Mark Foote

I practice a little tai-chi, and some sitting in the lotus morning and evening. I do a few stretches now to make sure I don't strain anything getting into the lotus, things like a ham-string stretch of both legs and the plow posture. Took me quite a while to be able to sit the lotus without pain or numbness for 30-40 minutes. I always figured I had to be gentle and learn what I needed to know out of relaxation, find a way to let my breath speak to my needs, as it were. I would think that something like tai-chi that moves might help, but just sitting on a chair is a good way to sort it out if you stay forward on the chair, the chair has four legs solidly on the floor, and you put the ball of one foot directly under the same-side sit-bone. I would not adopt any "body-posture challenge", as Wikipedia described it (in the section on proprioception), that produces the symptoms you mentioned. Good luck with it, maybe go out dancing more?

landing, cat licks arse then glides the rail and descends I would if I could

I can't say, about whether there's been a change here for me. I do wonder if there are more participants. There are a lot of new threads all the time, but I can't say for sure if that's any different. I like the fact that people are talking about their practice, whatever it is, and that they are usually sincere. And I like that it's an equal playing field; I've always felt that if the learning is not a two-way street, there's not really anything happening. I come here for fun, and I get drawn in sometimes; I guess that's why I still show up. That, and there are some folks who amaze me and who make me laugh!

Here's a better explanation of what I mean by "between waking and sleeping", which I made a few years back on Apech's thread about "The Myth of the Eight-Hour Sleep"; and in the ensuing discussion with humbleone: http://thetaobums.com/topic/22744-the-myth-of-the-eight-hour-sleep/page-2#entry324857 With regard to freedom and "not knowing", that came from a thought I had about right knowledge and right freedom (the nineth and tenth parts of the ten-fold path of the adept in Buddhism), over on Brad Warner's "Hardcorezen" blog. There, my friend Andy offered up this: “What an odd thing it is indeed to engage my body and mind, as my lungs gift precious air to my lips and mouth…” to which I added: "...and gift the relinquishment which is right knowledge and the loss that is right freedom to my eye sockets and bones." In particular, I said: "Feels more like letting go of having to know, and a relaxed movement to me; nothing special." Yes, it is exciting to talk with like-minded souls, but difficult to keep the focus on the necessity at the moment, without which there's no communication. Impossible to discover the mutual necessity at the moment without experiencing that necessity personally in the relinquishment of volition and the corresponding induction of a state between waking and sleeping. Volition is relinquished through relaxation in the movement of breath. With regard to thought, that relaxation manifests as "deliverance from thought without grasping" (not my phrase), and the possibility of action without the exercise of volition which is a particular kind of freedom.

Most of the real action is between waking and sleeping. You don't necessarily get to know when something has really happened between you and someone else, in conversation or otherwise. Everyday I end up not knowing, and that's where the freedom lies.

displays skillful means in a leap to the railing landing, cat licks arse

well here you go, Mar-vell:

so it is in life one thing, one thing, no other shoe horn to leather

This morning over on Brad Warner's "Hardcore Zen" site, I wrote this: "If I learn to relax into the activity of stretch, and I learn to free the mind in the discernment of the senses (including the ones nobody knows the names of, proprioception, equalibrioception, and gravity), then I have a certain mastery which is really nothing more than being who I am. Now I would say all the world’s great religious traditions have this in common, and each has its own “body-position challenge” or challenges that are employed in teaching and in starting and ending the day, usually." ...Gautama (later called the Buddha) taught a particular body-posture challenge, and he taught that the habitual activities of speech, body, and mind cease in the absorptions that come naturally in that particular body-posture challenge. What made him unique, was that he understood a relationship between ignorance, habitual activity, consciousness, and grasping after a sense of self." The four truths, which is how he expressed that relationship, begin with the truth "suffering exists". My understanding would be that when the first "truth" applies, when suffering exists, then the remaining three truths also apply. Apart from a moment when suffering is experienced, the four truths don't apply. Sort of like when you're in space near a large mass, the rules of geometries other than Euclidean geometry may appy, otherwise not. Is it still the case that "if I learn to relax into the activity of stretch, and I learn to free the mind in the discernment of the senses, then I have a certain mastery which is really nothing more than being who I am"? In a sermon entitled "The Great Six-Fold Sense Sphere", Gautama said this: "(Anyone)…knowing and seeing eye as it really is, knowing and seeing material shapes… visual consciousness… impact on the eye as it really is, and knowing, seeing as it really is the experience, whether pleasant, painful, or neither painful nor pleasant, that arises conditioned by impact on the eye, is not attached to the eye nor to material shapes nor to visual consciousness nor to impact on the eye; and that experience, whether pleasant, painful, or neither painful nor pleasant, that arises conditioned by impact on the eye—neither to that is (such a one) attached. …(Such a one’s) physical anxieties decrease, and mental anxieties decrease, and bodily torments… and mental torments… and bodily fevers decrease, and mental fevers decrease. (Such a one) experiences happiness of body and happiness of mind. (repeated for ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind). Whatever is the view of what really is, that for (such a one) is right view; whatever is aspiration for what really is, that for (such a one) is right aspiration; whatever is endeavour for what really is, that is for (such a one) right endeavour; whatever is mindfulness of what really is, that is for (such a one) right mindfulness; whatever is concentration on what really is, that is for (such a one) right concentration. And (such a one’s) past acts of body, acts of speech, and mode of livelihood have been well purified. (Majjhima-Nikaya, Pali Text Society volume 3 pg 337-338, ©Pali Text Society) That last paragraph is a reference to the fourth truth, the eight-fold path that leads to the cessation of suffering. In my experience, the mind or the heart-mind that sinks to the lower tan-tien is not a matter of force, but the freedom of the sense of location in space to move as the relaxed movement of breath precipitates a state between waking and sleeping. Anyone can experience this, but usually it's while falling asleep (especially while falling back to sleep after waking up at 4am). The sense of location can shift around in the body as the proprioceptive/kinesthetic/tactile sense enters into the sense of location and balance. If the eyes are open, the relaxed movement of breath still incorporates the proprioceptive/kinesthetic/tactile sense and the sense of gravity into the sense of location, but with the eyes open the sense of location may end up moving in a narrow range in the lower abdomen, between the place where the external/internal/transverse muscle ligaments have equal-length attachments at the rectus (2 inches below the navel?) and a point approximately opposite that in the lower back. That's been my experience, in the last couple of years. Here's a better description of how the state between waking up and falling asleep takes place: Waking Up and Falling Asleep

axis and allies turning the hum of the earth with a wheel of fire

"I think, for most of the people I know, being drunk is the greatest feeling they can achieve for under $20. Of course, none of them practice standing meditation." Yeah, but then I gotta tip the DJ, so I'm over. Kidding, it's not the greatest feeling, except maybe sometimes with good company. Just that I like to dance, and I find it helpful to getting up on the floor when the name of the game is the mystery dance (and when is it not!). And the walk home is usually good. A thing that I find the local craft beers and cheap gold tequila to be good for is adding the sense of gravity to proprioceptive awareness of body parts, and encouraging the freedom of movement in my sense of "here". "body-position challenge", as Wikipedia refers to standing meditation under "proprioception"-- they say "body-position challenges" are a good way to build proprioceptive awareness. I'll go with the lotus for my body-position challenge, but more fun is to dance with a friend who knows the dark sun that is love in motion. I'd like to learn sticky-hands, too. Thing is, if I don't find the sign of the concentration thoroughly, there's a possibility of injury in the evening of the next day or the following morning. That's how I experience it. I have to be mindful and avoid drinking for a reason, if you get right down to it, even if the reason I'm drinking is to regain the senses I need to dance.

I was sure this had already been posted, but I can't find it, so here it is (again): If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. - Notebook, 1894 (Mark Twain)

In honor of the day! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-VSjcPn5gU

Not sure which of the four texts that Red Pine included in his Bodhidharma translation that is (above), but I think Bill noted that the first one has the best chance of having been uttered by Bodhidharma, and it is very different in character from the one cited. I like this, from Denkoroku #41 "Huike" translated by T. Cleary: 'Once he asked the great teacher, "Can I hear about the seal of truth of the Buddhas?" Bodhidharma said, "The seal of truth of the Buddhas is not gotten from another." Another time he told Huike, "Outwardly cease all involvements, inwardly have no coughing or sighing in the mind-- with your mind like a wall you can enter the Way." And if you bums will forgive me, here's part of a comment from my own site where I quote Bodhidharma (as I write about proprioception and equalibrioception):

plan to travel light seeds, spores, incandescent bulbs grow my own whats-zis

it is possible that these frogs, gladdened by rain might cause me to laugh

The meditation opened your eyes to the true nature of what was all around you; like the postman in the background experiencing this new dimension of reality, your emotions have taken a back seat: but like a bad penny, they'll be back. (-- joking!) Might want to start with the movement of breath, and let the perception of where you are and the free movement of the sense of where you are take place. I now start with the movement of breath, and let the perception of where I am and the free movement of the sense of where I am take place; I relax, calm down, let my body speak full.

fire, water, spirit who can say what moves within rain on the river

Sometimes I wonder if my strong coffee two or three times a day routine isn't lifing calcium from my teeth, which have been steadily crumbling from the back forward for some time. A dentist told me it might look like decay, but it was resorption. I have stopped drinking coffee before breakfast, just to give myself some ballast before I launch off. This makes for a very interesting sitting first thing in the morning, one that I seemingly never get used to- I'm thinking it's a good thing.

In the end, as at the beginning, drawing breath.

you set this one up dragons and red envelopes the year of the horse

Ok, in case folks are not following the discussion here, I have resurrected the meet-up through discussion with Bagua and it's now Seattle for the 12th (I suppose), three nights? Ha ha, I am completely open to suggestion, being the good subject that I am ("you are getting very sleepy..."), so fire away. As you might read on the other thread, though, BKA can't make Monterey this spring, so it looks like the Seattle part at least is essential. A quick glance revealed the Green Tortoise Hostel at about $37 a night for a room shared with three other people, or for the distaff bums, could be a room shared with three other women (female only). Why would I want to do that, you ask (the hostel, not the room)- because they are at Pike's Marketplace: http://www.greentortoise.net/ I believe there would be other accomodations available nearby, although best I could find for hotel was about $100 a night (Executive Hotel Pacific, 1/3rd mile away). Cheers!