Mark Foote

haven't crossed the lake not by boat--here five years now, emptying myself

Judo's a great art, I got as far as second brown, and I would recommend it to anyone. Having said that, the teacher makes all the difference--I had a teacher who was known in the San Francisco Bay Area for his gentle approach. Teachers like that throw you, and you're grateful for the experience. I would always recommend the kind of inner contact with an opponent that judo and the other martial arts teach. "One-pointedness of mind" is a start--more about that here: https://zenmudra.com/zazen-notes/?p=1975

A friend responded to my last post, Not the Wind, Not the Flag: I cannot see the connection to life, cleaning cat boxes, cooking, shopping, driving, bathing and suffering. Let me try to make that connection explicit, here. Response to "Not the Wind, Not the Flag"

repel mosquitoes thorough DEET application live without, North Shore live without, North Shore A million years, mosquitoes haven't crossed the lake

I'm not a moderator, but my guess would be, as long as you tie it to Dr. Baker you can introduce those topics on this thread. C T?

Hey, Morphius--I took a brief look at your paper, and I hope to get back to it later. Meanwhile, I thought you might be interested in this: In (the) early record, Gautama is concerned with action, a certain 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 pg 294) “When one determines”–when one makes up one’s mind, action takes place. Gautama taught the ceasing of action: 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 IV pg 85) ... Gautama taught that the ceasing of action (action by “determinate thought”) takes place at particular junctures as successive states of concentration unfold. Action of speech ceases in the first of the concentrations, action of body ceases in the fourth, and action of mind ("feeling and perceiving") ceases as the last of the concentrations is transcended altogether (and “there is no more of being such-and-so”). That's from a piece (The Early Record) where I summarize the teaching in the Pali Sermons. Hope you find it interesting.

C T, I'm having a hard time dedicating 90 minutes, even though the doc is very personable, and the fact that he did his masters on the cocaine trade out of Burma makes him eminently qualified, as Cobie perhaps tried to point out. Help me out--give me your take-away, please.

wakes me from slumber the dream of someone I miss precious few moments

heed not but laugh loud at superstitious nonsense know the difference

On the body, with "death as an advisor": It were better… if the untaught manyfolk approached this body, child of the four great elements, as the self rather than the mind. Why so? Seen is it… how this body, child of the four great elements, persists for a year, persists for two years, persists for three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, persists for forty, for fifty years, persists for a hundred years and even longer. But this… that we call thought, that we call mind, that we call consciousness, that arises as one thing, ceases as another, whether by night or by day. (SN II 93-94, Pali Text Society II pg 66) Something I found while searching for the quote above: ‘The untaught manyfolk... knows of no refuge from painful feeling save sensual pleasure. Delighting in that sensual pleasure, the lurking tendency to sensual pleasure fastens on [that person] ... [As such a person lacks understanding], the lurking tendency to ignorance of neutral feeling [also] fastens on [that person].” (SN IV 208, Vol IV pg 140; bracketed material paraphrases original or replaces original gender-biased pronoun) There is, said Gautama, “a refuge from painful feeling apart from sensual ease” which allows for freedom from such tendencies; the likelihood is that he referred to the equanimity of the initial meditative states. (Making Sense of the Pali Sutta: the Wheel of the Sayings)

I think there's a certain amount of unrequited love and unresolvable tension in being alive. We have to be ready to act, and I believe we are moved to act, when the occasion presents itself. One of the main takeaways for me of the patchwork path is to hang with the place the action comes from, and abandon the notions of self, just as you said manitou. That the notions of self are identically suffering--I am attracted to that aspect of Gautama's teaching.

More fun on another thread that might be relevant here, if anybody is interested:

Gives new perspective on that old case from the "The Gateless Gate": 29. Not the Wind, Not the Flag Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving." The other said: "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." Mumon's comment: The sixth patriarch said: "The wind is not moving, the flag is not moving. Mind is moving." What did he mean? If you understand this intimately, you will see the two monks there trying to buy iron and gaining gold. The sixth patriarch could not bear to see those two dull heads, so he made such a bargain. Wind, flag, mind moves, The same understanding. When the mouth opens All are wrong. (The Gateless Gate, by Ekai, called Mu-mon, tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps [1934], at sacred-texts.com) I used to think the sixth patriarch was talking about the relationship of "mind" to the weather, something like the ability of shamans the world over to affect the weather in their vicinity. Black Elk standing on a butte in the bad lands and a storm he expected coming up out of nowhere. One of our local Kashima healers predicting red rolling lightning upon her own demise, and the testimony of witnesses to the occurrence of the lightning outside the tribal round house when she passed. Ekai says the flag is not moving, the wind is not moving. He's putting words in the mouth of the Sixth Patriarch, isn't he? To me, what the sixth patriarch said was, pay attention here, not to the flag or the wind. Ekai’s interpretation of the sixth patriarch’s words left me in confusion, for a lot of years. I do like the way Ekai says "if you understand this intimately", and then goes on to reject understanding in words altogether ("when the mouth opens, all are wrong").

A rabbit-hole kind of day, here. Buddhaghosa's explanation of one-pointedness of mind: Ekodi-bhuta. khanika-samadhina ekagga-bhuta samahita, 'by a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized.' ("Sarattappakasini", Buddhaghosa's commentary on Samyutta Nikaya, footnote SN V 144, Pali Text Sociey V p 123-124) A definition of dhyana (I don't see any authorship ascribed): Dhyana is a Sanskrit word meaning "meditation." It is derived from the root words, dhi, meaning “receptacle” or “the mind”; and yana, meaning “moving” or “going.” (dhyana, dec. 9 2017, "Yogapedia"; https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5284/dhyana) Googling the two sanskrit roots, looks like the derivation above is correct. So, dhyana is literally "mind moving". David Hinton, writing in "China Root: Taoism, Chan, and original Zen": Etymologically, dhyana means something like “to fix the mind upon,” hence meditation as fixing the mind upon emptiness and tranquility. Here I think he missed the mark. Gautama's "one-pointedness of mind" and Buddhaghosa's "one-pointed" don't actually stipulate that the mind is fixed on anything, or fixed in space. Koun Franz pointed out the difference between "placing the mind here" meaning "to fix the mind upon" and "placing the mind here" as meaning to allow the mind to take place somewhere other than in the head. Happens every night in falling asleep, the mind moving, but it's easier to see it happen in falling back to sleep after three or four hours of sleep than in first falling asleep. That's because it's necessary to be awake enough to see it (but not too awake to fall back asleep). Hinton describes "mind" in the literature of China as "empty-mind", presumably something more than the mind of "determinate thought": Empty-mind is about much more than simple tranquility or attentiveness, essential as they may be. It is, instead, everyday ordinary mind operating at Tao’s generative origin-moment/place, which the Dark-Enigma Learning master Kuo Hsiang described as the “hinge of Tao” where our “movements range free” because we move as the Cosmos (Tao) itself unfurling inexhaustibly through its boundless transformations. (https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/roo.pdf) "Origin-moment/place", or as Dogen put it: When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point… (“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi.) To me, finding my place where I am means "by momentary concentration become one-pointed", a one-pointed that moves yet remains right where I am. Finding my way at this moment just means: ... People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture! (lecture by Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Shikantaza”, http://www.jikoji.org/intro-aspects/) They are right where I am, at this moment. ... Dogen starts off by talking about body and mind dropped off. It is funny that he says, “Body and mind dropped off is the beginning of our effort.” Dropping off body and mind is an important technical phrase for Dogen, in Japanese shinjin datsuraku. Body and mind dropped away is a name Dogen uses for zazen. For him zazen is simply dropping off body and mind. It is also his name for annuttara samyak sambodhi, “Complete unsurpassed perfect enlightenment”. (Taigen Leighton, https://www.ancientdragon.org/dropping-off-body-mind-and-the-pregnant-pillars/)

CT, I wonder if you would have a link to that article. I went to vedanet.com but was unable to locate the quote. I mentioned earlier Buddhaghosa's explanation of one-pointedness of mind: Ekodi-bhuta. khanika-samadhina ekagga-bhuta samahita, 'by a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized.' ("Sarattappakasini", Buddhaghosa's commentary on Samyutta Nikaya, footnote SN V 144, Pali Text Sociey V p 123-124) Buddhaghosa seems to be talking about a spontaneous attainment of concentration--at least, it sounds that way to me. Frawley mentions "a seed mantra" or "asking the question 'Who am I?'" as ways to develop one-pointed mind. Buddhaghosa seems to suggest something like Rujing's "drop body and mind". That brings me to an interesting dharma talk by Dan Leighton: For the last couple of years I have been translating Dogen’s Extensive Record, Eihei Koroku, together with Shohaku Okumura. ... We are nearing the end of a long section of 531 mostly short Dharma Hall Discourses. I want to share with you one we translated last Wednesday from 1252, a year before he died [# 501]. ... Dogen starts off by talking about body and mind dropped off. It is funny that he says, “Body and mind dropped off is the beginning of our effort.” Dropping off body and mind is an important technical phrase for Dogen, in Japanese shinjin datsuraku. Body and mind dropped away is a name Dogen uses for zazen. For him zazen is simply dropping off body and mind. It is also his name for annuttara samyak sambodhi, “Complete unsurpassed perfect enlightenment”. ,,, The traditional story behind this phrase goes that when he was training with his teacher in a monastery in China in 1227, some twenty-five years before this talk, Dogen was sitting in the monks’ hall late one night and his teacher, Tiantong Rujing, was walking behind the meditating monks, and the person sitting next to Dogen was sleeping. Rujing took off his slipper and hit the sleeping monk, saying, “You are supposed to be dropping off body and mind, why are you engaged in just sleeping, instead of just sitting?” Supposedly Dogen was greatly awakened upon hearing this. (https://www.ancientdragon.org/dropping-off-body-mind-and-the-pregnant-pillars/) A fascinating note about "one-pointed" by Thanissaro Bhikku on dhammatalks.org, for Saddhamma-niyāma Sutta's "Ek’agga". From that note: ... a passage in MN 43 defines the factors of the first jhāna as these: “directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, & one-pointedness of mind.” It has been argued that this statement contains a contradiction, in that the compilers of MN 43 did not realize that one-pointedness precluded thought and evaluation. But perhaps they knew their own language well enough to realize that ek’aggatā—being gathered into oneness—did not preclude the powers of thought. (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN5_151.html#an5.151note01) There are other lectures where Gautama included "one-pointedness of mind" among the characteristics of the second, third, and fourth initial concentrations, but omitted the phrase from the characteristics of the first. A cause of confusion! Would seem, though, that if "one-pointedness of mind" is characteristic of concentration (as Gautama said it was), then "one-pointedness" must be present in the first concentration, even with thought applied and sustained. Might not be what Rujing had in mind, though... Ok, following up I discover that the passage in MN43 is not attributed to Gautama himself, but to Sariputta. Gautama had a way of gliding over the paradoxes in his teaching, which his disciples did not--they would step right in it, so to speak. My opinion.

Can anybody cite the particular translation here? I did find "The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu" translated by Burton Watson online (https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html), and Wikipedia says: Zhuang Zhou commonly known as Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived ... Chinese: 莊子; literally "Master Zhuang"; also rendered as Chuang Tzu) but I can't find the quote. Thanks!

Hahn gives a positive spin to things. Me, I just harsh everybody's buzz!--I hope you can forgive me. I see that Thich Nhat Hahn translates the second set of four in Anapanasati: ‘Breathing in, I feel joyful. Breathing out, I feel joyful.’ He or she practices like this. ‘Breathing in, I feel happy. Breathing out, I feel happy.’ He or she practices like this. ‘Breathing in, I am aware of my mental formations. Breathing out, I am aware of my mental formations.’ He or she practices like this. ‘Breathing in, I calm my mental formations. Breathing out, I calm my mental formations.’ He or she practices like this. (https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-full-awareness-of-breathing/) I tend to go with Woodward's translation for the Pali Text Society: Thus (one) makes up (one’s) mind: Feeling the thrill of zest I shall breathe in. Feeling the thrill of zest I shall breathe out. Feeling the sense of ease I shall breathe in. Feeling the sense of ease I shall breathe out. (One) makes up one’s mind: Aware of all mental factors I shall breathe in. Aware of all mental factors I will breathe out. Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe in. Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe out. (SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V pg 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced, re-paragraphed) I can find something like "the thrill of zest" and something like "the sense of ease", if I can relax. "The thrill of zest" for me is just a subtle energy, and "the sense of ease" is an ease in my body (what else would it be!). Joyful and happy as in Hahn's translation?--not so much. The next two instructions I interpret as having to do with the senses, with awareness and calm with respect to the senses (I’m interpreting “mental factors” as “mental faculties”, and defining “faculties” per Merriam-Webster: "one of the powers of the mind or body the faculty of hearing", Merriam-Webster). Koun Franz described a practice with respect to the eyes: I was taught we should be constantly aware of our eyes when we sit. Specifically, we should be aware of how we narrow and widen the aperture, how our field of vision gets narrower and narrower as our mind gets narrower and narrower. When you see that clearly, you also see how easily you can just open it up; the degree to which we open it up is the degree to which we’re here. (“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/) The practice koun Franz described is a matter of being aware of the eyes, and I would contend of calming that awareness. I would summarize it that way, and approached in that manner, the practice applies to all the senses, and is particularly relevant to the awareness of the senses critical to posture (proprioception, equalibrioception, graviception, plus the aforementioned occuloception). The Tai-Chi classics describe seated meditation as “straightening the chest and sitting precariously”*, and sitting with continued precariousness demands calm in the exercise of the senses involved. In The Early Record, I commented on the first two elements of Gautama's "mindfulness of feeling": To the extent that calm in the stretch of ligaments and relaxation in the activity of muscles reflects the extension of balance from the base of consciousness, a certain zest and ease emerges. That's what the practice come down to for me: relaxation with regard to the activity of the body, and calm with respect to the activity of the senses, particularly in light of the awareness of activity generated out of the stretch of ligaments. I see that the folks at Plum Village wrote that Thich Nhat Hahn was especially happy to have found Anapanasati Sutta among the scriptures of the Pali Sermons. I can relate to that, yet I wonder at the variety of translations I see, and how long I had no path forward with respect to Anapanasati on account of them. * “Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, by Cheng Man-Ch’ing, translated by Douglas Wile, pg 21

can fish smell water? what do they smell, when they leap high into the air

You've come to the right place (Dao Bums)! Do you have a daily practice, may I ask? Fellow Dao Bums, tell us: do you have a daily practice? I'm under the impression that most Dao Bums do, whether it's consulting the I-Ching (which I guess is in your past, TranquilTurmoil), meditation of one flavor or another, or martial arts. Me, I sit "cross-legged" as they say, usually first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I used to sit 40 minutes, but about a year ago my knees began to object, so now I sit 25. More or less. For a long time, I took the advice of Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen teacher who was in my neighborhood. He said, "Take your time with the lotus", and I worked at it. I did manage to sit the lotus for about 20 years, but now I find myself following in the footsteps of Dennis Merkel, regarding the posture. Merkel says he sat about 20 years in the half lotus, 20 in the full lotus, and now he sits Burmese (one leg in front of the other, flat on the floor). I still regard the cross-legged posture as my teacher. I've met a lot of folks who were strong sitters and teachers, and I appreciate their effort and dedication but they never could speak to what I needed. I think I have what I need now, but what a long, strange road it's been. The cross-legged posture and free-style dance, my teachers!

Another verse from Song of Mind, that struck me: Do not concern yourself with anything; Fix the mind nowhere. Fixing the mind nowhere, Limitless brightness shows itself. That's interesting, about Thich Nhat Hanh's favorite sermons. Anapanasati would be the "Full Awareness of Breathing" you reference, I think, and that practice is the one Gautama described as his way of living, both before and after enlightenment (in SN V chapter on "concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing"). In Anapanasati, Gautama praises the assembly of monks for their various practices and attainments, and then launches into the description of "mindfulness of in-breathing and out-breathing" (MN III 82, Pali Text Society III p 124--this is the same practice translated in SN V as "concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing"). That he describes "mindfulness of in-breathing and out-breathing" after the other practices, gives the appearance that he is advocating for the practice of "the mindfulness of in-breathing and out-breathing" most of all. "Fix the mind nowhere". I love Buddhaghosa's description: 'By a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized.' As koun Franz said, the mind moving away from the head can't be made to happen--nevertheless, it happens. Amazing to me that Gautama never explicitly states that the "concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" constitutes the first of the material concentrations, but there is so much that is simply assumed in the sermons. I see where the Pali Text Society translator of the Middle-Length Sayings also points to things simply assumed as a difficulty in arriving at her translation of the volumes. How would you know that cessation refers to the cessation of "determinate thought" in action, unless you happened to read the one sermon where Gautama states that determinate thought is action, and having determined, one acts in speech, body, and mind (AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 294)? And how would you know that one-pointedness of mind is synonymous with concentration, in Gautama's teaching, unless you read the passage about the five powers where he says so (SN V 200, Pali Text Society V 176)? At least, to my knowledge he only says these things in one sermon, each. I think that means it was commonly understood, by his audience. It's a catch-22. Need a momentary concentration, to experience one-pointedness of mind in the contemplation of in-breathing and out-breathing, but need relaxation, calm, detachment, and surrender as in the contemplation of in-breathing and out-breathing to drop into one-pointedness of mind. Think I'll just concern myself with nothing, for awhile.

Sent me down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on that one, old3bob. Very interesting, I learned a lot about the golden age of India, Nalanda, many of the texts that came out of Nalanda or were perhaps influenced by works from Nalanda. What I did not find, however, was what the last living Satguru of Kashmir Shaivism said about Buddhism. And of course, I'm dying to know! Do you have a reference for me...

Regarding the "few years of intense suffering (that) was unbearable", there are a couple of sermons in the Pali sermon volumes where elders in the Order in the time of Gautama went to visit someone who was considering "taking the knife", and tried to dissuade them from such action. The recipients of these visits were monks who were gravely ill, and in severe pain (and thinking to end their own lives, to "take the knife"). If memory serves, the elder monks didn't always persuade the dying individual to bear up, no matter how they spoke about the dharma. What Gautama described as his way of living consisted of a particular mindfulness of body, feelings (the senses), mind (thinking mind), and state of mind. He posited four elements of mindfulness in each of the four fields, and for "state of mind", the four were: Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out. (SN V 312, Pali Text Society V p 275-276) "Contemplating impermanence" is the awareness of the five skandhas you mention, with an acknowledgement with regard to phenomena, "this am I not". Dispassion concerns equanimity toward the pleasant, the painful, and the neither-pleasant-nor-painful. The principal cessations are the cessations of "determinate thought" in speech, in deed, and in "feeling and perceiving". That's the cessation of the exercise of will, of choice (volition), of habitual tendency in action. Renunciation concerns the abandonment of the notion "I am the doer, mine is the doer" in the action of speech, body, and mind. Renunciation follows from the observation of action in the midst of cessation, action that occurs while volition is absent. You can read all sixteen elements of the mindfulness that made up Gautama's way of living at the bottom of my Early Record, if you're interested. That Gautama described the sixteen as his way of living, and especially his way of living during the rainy season, says to me that Gautama frequently engaged his mind in a rhythm of the sixteen "contemplations". Gautama also spoke of states of concentration, and he described the first concentration as a state where thought is applied and sustained (as in the sixteen contemplations). At the same time, he identified concentration with "one-pointedness of mind", something "laid hold of" by "making self-surrender the object of thought". Ten centuries later, the commentator Buddhaghosa described the instantaneous nature of the induction of "one-pointedness of mind": 'By a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized.' (Sarattappakasini, Buddhaghosa; footnote SN V 144, Pali Text Sociey V p 123-124) How I describe "one-pointedness of mind", in the first essay in my PDF: The practice I have in mind is a practice that everybody is already familiar with, even if they don’t think of it as a practice. What I’m referring to is waking up in the morning, or falling asleep at night; if you’ve ever had a hard time waking up or falling asleep, then you know that there can indeed be a practice! In my experience, the practice is the same, whether I am waking up or falling asleep: when I realize my physical sense of location in space, and realize it as it occurs from one moment to the next, then I wake up or fall asleep as appropriate. This practice is useful, when I wake up in the middle of the night and need to go back to sleep, or when I want to feel more physically alive in the morning. This practice is also useful when I want to feel my connection to everything around me, because my sense of place registers the contact of my awareness with each thing, as contact occurs. 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. (Waking Up and Falling Asleep) An itinerant monk read the Diamond Sutra out loud in a marketplace in China, and a woodcutter, hearing one particular sentence, got a move on: Let the mind be present without an abode. (Translation Venerable Master Hsing Yun, from “The Rabbit’s Horn: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra”, Buddha’s Light Publishing pg. 60)

Finding a compassionate view of another person's actions, regardless of the intention behind them, is a big part of feeling gratitude in my experience. Sometimes I have sat with anger for days (on and off), before I found a perspective that allowed release. Uncertainty about another person's motives can be very unsettling, but again, compassion and gratitude for whatever I have shared with that person (and the knowledge that although the close relationship may be over, whatever love there was may continue in some other fashion) has always helped me move forward. But yes, in particular with regard to the activity of the mind and particular thought, finding a way to accept and even appreciate my thought (if only as a process) has helped me find more of a rhythm in mindfulness. And I'm convinced what I need is a rhythm, not a state of mind.

Of Marie Rose sauce I would be fond, I'm sure--but the prawn, not so much

Writing is a way to arrive at what I most deeply believe in, the thing I believe in beyond doubt. I'm sure it's the same for everyone on Dao Bums, that's why we're here! That solitary mystery of heaven, for me is "one-pointedness of mind", as described in a commentary on one of Gautama the Buddha's teachings: Ekodi-bhuta. khanika-samadhina ekagga-bhuta samahita, 'by a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized.' (from Sarattappakasini, Buddhaghosa's commentary on Samyutta Nikaya, footnote SN V 144, Pali Text Sociey V p 123-124) That I think relies in turn on Gautama's definition of the power of concentration: ... making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind. (SN V 200, Pali Text Society V 176) Gautama had his practice of mindfulness, and it's not exactly the focus of Ajahn Chah's essay (couldn't you have picked something shorter, I confess I only skimmed the last two dozen paragraphs). Here's the part about mindfulness of mind (yes, it's still a four-fold mindfulness in Gautama's way of living, just more specific than satipatthana): "Aware of mind I shall breathe in. Aware of mind I shall breathe out." (One) makes up one’s mind: “Gladdening my mind I shall breathe in. Gladdening my mind I shall breathe out. Composing my mind I shall breathe in. Composing my mind I shall breathe out. Detaching my mind I shall breathe in. Detaching my mind I shall breathe out. (SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276) What I have found really useful about that is the part about "gladdening the mind." The same passage, rendered by a later Pali Text Society translator, was: [One] trains [oneself], thinking: ‘I will breathe in… breathe out experiencing thought… rejoicing in thought… concentrating thought… freeing thought.’ (MN III 82-83, Pali Text Society III pg 124) I find that when I can rejoice in thought, even if it's just to be glad that my mind still works, I'm more easily able to let go of thought, or to detach the mind and "by a momentary concentration become one-pointed and tranquillized". By one-pointed, I mean present where I am as I am, even if that location of self-awareness moves. It's something that happens naturally all the time, hence the "by a momentary concentration". As koun Franz put it: Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one. (“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/) A momentary concentration: "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point." (Dogen, "Genjo Koan", Tanahashi and Aiken). Another great relationship practice, in my experience--to be grateful, whatever happens. Thanks, Elliot, and good luck!