Mark Foote

In a sea of stars flat as can be and shining a boat in a bowl

Best kept good and short Moments where I can't recall Just how to forget

into a puddle that yellow snow around pines as the world thaws out

Spicy ketchup too I'm gonna enjoy this egg Like sunset, lakeside

That translation makes me cringe. Here's the logia from my favorite source: Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go out from among us, because women are not worthy of the Life. Jesus said: See, I shall lead her, so that I will make her male, that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (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, pg 57 log. 114, ©1959 E. J. Brill) I'm with Jeff, concerning the relevance of logia 22 here. If you'll bear with me a bit, I believe I can bring it back around to logia 22 and 114. There's a sermon in the Pali Canon where Gautama the Buddha describes a method for cultivating psychic power: So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front. As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front; as below, so above: as above, so below: as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day. Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy. (Sanyutta-Nikaya, text V 263, Pali Text Society volume 5 pg 235, ©Pali Text Society) There's an expansion for all of it except the first two lines. Here's what I had to say when I wrote about those two lines (for the rest, see the reference below): “As in front, so behind; as behind, so in front”: Gautama did not expand on his meaning with regard to “in front” and “behind”. Some have interpreted his words to be a reference to the past and the future, but in light of the explanation offered for the second line, a more likely interpretation would perhaps be an awareness of the body before and behind. When the feeling for stretch and activity that Fuxi described with the words “…I ride the ox” carries into the lower back and abdomen, a reciprocity of stretch and activity behind the sacrum and lower back and in front of the lower abdomen enters awareness, and the advice here is to allow consciousness to shift as necessary in the development of feeling. (The Gautamid Offers a Practice) I then wrote this about the part of log. 22 we're discussing in 114: “When you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female (not) be female”: consciousness of the stretch and activity behind the lower back and in front of the contents of the lower abdomen can become consciousness of stretch and activity behind the sacrum and tailbone and in the vicinity of the genitalia. Such experience is independent of the sex of the individual, and is offered here as a recurrent condition of practice. (From the Gospel of Thomas) There is also this: The stretch added to the fascia behind the sacrum by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract depends in part on the angle of the tailbone and sacrum relative to the spine. As the sacrotuberous ligaments stretch and resile with the rotation of the pelvis, activity is generated in the muscles of the pelvic floor that can tuck the tailbone and rotate the sacrum slightly . A pivot of the sacrum angles the mass of the extensors into the lumbodorsal fascia (behind the sacrum and the lower back) slightly lower than otherwise, and in turn the lower rearward press on the fascia changes the angle required for the relaxed carriage of weight between the neck and skull. The stretch and resile of the sacrotuberous ligaments and the consequent reciprocal activity in the left and right muscles of the pelvic floor is described by Fuxi as “the ox crosses the wooden bridge”. (Twenty-Second Case: Hsueh Feng's Turtle-Nosed Snake) The "left and right muscles of the pelvic floor" include the pubococcygeus muscles, and these muscles play a part in human sexuality (for a while, "Kegels" were recommended to help women find satisfaction in their sexual relationships, as well as to reduce incontinence). "The male will not be male and the female (not) be female", when the activity "before and behind" low in the torso and the activity in the muscles of the pelvic floor is experienced outside of a sexual context, and as I said "as a recurrent condition of practice."

return to folly like the birds to the berries, fermented past sweet

compassion is all in four directions, up, down like a boomerang

with mind still and clear the horizon is vast--pass the sunglasses, please

Jesus said: Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul; woe to the soul which depends upon the flesh. The logia (sorry, my mistake on the spelling, previously) says that it's woe if they depend on each other. Not sure where you're getting "'woe' that they try to exist independently"?

That seems to me to be the point of the loggia, that the flesh and the soul are in some sense independent of one another, and for it to be otherwise is woe. It's possible to experience the activity of the body as part of the autonomic function of breath, but only when the location of awareness is responsive to all the senses, and to what lies beyond the range of the senses. At such a time, ease apart from equanimity has ceased, and happiness apart from equanimity has ceased, and there are no "latent conceits that 'I am the doer, mine is the doer' in regard to this consciousness-informed body", as Gautama put it (MN III 18-19 Pali Text Society III pg 68). With no such latent conceits, "the soul and the flesh" are separate, to use the language of logia 112, although of course Gautama does not cross the line to create a completed infinity of "the soul" (see my About Completed Infinity). More on the experience of activity of the body as part of the autonomic function of breath: Action That Arises in the Breath.

Above and aware The parrot under my hat Top 'o the morning!

Something from my latest post, Action That Arises in the Breath, that I hope might interest people here: In my last post, I wrote about action that arises in the breath and in the body, rather than through judgment and the exercise of will. I mentioned that such action can be peculiarly timely, although the timeliness may only emerge after the fact.Such action happens when the foreground of bodily activity and the background of autonomic respiration change places. What occurs is not simply the cessation of willful activity in the body affecting the movement of breath, but the commencement of action of the body as part of autonomic movement of breath, including action of posture and carriage. It's a state of trance. ... Gautama's enlightenment resulted from his experience of the cessation of volitive activity in perception and sensation. His enlightenment consisted of the four truths about suffering. Nevertheless, in several places in the Pali lectures, he describes the cessation of volitive activity only as far as the cessation of activity in inhalation and exhalation, and then adds the observation of the "survey sign" of the concentration--as though that much was sufficient in daily living (AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19). ...

112. Jesus said: Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul; woe to the soul which depends upon the flesh. (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, pg 55, ©1959 E. J. Brill) Language that's a little less loaded, IMHO.

Here's a bit from Yuanwu, 12th century Zen teacher and author of "The Blue Cliff Record": (The great Zen masters) penetrated directly through and made themselves completely unobstructed twenty-four hours a day, with their realization pervading everything in all directions, rolling up and rolling out, capturing and releasing." ("Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu", trans. Cleary & Cleary, pg 19) And again: In the past there were many examples of enlightened lay people who combined worldly achievement with profound mystic realization. ... When interacting with people, they focused the eye of enlightenment and set in motion their quick potential and sharp wisdom to turn all the myriad forms of being around, back into their grasp. They rolled out and they rolled up, they released and they captured. Thus they were no different from all the people of great attainment down through the ages whose practice was pure and ripe and who held within them the virtues and power of the Tao." (Ibid, pg 91-92) The phrase "roll up" is similar, I'm thinking. The translation of GOT that I like has 111 this way: Jesus said: The heavens will be rolled up and the earth in your presence, and he who lives on the Living (One) shall see neither death nor <fear> because Jesus says: Whoever finds himself, of him the world is not worthy.

The wise find safety In the universal mind, The everywhere wind

There's just less tension when I remember to breathe common sense, I guess

I don't know that there is such a thing as "spiritual achievement". As Gautama the Buddha said, "everything changes, work out your own salvation." Is "working out (my) own salvation" a spiritual achievement, or simply the necessity of being truly alive? Can we succeed materially without being truly alive to the world? I would say no. That's where "success" depends on the same thing. One of the ways to be truly alive to the world is as a teacher, teaching others how to wake up to what it means to be truly alive, yet being truly alive to the world doesn't guarantee that one can teach others. Some would say that it's not possible to teach others at all, but only to be there as an example. I'm not sure I believe that, in the age of science, yet I do believe that science can only provide the pieces--the pieces have to fall together of their own accord, when the time is right in someone's life.

I'm guessing that it's like the prophet not being recognized by his/her own people. That is to say, there is a certain mastery, that enables a person to succeed at a variety of endeavors, not just in the spiritual realm. That such mastery is innate, and the means to realize it present here and now, is largely ignored. Even those who have some natural success may not realize the source of it, and those who inherit from their success may not realize the source of it. But those who had to pay (in some way) to share in the natural success of others and who then discover their own mastery know the value of it, and they may expect some return in the sharing of it with others. Something like that?

My joints don't hurt gravity's activity the name of the game

the sunlight embarks on a swift journey home, waves 'cross the universe

I believe the pieces are here, in 28 pages (for those who sit cross-legged, the appendix has the anatomy). Nothing but pieces, things have to fall together on their own (as usual). I'd be grateful for any contributions around personal experience. The concluding paragraph: 'I'm never happier than when simple mindfulness of just breathing in or breathing out occurs in me. That I find a natural mindfulness of breathing in or breathing out in the distinction of the senses and the recollection of the elements that constituted Gautama's way of living, gives me hope that his way of living is indeed “a thing perfect in itself”.' ("Post: A Natural Mindfulness", May 14 2016) A Natural Mindfulness

awakened in Tao to the action, not my own the cold, may take me

I beg your pardon I thought I knew you, but now I see I was wrong

A change in the breeze Lifts me up, like a sunrise I am whole again

"Jesus said: I am the Light that is above them all, I am the All, the All came forth from Me and the All attained to Me. Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there." (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, pg 43 log. 77, ©1959 E. J. Brill) Here is my post on the last line, from my own blog: My take on the above passages from a few years back, amended: Much of my writing has been about laying hold of one-pointedness of mind, as a consequence of "making self-surrender the object of thought" (as Gautama phrased it). The kind of one-pointedness of mind I'm describing is the kind that koun Franz wrote about recently: How that becomes the weight of the whole body bearing at a point, I hope I have described in my "Four Points of Aikido": If the weight of the entire body bears at a single point in the movement of a whole inhalation, that's a miraculous power of the entire universe, as far as I'm concerned; if the weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of a whole exhalation, that's a marvelous activity. Regarding the first line of 77--something like this? If we are to find action on a basis other than judgement and the exercise of volition, we have to find a way to extend the mind of compassion beyond the limits of the senses, to think good thoughts toward people on the other side of the wall--then what is beyond the limits of the senses comes into play in the balance of force and counterforce at the location of awareness. Just as with the fingers on a ouija board planchette, it's important that the touch of force and counterforce at the location of awareness be light, that movement be invited, and that goodwill be extended. Then it's possible for action to take place without the exercise of volition. There is another aspect of the action that takes place in such a manner--as I wrote to a friend last night: I respect that there is an ability to act blind (as it were), in accordance with what is best for all and for the future, and that compassion must be exercised in order for that ability to truly manifest. (Zazen Notes, "From Letters to Friends", Nov. 17, 2018)