134) Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey a sense of gravity, while the phrase “not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” speaks to the “one-pointedness” of attention, even as the body is suffused. If I can find a way to experience gravity in the placement of attention as the source of activity in my posture, and particular ligaments as the source of the reciprocity in that activity, then I have an ease. Gautama taught that zest ceases in the third concentration, while the feeling of ease continues: (One) enters & remains in the third (state), of which the Noble Ones declare, ‘Equanimous & mindful, (one) has a pleasant abiding.’ (Samadhanga Sutta, tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, AN 5.28 PTS: A iii 25; Pali Text Society, see AN Book of Threes text I,164; Vol II p 147) That’s a recommendation of the third concentration, especially for long periods. Nevertheless, I find that the stage of concentration that lends itself to practice in the moment is dependent on the tendency toward the free placement of attention. As I wrote in my last post: When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration. Shunryu Suzuki said: To enjoy our life– complicated life, difficult life– without ignoring it, and without being caught by it. Without suffer from it. That is actually what will happen to us after you practice zazen. (“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco) I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my “complicated, difficult” daily life, I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom.

not worth the penny flowers by the roadside, bright coots and ducks in reeds

Not really looking to be comfortable with everyone, thanks anyway. My mother's first husband was the author of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People"--that's sort of a family perspective for me, I guess... from the Amazon review: Originally published in 1937, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" is a tongue-in-cheek primer by Irving Tressler on how to achieve more free time and peace by having few, if any, friends and acquaintances. "Some of us are born with ability to make others peeved, but most of us aren't."... I find it's only necessary to be straightforwardly honest to retain my reclusivity.

As I wrote in another thread (somewhere), I think the participants in Dao Bums like to write, like to express themselves, and they hope that somewhere along the way they might get some positive feedback on what they've written from others. Maybe even inspiration. To the extent that folks are positive and substantive, I think Dao Bums can be interesting and informative. Also, some of the old timers are a hoot! I guess kakapo is able to trade tips with other practitioners of the particular practice he subscribes to, that would be a great benefit--I assume he's referring to a martial arts practice, which I don't really have anymore. You would think Dao Bums would be about Daoism, but I think it's more about what Daoism has influenced, in the modern world. That includes Buddhism and the martial arts. Not so much talk of gaining immortality here, though sometimes. Two cents. I've started a lot of threads with zero participants, don't get discouraged!

Ain't we got fun!

Right you are, and thanks for drawing that to my attention. You're right, I never heard them mentioned in any dojo I ever attended, but I just assumed they existed (which they do). I was taught the armlocks (which were not allowed below the black belt level of competition, at the time) and the basic choke (won a point on that, once). No wonder the leglocks were abandoned, as part of the "gentle way": The object of the leglocks is to bring about sprain or dislocation of the knee or ankle which compels the opponent to surrender. The Sprain is a rent of the ligaments of the joint; the Dislocation defines a durable displacement of the articular extremities, properly speaking. (from the source previously linked)

Marley illustrates something I'm writing about now: If I can find a way to experience gravity in the placement of attention as the source of activity in my posture, and particular ligaments as the source of the reciprocity in that activity, then I have an ease. Looka dat bounce! More striking without his shirt, like at the Sunsplash that his family has refused to release.

Again, I would recommend keeping a presence of mind with your location in space, as you fall asleep: There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. (Common Ground) Just before you fall asleep, exercise enough presence to allow the placement of attention to shift and move. Here's the way humbleone described his experience: I woke up at 4:30 AM. After a quick drink of water, I returned to bed and tried your practice. I hope I did it correctly, I was somewhat surprised that my mind moved around quite a bit. Not fast, but in slow motion the awareness would shift, from left cheek to right side of torso etc.. The end result was a light sleep state, but I was glued to the bed and then woke up exactly at 6AM, feeling refreshed like I had a complete 8 hours of sleep. Once you have a feeling for the one-pointed placement of attention that moves, you can work sitting and standing to find the ligaments that control reciprocal innervation in the lower body and along the spine, through relaxation, and through calming the stretch of ligaments. From the Golden Flower: I find that the concentration that lends itself to practice in the moment is dependent on the tendency toward the free placement of attention. Stick with the placement of attention out of necessity experienced in the movement of breath, let the placement shift and move, see how the thoughts behave: 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. (“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added) Your mileage may vary, Zoe, I'm not dealing with what you're dealing with!

No, not training. I tried to find another judo dojo when I first arrived in San Francisco--there was a good one out in the avenues, lots of guys from Japan--but it was too much, with my work (evenings, as a dishwasher) and the bus ride. Tried to partake of Aikido as well, but strained something in my ankle sitting seiza. So I mostly just attended the S. F. Zen Center practice, I was their volunteer door-person for short while, a couple of evenings a week (sit by the door facing out, and stop the occasionally crazy who tried to sneak into the building by the zendo door for purposes other than practice). Still working to properly incorporate the zazen that gets up and walks around into my daily life, first had that experience in 1975 and I think it ruined me as far as having a "normal" life. That's ok, who among the Dao Bums has a "normal" life, ha ha! Only now coming to terms (so to speak) with that zazen, through some of Gautama's teachings in the Pali sermons. The acupuncturist who practices BJJ, sounds like a great life to me. I wish you well (and snowymountains too).

Ok, apart from the leglocks... yer right, Judo does have a lot of ground fighting, They're both derived from ju-jitsu, although only BJJ has ju-jitsu in the name. Ju-jitsu has strikes and kicks, I did six months of ju-jitsu in high school along with the judo--nasty strikes, like finger-tips to the trachea. The sparring was the best part of judo, and the competitions were a chance to see what was real, outside the dojo. When I was learning the art, it was generally acknowledged that the Japanese won their matches standing, mostly with left-side uchimata, and the Europeans and Americans couldn't wait to take their opponent to the mat, where they mostly won by grappling. I was able to spar with the sixth dan high school champion of Japan when I was in college. What a privilege. Spar is maybe not the right term--I was able to experience the effortless beauty of his technique, over and over. They did wrestle in Japan--the sixth dan had a cauliflower ear. Glad I never got into it like that, although maybe the experience was worth the disfigurement. I still have the sweep, that was the throw of my teacher, an unusual one. He used to win sumo matches in Hawaii by diving past his opponent and sweeping the guy's feet out from under him. The opponent would hit the ground before my teacher did, a win in sumo for my teacher. Still, to me the most important art of self-defense is relinquishing activity to a one-pointedness that incorporates others through the extension of compassion.

Judo Leglocks by M. Kawaishi https://judoinfo.com/leglocks/

There I was, crossing the channel on a ferry, leaning over the urinal with my upper body so as to direct the vomit to the bottom should it commence, when the guy next to me zips up and says, "time for another liverwurst sandwich!"

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Couldn't agree more about dance. But I will disagree about the meaning of drawing water and chopping wood. 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)

Got a second brown in judo in high school, and I couldn't agree more that it's the best exercise! Also, I've had two incidents of falling in my senior years, here. The first I rolled out of, the second was on the slick floor of a laundromat and I actually slapped the laundromat floor as I was laid out full length. Amazing sensation to match the force of the fall, and have nothing hurt when I got up, not even my forearm. Everybody should learn how to fall, and how to practice balance with another person, IMHO.

Regarding "The Golden Flower": Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back. (Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, trans. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, pg 176) There's a reference to that in "The Golden Flower". Dogen predates"The Golden Flower" by half a millennia, but I'm sure he got it from earlier sources in China. If I feel as though I’m moving backward in space, I may suddenly have an acute sense of where my awareness is in my body, and that location may not be in my head. Or, as I describe it in Waking Up and Falling Asleep: Just before I fall asleep, my awareness can move very readily, and my sense of where I am tends to move with it. This is also true when I am waking up, although it can be harder to recognize (I tend to live through my eyes in the daytime, and associate my sense of place with them). When my awareness shifts readily, I realize that my ability to feel my location in space is made possible in part by the freedom of my awareness to move. I sometimes overlook my location in space because I attach to what I’m feeling, or I’m averse to it, or I ignore it. The result is that I lose the freedom of my awareness to shift and move, and I have difficulty relaxing or staying alert. When I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, then my awareness remains free, and I can relax and keep my wits about me. The "Golden Pill" or the pill of immortality, I would say is simply the one-pointedness of attention when necessity in the movement of breath places attention: There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. (Common Ground) That's the same "location of awareness" I referred to as the practice in waking up and falling asleep. Here's I. B. Horner's translation of the mindfulness of mind, in Gautama's way of living: [One] trains [oneself], thinking: ‘I will breathe in… breathe out experiencing thought… rejoicing in thought… concentrating thought… freeing thought.’ Key thing there is that in order to detach from thought ("freeing thought"), at least an appreciation of thought is necessary, if not a rejoicing. Arrive at a positive frame, then see about detachment. My approach, bearing in mind one-pointedness depends on a necessity: A central theme of Gautama’s teaching was the cessation of “determinate thought” (AN III 414) in action, meaning the cessation of the exercise of will or volition in action. A cessation of the exercise of will could be attained, said Gautama, through the induction of various successive states of concentration. As to the initial induction of concentration, Gautama declared that “making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind”. I begin with making the surrender of volition in activity related to the movement of breath the object of thought. For me, that necessitates thought applied and sustained with regard to relaxation of the activity of the body, with regard to the exercise of calm in the stretch of ligaments, with regard to the detachment of mind, and with regard to the presence of mind. I find that a presence of mind from one breath to the next can precipitate “one-pointedness of mind”, but laying hold of “one-pointedness of mind” requires a surrender of willful activity in the body much like falling asleep. (Response to “Not the Wind, Not the Flag”)

Dr. John Lee, on his success in treating women who were experiencing osteoporosis but who were at risk for mammarian or ovarian cancer. Dr. Lee was thirty years a general practitioner in Marin County, California, and his was one of the first counties to actually have a bone scan machine, so that he could actually check his results. He helped a women-led company in Oregon to develop a topical progesterone cream, "Progest". Available over the counter, at your local Whole Foods, or by many suppliers online, no prescription necessary. Never had a national test of "natural" progesterone, which is synthesized but molecularly identical to human progesterone, because it can't be patented (read: no profit for pharmaceutical companies). Progestins, which are altered by at least a molecule to allow patenting, have side effects (none listed in the Physician's Reference for the "natural" hormone). Been using it for thirty years, fewer aches. There's a review of his pamphlet on "Hormone Balance for Men" that would give you the gist, on the women's international compounding pharmacy site. He has a book, "What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Menopause".

Really like that last one. Gautama's description of the feeling of the third of the initial concentrations: … free from the fervor of zest, (one) enters and abides in the third musing; (one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease. … just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water-lillies, the plants are born in water, grow in water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one’s) body in zestless ease. (AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS pg 132-134) My experience: … the center of balance can shift to a location that reflects involuntary activity in the limbs and in the jaw and skull. The feeling for activity in the legs, the arms, and the skull is indeed like an awareness of three varieties of one plant grown entirely below a waterline. (Common Ground) That depends on finding ligaments that control reciprocal innervation in the lower body and along the spine, through relaxation and calming the stretch of ligaments. Pulling the legs up, the arms in, and the jaw down (while the teeth are touching). Pushing them back out--where are they, relative to center? A description of “reciprocal innervation” from the writings of Dr. John Upledger--basically his experience while lying on salt water in an isolation tank: At some point my body began to make fish-like movements, as though my pelvis and legs were the lower part of a fish moving its tail from side to side. This movement was nice and easy. The neurophysiologist in me related these movements to an expression of what we call ‘reciprocal innervation’. The principle here is that, when your trunk is bent to the side in one direction past a certain threshold, the muscles on the other side of the trunk contract. In doing so, the nerve impulses are diverted from the side to which you are bent, and those muscles relax. Your trunk now bends in the opposite direction until that side-bending threshold is passed. The nerve impulses are then diverted again to the opposite side, causing muscle contraction and side bending in that direction. (“Your Inner Physician and You: Craniosacral Therapy and Somatoemotional Release”, John E. Upledger, p. 165)

... and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d.... To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub! For what if, in that dream, the very chair we sit upon in sleep, falleth over... (Hamlet, appended)

Gautama’s teaching revolved around action, around one specific kind of action: …I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought. (AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III p 294) “When one determines”—when a person exercises volition, or choice, action of “deed, word, or thought” follows. Gautama also spoke of “the activities”. The activities are the actions that take place as a consequence of the exercise of volition: And what are the activities? These are the three activities:–those of deed, speech and mind. These are activities. (SN II 3, Pali Text Society vol II p 4) Gautama claimed that a ceasing of “action” is possible: And what… is the ceasing of action? That ceasing of action by body, speech, and mind, by which one contacts freedom,–that is called ‘the ceasing of action’. (SN IV 145, Pali Text Society Vol IV p 85) He spoke in detail about how “the activities” come to cease: …I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling. (SN IV 217, Pali Text Society vol IV p 146; emphasis added) From something I'm writing for my own site: There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration. What stage is appropriate, is a function of the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention. Shunryu Suzuki said: To enjoy our life-- complicated life, difficult life-- without ignoring it, and without being caught by it. Without suffer from it. That is actually what will happen to us after you practice zazen. (“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco) I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my complicated, difficult daily life I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom. "The free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath" is "the cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing" (which from Gautama's statements, up top, is "the cessation of ['determinate thought' in] inbreathing and outbreathing). I know that while my father, the Sakyan, was ploughing, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, I entered on the first meditation, which is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness, and is rapturous and joyful, and while abiding therein, I thought: ‘Now could this be a way to awakening?’ Then, following on my mindfulness, Aggivissana, there was the consciousness: This is itself the Way to awakening. This occurred to me, Aggivissana: ‘Now, am I afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind?’ This occurred to me…: I am not afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind.’ (MN 1 246-247, Vol I pg 301)

For me, it's all about necessity, actualized through the point of interface between waking and sleeping. I'm not sure how that fits in the categories you listed, Maddie. In a way it's staying alive to particular senses (equanimity in the vestibulars, gravity in the otoliths, placement in the proprioceptors, and spatial orientation in the eyes), so more physical than spiritual, except where the interface depends on a compassion that extends to the other side of the wall (and beyond). The extension of compassion, out of necessity.

not yer grandpa's broom! a new thread sweeps clean, but where'd everybody go?