Mark Foote

"Deliverance from thought without grasping", that from a sermon in the Pali Canon- can't quote chapter and verse right now. Ok, that's just another description Gautama the Buddha gave for something. The Taoist alchemy and immortality concern the phenomena of hypnogogic states, same as the teachings of Gautama the Buddha as reflected in the Pali Canon sermon volumes, same as the teachings of the Gospel of Thomas, same as some of the etchings in stone on the walls of the pyramids. These phenomena are induced by the place of awareness and the occurrence of feeling in response to the necessity of breath; in particular, the sense of the location of awareness in space provided by the vestibular organs has associated with it a sense of gravity (also from organs in the inner ear), and the sense of location and gravity opens an ability to feel according to the necessity of the movement of breath. The eyes have a tight connection with the vestibular organs, but in all of these teachings the proprioceptive sense of location is described, meaning the sense of location as informed by the placement and orientation of the parts of the body. For example, the Gautamid spoke of the feeling of the first meditative state as like a bath attendant who has scattered soap powder in a bronze vessel and sprinkled it lightly with water, who then collects the soap with one hand kneading it until it doesn't ooze. This is an analogy for the sense of the location of awareness which is collected with the occurrence of feeling here and there throughout, and yet the Gautamid stated his own practice before and after enlightenment was "the intent contemplation of in-breaths and out-breaths". The hypnogogic states follow as the sense of location and the ability to feel respond to the necessity of in-breath and out-breath. Volition ceases, first in action of speech, then of body, then of perception and sensation. Deliverance from thought without grasping may ensue! Not what you do; where you are and what you feel in the necessity of breath, the mind free like waking up and falling asleep. Tattoo the books on your backside.

Thanks, Clarity, and you are very welcome. She might enjoy the article on the myth of the eight hour sleep as well; several of my friends have told me that because they believed that sleeping straight through was natural, they got anxious when they woke up in the middle of the night, and their performance anxiety (as it were) kept them awake. When they read that it was natural to sleep in two stints, they discovered they could get back to sleep fine after period awake, and they are feeling better now.

You could try this: waking up and falling asleep Over on the thread myth of the eight hour sleep, I offered "waking up and falling asleep" to humbleone who was having trouble getting back to sleep when he woke up at 4 in the morning. Humbleone had good success with what I describe in the essay, and he thought that I should write more explicit instructions, and I am trying. I would greatly appreciate any questions you might have, actually, as I try to figure out what I need to say to make my description clearer. Basically it's about attending to the location of awareness in space, and allowing whatever is felt to enter into that sense of location. I find staying with my sense of location opens feeling throughout the body until I can feel what is necessary in the movement of breath at the moment. That can either result in my waking up or falling asleep, depends on what's appropriate; which also means that sometimes the best approach to falling asleep is to try to wake up, and the best approach to really waking up is to try to fall asleep. If you do want to try to wake up to fall asleep, I would try that sitting up, until you have to lie down. hope this helps.

I confess, I am pretty regular after the first sitting of the day, and I sometimes feel like I'm only sitting at night to get it together one more time. I read where Shunryu Suzuki said he had to use the bathroom a lot, and it worked in his favor when he did tangaryo, which is the period of sitting nonstop in the hall before admittance to the monastery.

The sorceress speaks! Hi, manitou! Makes me feel good to read what you have to say. I am writing a little bit on the side about the induction of hypnogogic states, as if instruction could be given. To me; by me! Ha ha, but maybe. I like that this thread comes again and again to the magic of the expression in words. I'm writing because my correspondence with friends came around to equilibrioception, and proprioception, and I think this is some good stuff. The other three senses: pitch, yaw and roll associated with the vestibular system in the inner ear and likewise the sense of gravity in the otolithic organs there, and the sense of the location of self that is informed by the muscles, ligaments, and joints. My take is that the induction of a hypnogogic state begins with where we are and what we feel in connection with where we are, and how that is necessary to the movement of breath. "Deliverance from thought without grasping" as the ending of suffering, temporarily, in the necessity of breath. The laying down of the burden. Wu-wei. I feel for Joe, and his frustration- sounds like he does good work and needs to make some money, I can really relate!

I found some help for some folks whose site was getting similar Google messages here: http://redleg-redleg...cious-site.html Theirs was a Joomla 1.5x site, and the hack did indeed involve redirects. Not sure if it's related. That hack was on a Friday night, and wasn't fixed until the following Wednesday; I first noticed the Google messages related to Tao Bums Saturday, and I'm sure Sean was very busy today. Not sure how they get in, whether it's a password or an injection, but they leave a php file that creates .htaccess files in every major directory of the CMS, and if the .htaccess files are removed the php file will recreate them in a half hour or something- that's how Redleg described it in the blog above, and I know the problem seemed to be propagating on the site that I fixed.

Ok, I think I've had that experience when I'm angry- sort of staying with the place before the eruption until some sense comes out of it, and a feeling of compassionate forgiveness. Can take a long time, the anger is real but the manifestations are inappropriate and holding place is the only thing that brings vision and resolution. Something like that?

Thanks, K. When you say you laser it, would that mean you extend feeling throughout the rest of body to minimize the sense of the body connected with the mind at that part?

If I can relax and be where I am, as I am, then where I am opens an ability to feel. The dynamic of the ability to feel allows for a relaxed experience of location at the moment. "Sharpen the wits to brilliance", said the Gautamid; "be aware of where you really are twenty four hours a day", said Yuanwu (the 12th-century Chan teacher). There comes a feeling for the necessity of the inhalation at the moment, and for the necessity of the exhalation; with such a feeling, is a free occurrence of perception and sensation.

I have to keep this short, apologies. In the lecture on "Beneficial Impertubability" (MN III 106) in the Pali Canon, Gautama the Buddha is quoted as saying: "...whatever is own body, this is "own body". But this is the deathless, that is to say the deliverance of thought without grasping." Elsewhere we find: "...making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (SN V 200) The Gautamid described his own practice before and after enlightenment as "the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths". He spoke of meditative states in which the habitual activity of speech, body, and mind ceased, that is to say, the exercise of volition in action of speech, of body, and of mind ceased. I agree that everyone experiences "single-pointedness of mind" all the time, and I have written here on Tao Bums and on my own site about a relationship between the experience of "single-pointedness of mind" and the experience of waking up and falling asleep. On another site, I put it like this: "We can’t teach someone else how to pee, but if I say the mind shifts around in the body when I’m falling asleep and this is the practice of zazen, then anyone can look for themselves at where their mind is when they are falling asleep- and then look again when they are waking up!" Here are a couple of other thoughts: A fine line between realizing my own necessity, realizing my survival in the place of occurrence of my consciousness and how it enables feeling, and pushing the edge of survival to experience the same thing. In a way, that’s what I’m doing when I take the lotus. What I find is that the place of occurrence of consciousness and the ability to feel allow the natural movement of breath in a stretch, when the necessity is there. Neil Young spoke of digging down, just keep digging down he said; get your oxygen line going, then keep digging (on NPR Fresh Air). I think the safest thing is to center the practice on the oxygen line, really. What's it got to do with the inner happiness that conducts to the deliverance of thought without grasping, to Dogen's "nonthinking", which he described as the pivot of zazen? Where consciousness takes place with regard to contact in the six senses has impact, and that impact opens an ability to feel that enables consciousness to take place spontaneously (see "The Great Sixfold(-sense) Sphere", MN III 287). Feldenkrais outlined three exercises intended to overcome the habit of holding the breath getting up out of a chair; these are nothing more than allowing the pitch, yaw, and roll at the place of occurrence of consciousness to open the ability to feel (as in referred sensation) throughout the body to the surface of the skin, and opening the ability to feel throughout the body allows the perception and sensation of the necessity of breath in the perception and sensation of the length of the current inhalation, or the current exhalation. So that would be what I experience as the "practice of intent concentration in in-breaths and out-breaths", yet my concern is that we find the means to communicate this practice to elementary school children, not my own passage from this world. Maybe these are not mutually exclusive.

Li Po and I sing the night comes in on the tide moonlight by surprise

In A Philological Approach to Buddhism, K. R. Norman points out that the translation should most likely be "this is suffering". In the Pali Canon suttas, the Gautamid frequently sums up suffering as "in short, the five groups of grasping". My point here is that Gautama's four truths regarding suffering did not begin with "life is suffering", as many people have been led to believe. They began with "this is suffering", followed by an explanation of the origin and cessation of suffering, and words about the path leading to the cessation of suffering. "In short, the five groups of grasping" refers to grasping after self with regard to form, feeling, mind, habitual tendency, or consciousness. In a sermon, the Gautamid stated that after his lectures he always returned to that first characteristic of concentration in which he ever abided. He didn't say what that characteristic was, but elsewhere he state that "making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of single-pointedness of mind." He states in the Canon that "whatever is 'own body', this is 'own-body'... but this is the deathless, that is to say the deliverance of thought without grasping". Sounds like enlightenment, and as always he insists that the "disturbance associated with the senses" is still present ("whatever is own body"). The Gautamid said that all the components of the eight-fold path develop to fruition (or are already well taken care of) when sense organ, sense object, consciousness, impact, and feeling are seen as they really are with respect to each of the six senses. Just being where I am as I am is that experience of sense organ, sense object, consciousness, impact, and feeling as it really is, to me. Where I am as I am shifts, consciousness is not necessarily continuous, and the easiest time to observe this is falling asleep; same thing waking up. No "this is suffering", no "enlightenment"; simultaneous, samsara and enlightenment.

nothing left to say cold and hard, the light of day strange crazy laughter

yet undone are they whose first, from last before stray nothing left to say

sint intra scrotum never to tell another sit up in bed, straight

no euphemism no eucharest, no Euchar; just the bare bollocks

I'm getting lifesick need to pass the motion through water to rudder

On the subject of 2+2=4, have a look at Is Arithmetic Consistent?

The Bragg Liquid Amino that I splashed on my baked potato tonight lists leucine, isoleucine, and valine as among the 16 amino acids in their product. It's like soy sauce, but not fermented, and I quite like it. Available at Whole Foods. I'm not sure what quantities they were feeding the mice, says they were feeding it to them rather than injecting it anyway. I agree that substances found in the human body at dosages more than what is normal physiologically have often produced bad results, at least from what I've read and from the results I observed in a couple of people who were prescribed prednisone. There's a book out there somewhere by a doctor who used physiologically correct doses of hydro-cortisone to treat his patients without the bad results associated with steroids, but nobody does that, because it requires more frequent dosing. Prednisone is acknowledged to be overkill but it's like the doctors don't know hydro-cortisone exists, must not be making a big enough profit for the American medical-pharmaceutical complex.

life turns round and round bobs forward, back, side to side I'm getting lifesick

gets you where you sleep and back from Moria, too just one lantern, high

You might be interested in the thread and the article that Apech put up, on The Myth of the Eight Hour Sleep. The BBC article that provided the title of the thread is here. If you get to about page three of Apech's thread, there's an exchange between humbleone and I about focus on the location of awareness and how that can contribute to falling asleep. I wrote a short essay along similar lines, Waking Up and Falling Asleep. Humbleone said that he was able to get back to sleep (at four in the morning) seven days in a row, once he got the hang of it, and I've had other people on this forum say that they were able to experience getting back to sleep through focus on the location of awareness as well. Good luck to you, let me know if you have any questions.

Pale opal eyeball lazing across a dark sky gets you where you sleep

The discussion about Osho reminds me of an article I read by Steven Bodian, on Advaita, and the differences between Zen and a philosophy like Advaita. Yes there have been and are amazing individuals who teach a presence that has ease and joy as innate constituents, who manifest such a presence, and for whom any practice is really secondary. Maybe Osho was one of them, I don't know. Here's what I wrote on my blog, with the practice of zazen in mind, and starting with a quote by Brit Pyland from an interview with David Chadwick: '"For me, memories of Suzuki Roshi are things I think about in the past, but I find different ways of bringing him present. Like, how would you put on your socks if Suzuki Roshi were standing right there? Or how would you do anything?" (the full interview is here) Pyland points to what he felt in Shunryu Suzuki's presence, that being a keen awareness of action, of what is being done and how it's being done. Blanche Hartman quotes Shunryu Suzuki as saying, "Don't ever think that you can sit zazen! That's a big mistake! Zazen sits zazen!" (in her interview, here). I myself heard Kobun say, "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around." Is it any wonder that Shunryu Suzuki's presence inspired an awareness of action, of the what and how of action, when for Suzuki zazen sat zazen? Herein lies the difficulty with teachings that have no practice: there's no way to convey that being just as I am, where I am, acts (for such a teaching, see Advaita and Zen, by Steven Bodian). On the other hand, teachings that have a practice appear on the surface to advocate something in addition to being just as I am, where I am, and that, as Suzuki pointed out, is "a big mistake!". My approach now is to look to waking up and falling asleep as I am where I am. What I find is that when I am just as I am where I am, I am in fact waking up or falling asleep in action. This is how seeing things as they really are is zazen sitting zazen, or zazen getting up and walking around.' (my blog is here). What is the practice that I do anyway? What is the mantra that I already know how to speak? I would say it's the same as "doing nothing", yet the doing nothing that impresses me is the one wherein everything is done.

Lately I've been writing for friends about waking up and falling asleep, about the role of the sense of place in waking up and falling asleep. If I can bring forward my sense of location and relax, then I can wake up or fall asleep; the trick is, the sense of location tends to move as I wake up or fall asleep. These days I'm happiest when I can feel my action being generated from the place I find myself in, from the place and the things that enter into the place even before I know it. I can say that my sense of place is freed to move when I have an attraction or aversion to something I feel, and the witness of that attraction or aversion enters into my sense of place; that's how I find myself waking up or falling asleep, in the midst of my activity. Did you ever find yourself waking up or falling asleep, and think, "where am I!"- did you ever dance drunk and fall up? Just had to ask!