Mark Foote

is shrouded by night, the raven's lair; no sign of the gentle soul, there

I think there's a traditional Zen saying that goes, "hear it, see it, gain it."

I was thinking something along the same lines, when I read that statement by Dr. Hunt. Too bad she couldn't have researched whether there was a correlation between any particular mode of cultivation and the passive or aggressive emotional tenours she was describing. Gautama is reported to have eaten of a pig that had ingested poisonous mushrooms. What's known is that he said that he saw no one else in the room with the karma to accept the meal, so no one else ate it--the pig was an offering to the order, and Gautama did not refuse it. Three months later, if I understand correctly, he invited anyone who still had questions to ask them, made his last remarks, laid down on his right side and died. He was 85, and said that he felt like an old cart that was held together with ropes. It's a pretty good trick, I guess, to intuit something like that, and accept that the action is right whatever the outcome might be. I think the main thing reported by persons who have near-death experience is that they are no longer afraid of dying. A thing profoundly to be wished for!

In the Old Testament, God instructs Adam: Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (NKJV Genesis 2:16-7) Adam did eat, and he didn’t die, but he did find himself cast out of the garden. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death. (NKJV John 8:51) The Gospel of Thomas (a gnostic text uncovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945) opens as follows: These are the secret words which the Living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote. And He said: Whoever finds the explanation of these words will not taste death. (The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, p. 3 log. 1, ©1959 E. J. Brill) Gautama the Buddha spoke of “the Deathless”: As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized. (SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159) And again: (One) cultivates right concentration, which is based on detachment, on dispassion, on cessation, which ends in self-surrender, which plunges into the deathless, which has the deathless for its aim, which has the deathless for its end. (SN V 54, Pali Text Society V p 44) Gautama taught the cessation of action born of determinate thought. He taught that such action ceases gradually, first in speech, then in body, and finally in “perceiving and feeling” (action of the mind). The cessation of action born of determinate thought must needs include the cessation of action on the basis of the knowledge of good and evil. We are stardust, we are golden And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden (Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock”; “Ladies of the Canyon”, April 1970) (above, my post The Tree of Knowledge)

Fascinating, captains. And the reason they have cancer is because the field is a very high, very weak field. They’re sweet, dear, lovable people. That’s their emotional orientation. They aren’t aggressive, and they don’t have lower frequencies which have to do with tissue vitality. Without the tissue vitality, the cell becomes cancerous. But the difficulty is that some of these people would almost rather die than to give in to the very intense, angry, and hostile emotions which they have. Would you say that those emotions are basically suppressed? Yes, they are suppressed as their consciousness soars, staying in what they perceive to be the more positive emotions. I have measured the fields of people with cancer many, many times, and it’s always the same pattern. I’ve never, ever seen a cancer person whose field had the full spectrum of electromagnetic energy, from its lowest to its highest. Never, ever. Are you saying that cancer is a passive/aggressive disease in the sense of the person’s emotional make-up? I wouldn’t say passive/aggressive. I would say it’s passive, not aggressive. (from the interview with Valerie Hunt linked by Ralis)

Stirling, that I can make sense out of a thread in the Pali Suttas is a miracle, as far as I'm concerned. Why there is so little acknowledgement that Gautama's teaching is a teaching about the cessation of "determinate thought" in action, I can't say. Yes, there's a great deal about rebirth, and the release from this existence (something beyond "never returning"). But as far as the cessation of habit and volition in action, there is also a thread without these concepts. I think there's a good argument to be made that the "equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses" of the material concentrations involves many things, and the "equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses" of the non-material states involves one thing. Here's a description I made of the teaching with regard to the non-material states: In some of his lectures, Gautama went from the four initial or “material” concentrations to four “non-material” concentrations without mention of the survey-sign. The four further states, he said, marked a transition from “equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses” to “equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses”. The first of the further states was “the infinity of ether”. Gautama identified the state with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of compassion”. He described a particular method for the extension of the mind of compassion, a method that began with the extension of “the mind of friendliness”: [One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. (MN I 38, Pali Text Society volume I pg 48) The second of the further states (“the infinity of consciousness”) Gautama identified with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of sympathetic joy”, and the third (“the infinity of nothingness”) he identified with “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of “the mind of equanimity”. The fourth of the further states Gautama described as “neither perception nor yet non-perception”. He gave no specific instruction on the transition from the third state to the fourth, but equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses is still present in the fourth. Gautama studied the third and fourth further states under two of the masters of his day (MN I 165-166, Pali Text Society volume I pg 209-210). He remained unsatisfied, but by means of “a lack of desire”, he arrived at “the stopping of perception and feeling” and the freedom and knowledge that “done is what was to be done, there is no more of being such or so” (MN III 220, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 269). (The Early Record) "Done is what was to be done"--we act from habit and volition, until we realize action without it. "There is no more of being such or so": And again … a good [person], by passing quite beyond the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, enters on and abides in the stopping of perception and feeling; and when [such a person] has seen by means of wisdom [their] cankers are caused to be destroyed. And… this [person] does not imagine [his or her self] to be aught or anywhere or in anything. (MN III 42-45, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 92-94; emphasis added) I can say that the extension of a spirit of friendliness or compassion throughout the room I'm in and through the walls helps my feet to dance, sometimes. The bhikku is prohibited by his vows from dancing--I don't know where I'd be without it!

I would agree, that I greatly appreciate the chance to have sincere conversation along these lines. I would have written "a sincere conversation", but you know, we have many going on! The more the merrier. I think I can say why we have amoral nondualists. I mentioned earlier that after years of trying to always act from the place where I found myself, realizing that even things beyond the boundaries of the senses enter into that place and that the movement of breath is somehow involved, I finally determined that whatever I believed in from the heart translated into action. That means that if I believe from the heart that I should do something immoral, my best efforts to do otherwise are likely to fail. In hypnosis, it's widely acknowledged that it's not possible to get a subject to do something contrary to their morality, unless the suggestion includes a rationalization of the action that overcomes the subject's moral aversion. I can't say about nondual/dual, realized/unenlightened. Some people have remarkable presence, and are prescient in their words and actions. I still think that what they have really mastered is a rhythm of mindfulness keyed around the cessation of action in the body, and like a musician who has mastered the scales and the art of improvisation, they can captivate their audience. That an experience of the cessation of action of the body does not constitute the experience associated with Gautama's enlightenment seems to escape general notice, in light of the presence and the precience of those who have mastered a rhythm based on cessation of the body. Stirling, you mentioned your doubt that any of the texts were authentically the words of Gautama the Shakyan. That may be, but the words in the most of the first four Nikayas attributed to Gautama are unlike anything anywhere else in the literature of the world. I would say the same is true for the words in the Gospel of Thomas. Pass the pie, pass the coffee...

I'm not one who has read either of them. Checking Wikipedia for "Mirra Alfassa", whom I'd never heard of, some interesting things: On 24 November 1926, later declared as Siddhi Day (Victory Day) and still celebrated by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Mother and Sri Aurobindo declared that overmind consciousness had manifested directly in physical consciousness, allowing the possibility for human consciousness to be directly aware and be in the overmind consciousness. Sri Aurobindo and Mother's work and principles of yoga was named by them: integral yoga, an all-embracing yoga. This yoga was in variance with older ways of yoga because the follower would not give up the outer life to live in a monastery, but would be present in regular life and practise spirituality in all parts of life. Similar to Zen in the USA, that last. I believe we were the first to have co-ed Zen centers and monasteries. SF Zen Center has worked for years with the difficulty of supporting couples and families in their practice. A twentieth-century phenomena, co-ed monastic environments?

The spiritual nuclear option. And, with the add-on "doomsday" component, like the pyro-cumulus in Taos consuming the whole cosmos. By mistake, naturally.

Stirling, thanks for the link to Kobun on the Heart Sutra. I look forward to reading it. I do find it disconcerting Thay inserts words into the ancient sutra, and his followers find fault with the words of the sixth patriarch, things that I find inspiration in just as they are. "what do we do with this life? What do we do with the tasks presented to us, with our thoughts and emotions, with our relationships to others?"--Apech What I discovered after years of trying to act solely without the exercise of will, was that my heart-felt belief will give rise to action. If I truly believe I need to do something, I can hold myself to the place where I am (that takes in everything) and breathe, and action will follow. A form of auto-hypnotic suggestion, perhaps. I can't remain in the cessation of action of the body, but when it really matters, cessation seems to override my will anyway (as Bindi pointed out). I get lost in thoughts about the tasks presented to me, about emotions, about relationships. My thinking gives rise to action. I try to be careful about what I believe, and I have faith now that my actions, to the extent that I am able, are from the heart. Gautama speaks of mindfulness of thought, of joy in particular thought, of composing thought, and of detaching from thought. I think that's the natural rhythm. I'm ok with a rhythm of elements that "if cultivated and made much of, is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too" (SN V 320-322, Pali Text Society SN V pg 285). Cessation of habit or volition in inhalation and exhalation is just one of the elements, I get that now. I'm 'way late to the game, but happy to feel a play of things.

Thay is commenting about the lack of separate existence of the skandhas based on his translation of the Heart Sutra. Here's an interesting comment, down below the translation: Thay’s only regret is that the patriarch who recorded the Heart Sutra did not add the four words ‘no being, no non-being’ immediately after the four words ‘no birth, no death,’ because these four words would help us transcend the notion of being and non-being, and we would no longer get caught in such ideas as ‘no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue…’ (New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh) Thay has added those words, in his own translation: “Listen Sariputra, all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing." (Ibid) Just for reference, the Jikoji Zen Center version of the Heart Sutra is here. Wikipedia says this about the "Heart Sutra": The Heart Sūtra (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or Chinese: 心經 Xīnjīng, Tibetan: བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ) is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya translates as "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom". "The perfection of wisdom"--"perfect wisdom", as here: Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.” (MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 68) The five skandhas are empty of any abiding self, and the evidence of that is the action that takes place when "determinate thought" in action has ceased, and the cessation of "latent conceits". The folks commenting on Thay's translation think the sixth patriarch of Ch'an in China got it wrong, in the poem he wrote for the fifth patriarch (that resulted in the robe and bowl being passed on to the sixth patriarch). They translate that poem this way: Originally, there is no Bodhi tree The bright mirror does not exist either From the non-beginning of time nothing has ever existed So where can the dust settle? Here's another translation, very different in the third line: Bodhi originally has no tree, The mirror(-like mind) has no stand. Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure; Where is there room for dust (to alight)? (Yampolsky 132) All that's necessary in the second poem is that the mind be present without abode, and that happens constantly without particular effort. Assume agency, put the mirror on a stand--a persistance of consciousness, a stationing of consciousness, identification of self in the five skandhas (suffering). I wonder why Thay's followers don't attribute the interpretations they are making to Thay himself.

Self doesn't act. The agency associated with self, action based on the exercise of will, ceases: …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) 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) There's a particular experience connected with the breath and a freedom of self-awareness to move: You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality. (Yuanwu, "Zen Letters", translated by Cleary & Cleary, pg 84) My take: Yuanwu made a connection between “biting through here” and the ability to “cut off conditioned habits of mind”, where to “cut off conditioned habits of mind” meant to cease any voluntary activity of thought or direction of the body, just as though one were letting go of life itself. Yuanwu stated that as a matter of course, such a cessation of habitual activity results in a feeling that the activity of breath in the body has been cut off, and causes a person to come to their senses as though returned to life from the dead. Returned to one’s senses, the location of awareness shifts in three-dimensional space without restriction, as in empty space; activity in the body is engendered by virtue of the location of awareness and the nerve impulses generated by ligaments and fascia as they stretch in response to the relaxed necessity of breath, without volition. (Letting Go in Action: the Practice of Zazen)

My sites are set very low. Something I did a year ago now has me sitting burmese posture, not more than 25 minutes, usually. I think it's something in the lower spine, referred to my legs and knees. I am forced to discover more closely the relationship between flexion and extension in the lower spine and activity in the abdominals, and to constantly remind myself to relax the appropriate abdominals, calm the flexion and extension, and look for the free location of awareness that can carry on. But I find it. I have to, about twenty minutes in. "Lack of desire; by means of lack of desire." I have faith that I'm experiencing a miracle, action without action, when a freedom in the location of awareness carries on. If I need to open out, I rely on what I've taught myself. There is an overall stretch in any posture or carriage, and the freedom in the location of awareness sets up the stretch even when I don't realize it directly, while the stretch sets up the freedom in the location of awareness. Twice a day and odd moments in between is better than before. I don't feel I can ask for too much. I'm not talented, but I teach myself with a little help from my friends.

Can't speak for Awaken. The Pali sermons reference four material jhanas, and four immaterial jhanas. Story seems to vary a bit, as to whether "cessation of (volition in) perceiving and feeling" constitutes a jhana or the transcendence of the jhanas. I break 'em all down in The Early Record. An important piece for me, for arriving at a description of the third jhana based on my experience, above. As opposed to, "shake 'em on down"...

Empty of an abiding self. Shunryu Suzuki has a wonderful lecture about sound: https://zenmudra.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Shunryu-Suzuki-Sound-and-Noise-Sandokai.mp4 The involuntary activity of the stretch necessary to ease at the moment can be the activity of the lotus posture, the activity of a slumber party, or just the ordinary activity of everyday life. Shunryu Suzuki said: If you are not disturbed by the sound of the bluejay when you are reading something, the blue jay will come right into your heart, and you will be a bluejay, and the bluejay will be reading something. To paraphrase his words: if you have equanimity when you hear the sound of the bluejay as you read, feeling is freed, consciousness is freed, and the sense of location in consciousness at the sound effects the stretch necessary to ease that reads. (Shunryu Suzuki and the Zen of Ordinary Activity)

In the Pali sermons, Gautama describes the third jhana as "the cessation of ease apart from equanimity (with respect to the multiplicity of the senses)". So ease persists so long as equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses exists. Is that non-dual? Guess so, sort of! Gautama characterized the third state of concentration as follows: … 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) In my experience, the base of consciousness 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. The experience does have an ease, does require equanimity with regard to the senses, and generally resembles a kind of waking sleep. In many of his sermons, Gautama described the third concentration as a state wherein “(one) dwells with equanimity, attentive and clearly conscious and experiences in (one’s) person that ease of which the (noble ones) say: ‘In ease lives (the one) who has equanimity and is mindful'”. The feeling of ease is nevertheless abandoned in the fourth concentration, as determinate thought in action of the body ceases. (The Early Record)

The movement of breath encounters the location of self-awareness and the influence of the senses on the location of self-awareness at the turn of the breath. Gautama stated that those who correctly practice “mindfulness of death” apply his teachings “for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food”, or “for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out”. What lies between, indeed!

Your forum is composed of many, many posts. Can you pick out one or two in particular, with regard to black liver and rabbit marrow?

What I have read from the Abhidhamma has caused me to stick to the sutta and vinaya for Gautama's teachings (not that I follow the rules of the order, just that there are teachings and history there). Abhidhamma--chicken soup without the chicken. As near as I can tell the teachings that emphasize the mind alone, rather than mindfulness that includes the mind, came out of India many centuries after the Gautamid. I should make clear than when I say body, feelings, mind, and mind-states, I'm referring to the elements of Gautama's way of living, the mindfulness that made up his way of living. It's different from the declension in Sattipathana--it's Anapathana. For example, his "mindfulness of feelings" consisted of these four elements: 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 make the explanation this way: 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. Where Woodward has “aware of all mental factors”, Horner has “experiencing the activity of thought”. Where Woodward has “calming down the mental factors”, Horner has “tranquillising the activity of thought”. I myself find an awareness of the senses that locate the mind (equalibrioception, graviception, proprioception, and oculoception), and of the range of these senses, provides a good approximation to “mental factors”. (The Early Record) *"The base of consciousness" is a reference to the term koun Franz used to describe the mind away from the head. Not so simple, the "body-feelings-mind-mental states" in sixteen elements. Always, in connection with the breath in, or the breath out.

There's another peculiar phenomena connected with human nature and the mind. I read William Sargant's "Battle for the Mind" when I was in 6th grade, and it profoundly affected my life. Here's the intro page (the book is available as a PDF online for free now): HOW CAN AN evangelist convert a hardboiled sophisticate? Why does a PW sign a 'confession' he knows is false? How is a criminal pressured into admitting his guilt? Do the evangelist, the PW's captor, and the policeman use similar methods to gain their ends? These and other compelling questions are discussed in Battle for the Mind. William Sargant, a leading physician in psychological medicine, spells out and illustrates the basic technique used by evangelists, psychiatrists, and brain-washers to disperse the patterns of belief and behavior already established in the minds of their hearers, and to substitute new patterns for them. As you might imagine, the basic technique is to stress a person out, bright lights, pain, sensory deprivation, starvation, disease. Sargant's description of what happens, what happened in the kind of mind-washing they did in Korea is what's amazing: he says that one day the subject of the stress just wakes up believing in whatever was suggested to them. It's not like they consciously decide to change their belief--they experience a complete, sudden and involuntary change in the foundation of their belief system. Sort of like the reports by Zen students of their koan experience.

More stories from the sermons of the Pali Canon. There's a sermon where Gautama says he liked walking on the highway, and sometimes did so in preference even to answering the call of nature. Of course, that's immediately followed by a sermon where he says he answered the call of nature in preference to continuing to walk along the highway, directly contradicting the first sermon. I assume the second one was added to prevent monks from attempting to hold their bladders indefinitely. There's also a sermon where Gautama is said to have walked faster than Angulimala the bandit could run. Angulimala had murderous intent, as he pursued the Gautamid, but the teacher stayed calm and poised and kept walking. As fast as the bandit could run, he couldn't catch up to Gautama, which the bandit considered some kind of miracle. The bandit was allowed to join the order. I think there are six miracles mentioned in the sermons, including walking on water, floating in the air, and passing through solid earth. Gautama claimed only the miracle of imparting the dharma, although one of his two primary disciples could generate earthquakes, and other members could bring rain (that last feat was frowned upon, and the monk left the order). Both his primary disciples died before Gautama did.

A favorite story for me is what happened after the god persuaded Gautama to teach. The first person Gautama encountered along the road after that episode was a naked ascetic. Gautama told the naked ascetic that he (Gautama) was the world-conqueror, that he had attained unsurpassed enlightenment. The naked ascetic said, "good luck!", and walked on. Gautama had to persuade the five ascetics to listen to him--they were skeptical, since he had given up asceticism. There's another story, about the man who went to the realm of the gods to get the story about human suffering. The supreme god, after declaring himself the supreme god several times in response to the man's question about suffering, took the man aside and told the man that he, the supreme god, couldn't answer the question, that the man must return to earth and ask Gautama the Buddha about that. Was that Bernie, that had the heart issue? I admire him, giving up the mantle and dedicating himself to social work. I think I'm a poor excuse for a spiritual seeker. I really just wanted to be satisfied with my mind, when I was a teenager. Turns out when I have a rhythm of body, feelings, mind, and state of mind including cessation (as I"ve mentioned about a hundred times here), I'm ok. I don't suffer from the phenomena of my thoughts, at least! Maybe I would, if I had constant pain (and no ibuprofin!). Or if people threatened my dog, or currently my cat. But for the most part, I have a clear way, in my extremely fortunate life. I just have to remember to expand it, and relinquish it.

Reminds me of Koichi Tohei's remarks about his instruction, "keep one point", namely: 5 Principles to keep the One Point Do not feel the lower abdomen Do not feel the weight of the body on your feet Do not feel your breath Let everything be absorbed in the One Point Send all the power from the One Point The mind present, but with "no fixed abode" as in the DIamond Sutra. Yup. Can you experience it lifting a tea cup to your lips? Dropping into the "cessation of (volition in) in-breathing and out-breathing", the action of the body, nevertheless the tea cup proceeds. I think whatever I believe, informs action when volition in action of the body ceases, but it can also be something outside the boundaries of the senses. The "outside" action is sometimes connected with another person's well-being, for sure. Awaken--can you say more about "black liver" and "rabbit marrow"? Point I'm making is that the real freedom is in cessation, and Gautama incorporated that in a way of living that he taught. His way of living also included relaxing the activity of the body, calming the activity of the senses, and finding and relinquishing the positive in thought, for that moment-to-moment rest Jeff was talking about. In cessation of bodily activity there is no choice in bodily activity, and no illusion that "I am the doer, mine is the doer" with regard to the "consciousness-informed body". Most people identify the self with agency, and in particular with agency with regard to the body, and it's pretty much impossible to get across that one can be "compelled to go somewhere with absolutely no logical reason". Now how do we sit down, and set up mindfulness that includes cessation. One-pointedness of mind begets an evenness in the stretch of ligaments, an evenness in the stretch of ligaments begets one-pointedness of mind, yet the two seem totally unconnected. One-pointedness of mind--you can't miss it. The Layman (Pang) pointed to the snow and said, “Good snowflakes: they don’t fall in any other place.” ("The Blue Cliff Record", case 42, tr. Cleary and Cleary, Shambala p 253)