Mark Foote

the world's. Tic, tac stop. plunged headlong into deep water eyes open gone- gone

I bought this book and practised the exercises for about seven years, daily. I always felt physically better after doing the set. Why I stopped doing them is unclear to me, although I will still do them when I feel the need for some stretch. It's great to read your erudite response, Snowmonki, and to see something of the many layers and different aspects of Chinese martial arts. My impression is that they are a very balanced set, and they proceed in an orderly fashion through the entire body, culminating in "moving hips from side to side" and easing down from there (as it were). I think perhaps "moving hips from side to side" is why I laid off doing the exercises; I needed to focus on the full lotus, where the same stretch and activity is central to the pose, and the exercise had become a distraction (albeit a temporary one, I hope). What I have learned is this: the sartorius muscles turn the pelvis, as in rotation to the left and right; if the hips relax, the rotation can extend the hips and generate involuntary activity in the piriformis muscles; the piriformis muscles turn the sacrum into the rotation of the pelvis, so that the activity of the body balances. I can find the sartorius muscles, I can sink at the hips, I can pick up the activity of the piriformis and realize the balance. Having said that, I would hasten to add that for me the central practice is the location of the mind in space: where am I, how does the occurrence of consciousness open the ability to feel throughout the body simply by taking place. To me this is what the title of the art implies, if in fact the translation is "shape-mind". I have a short description of how the stretch and activity present as consciousness takes place can shift in the lotus, here. I also have a description of the heart of my practice and where it can most readily be found in an essay waking up and falling asleep. My study now is just about sitting 40 minutes in the morning in the lotus without pain or numbness. Folks that start in the posture early, like about 7 years old, seem to be able to do this pretty well, but I didn't start sitting at all until eighteen, and it took me 30 years from there to get to the lotus. Still, I don't have much pain now, and most mornings I get up with a minimum of numbness in the upper foot. The clear feeling for the activity of sartorious, and for the sink, extend, and (consequent) activity without volition in piriformis seems to be a turning point for me, but it's not something I can take hold of: I can only reside waking up and falling asleep to it, as with all my activity. These words I will take back into practice.

You focus awareness on awareness- where is awareness located. Awareness happens from moment to moment and the location can shift. I recommend that you try this when you are lying down ready for sleep, as I think most of us are accustomed to letting go of consciousness at that time. With luck, right before you fall asleep you will have a sense of consciousness occurring now here, now there. It's not like a continuum, more like here and then there without movement in between. The firefly of consciousness, as it were, 'cause we only see it when it's lit.

hey Mike, You focus awareness on awareness- where is awareness located. Awareness happens from moment to moment and the location can shift. I recommend that you try this when you are lying down ready for sleep, as I think most of us are accustomed to letting go of consciousness at that time. With luck, right before you fall asleep you will have a sense of consciousness occurring now here, now there. It's not like a continuum, more like here and then there without movement in between. hey K., I'm so glad I tried to explain it again! It has really been useful to me.

I was going to suggest that it might be related to your habitual focus on the upper lip; however, I have no idea why that would result in the imagery you mention. I never understood the notion of placing the mind in the dantian, wasn't something I could make work for me, even though I did practice judo for a number of years and did a lot of sitting in the half-lotus. What I found out was, the mind at the dantian does happen, sometimes consistently, but I can't make that the subject of my practice. Here's a description of my practice, which I find especially useful in getting back to sleep; also how someone on Tao Bums was able to make use of "my" practice to get back to sleep in the early morning hours: "The idea is to follow the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness. I was writing on Apech's "Myth of the Eight Hour Sleep" thread, and I mentioned my practice. Humbleone took me up on it, and after a couple of questions (which are on the thread starting about page 2), he wrote this: 'I woke up at 4:30AM, after a quick drink of water. returned to bed and tried your practice. I hope I did it correctly, I was somewhat surprized that my mind moved around quite a bit. not fast, but in slow motion the awareness would shift, from left cheek to right side of torso etc. The end result was a light sleep state, but I was glued to the bed and then woke up exactly at 6AM, feeling refreshed like I had a complete 8 hours of sleep.' Humbleone wrote me that he succeeded in getting back to sleep 3 nights in a row, then 7 nights in a row, then he tried it in the day time and had a good result there too." A more complete description of the practice under the title "waking up and falling asleep" is here. As I said, sometimes my mind does go to the dantian and more or less stay there, but the trick for me is to follow the mind; I realize the sense of location that I have as consciousness takes place, and I allow the witness of my own feelings to enter into the "where" of consciousness. That's basically it. Astralc, your experiences are amazing, and the jerk from the dantian is clearly significant. I have read "Far Journeys", and I know that Monroe encountered a "realm of hungry ghosts" as it were, right when he left his body. If I recall correctly he said that he learned to just bore on through, even though it seemed like the ghosts or whatever were clutching at him. One of the three worlds Monroe ended up in involved a higher power or deity that came by every now and then, and everyone had to lie down so that the deity could walk across their stomachs- maybe that was really dantians? Fascinating imagery.

I apologize for not reading the full thread, but I thought you might like a different approach. I can't tell you about gabapentin, but I can tell you another way to fall asleep. The idea is to follow the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness. You can read my full description, "Waking Up and Falling Asleep", here. I was writing on Apech's "Myth of the Eight Hour Sleep" thread (it's here), and I mentioned my practice. Humbleone took me up on it, and after a couple of questions (which are on the thread starting about page 2), he wrote this: "I woke up at 4:30AM, after a quick drink of water. returned to bed and tried your practice. I hope I did it correctly, I was somewhat surprized that my mind moved around quite a bit. not fast, but in slow motion the awareness would shift, from left cheek to right side of torso etc. The end result was a light sleep state, but I was glued to the bed and then woke up exactly at 6AM, feeling refreshed like I had a complete 8 hours of sleep." He wrote me that he succeeded in getting back to sleep 3 nights in a row, then 7 nights in a row, then he tried it in the day time and had a good result there too. As to the hypnic activity, here's a paragraph from a piece I wrote that maybe addresses that: "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." (that's from my article "Kobun Chino Otogawa on Zazen", here). Best of luck with it, Mark

The heart of the matter, IMO/IME! When "the bottom drops out of the bucket" and I'm really here, I discover that I'm already stretched and I need to understand how the stretch I'm in generates the activity of just being where I am. I need to understand in order to relax. Stretch can generate a state of mind; if I relax and follow the activity of stretch around, the understanding I need comes to light and I can relax into the stretch. I have nothing to do with it, except maybe letting go of my belief that consciousness only takes place between the ears. I rely on waking up and falling asleep at the right moment, when it comes to things that need to get broken before they can get fixed.

Sobering, the things that folks on this thread have not said. & all true! I was introduced to zazen practice ("seated zen") by a book, "Three Pillars of Zen", by Kapleau. Kapleau had pictures in the back of the book, and I went from there. Years later a friend took me down to the Santa Cruz Zen Center, and someone who was able to sit the lotus without pain and without numbness told a roomful of people that they should "take their time with the lotus"; that was Kobun Chino Otogawa, in 1971. This morning I sat 40 minutes in the lotus without pain and without numbness. The Burmese posture, the half-lotus, and the lotus have been my teacher. I mostly couldn't sit without some pain and numbness, and I did not think I was a good candidate to become a Zen student as a result. So I sat on my own. I have a Western understanding of what the sitting practice entails, and I have tried various ways to share my understanding to help others learn to sit the lotus. I have one person who was able to discover the heart of my practice from my description, yet so far as I know that person doesn't sit zazen. The idea as I understand it is to attend to where I am, and allow what I feel to enter into where I am, including what I feel with regard to my own thoughts. Interestingly, when I attend to where I am, I wake up or fall asleep to where I am from moment to moment. I have written about the position of the hands in zazen, and how a relaxed presence where I am contributes to the position of the hands, in particular to the way the little fingers rest on the abdomen, the way the elbows bend, and the way the shoulders round. You can find that towards the close of the essay here, if you're interested. I think that pretty well sums up what I've learned from the lotus, it's waking up and falling asleep to where I am and what I feel from where I am.

Thanks, astralc, and I appreciate you reading my piece. If you're interested, the exchanges with humbleone about his experience with "location in space" are here. Interesting that you don't want to move when your cranial-sacral treatment is done. Someday maybe I'll get a treatment myself, I know Upledger recommends a yearly "tune-up". Lately I find myself rehashing the meditative states of the Pali Canon in my thoughts, but I always return to the Gautamid's statement that whatever a person thinks a meditative state is, it is otherwise. A little left-brain right-brain hocus-pocus there. I'm happy to think that his descriptions are of hypnogogic phenomena, and your description of the phenomena of theta-wave states seems to confirm that.

I'm not actually familiar with kundalini energy up the spine. I am familiar with a coordination associated with muscles and ligaments of the spine in seated meditation that closes my jaw and pivots my eyes downward. I'm still learning what this coordination is about, and how I can extend the experience. The cranial-sacral theory I'm familiar with is largely John Upledger's, with a little bit of Raymond Richard thrown in. Upledger spoke of locating the places in the body where the cranial-sacral rhythm was strong and adding 5 grams of pressure to the movement, the weight of a nickel, in order to open movement in parts that were stuck. My own impression is that the sense of location in consciousness naturally adds movement where the movement is good, provided the occurrence of consciousness is spontaneous. The spontaneous occurrence of consciousness often shifts among the six senses, and in the body often shifts from place to place; this is most easily recognized just before falling asleep. The body of referred sensation, the ability to feel throughout the body, appears to be important with respect to the location of consciousness in space. An interesting part of my experience is that the coordination that I need at the moment and the understanding appropriate to my coordination can come out of the location of consciousness in space. It's a lot like the bottom dropping out of the barrel, and if I can accept my anxiety around not holding on I find I have what I need. Not mine, but right here. Maybe I'm not the one to advise lomaximo, as I've never broken any knots that I know of, but I think he needs a way to relax into where he is at the moment. The rest I think he will find, once he allows himself waking up and falling asleep right where he is at the moment.

I have posted a non-technique on the AYP forum (awaiting moderator approval) for lomaximo's consideration, and I sincerely hope it can be of use to him. I thought I would repost it here; I believe people can access their own healing in situations like this, and I think that's the direction someone like lomaximo needs to take, as any physical intervention could obscure to him the opportunity that his crisis presents. "Hi, lomaximo, Can I recommend a practice: http://www.zenmudra.com/zenmudra-waking-up-and-falling-asleep.html The idea here is to follow your sense of location in space, and it's probably easiest to do this just before falling asleep. That might sound like it has nothing to do with the energies you are experiencing at your tailbone, yet I think you will find that it does. Another explanation for the phenomena you are experiencing can be found in the writings of John Upledger, a cranial-sacral osteopath, and the idea is that you now need to encourage the cranial-sacral rhythm at the place the cranial-sacral rhythm is moving well in order to open the place that is stuck. What I am experiencing myself is that if I stay with my sense of location as awareness takes place, I am automatically encouraging the cranial-sacral rhythm at the place the rhythm is moving well. That is to say, you only need to wake up or fall asleep to the sense of place you are experiencing right now, in order to heal yourself. I am hoping that this helps; all the best to you, Mark"

Astralc, a very fine piece of writing on your part there, in my opinion. I did send you an email, I will just take the liberty of mentioning here that I would like to use your first post up above along with my subsequent response on my personal blog- would that be alright? It's a way for me to keep track of things that are important to me. Concerning "you must basically go to sleep", you might enjoy my essay Waking Up and Falling Asleep. It's very short. About four pages deep into my blog, there are posts concerning a friend in New York (he's a friend to me now) who read "Waking Up and Falling Asleep", and proceeded to discover the movement of his awareness before sleep. He was able to get back to sleep when he needed to in the early morning hours by following the movement of his awareness. I am as you will gather from this concerned with the communication of a practice, in simple terminology, that can enable me and anyone else with the necessity to access a singularity of mind. As a waking practice, such a state is possible through the relinquishment of volitive activity, which requires an understanding of experience that permits such a relinquishment; in falling asleep, the particulars of a person's understanding need not be an issue. Can you cite any references from the literature (Western medical?) about the connection you mentioned between happiness and the language centers of the brain? My experience of the tan-t'ien is that it is a pivot around which the psoas muscles and extensors reciprocate to keep the body erect; at the same time, the balance there reflects the pivots of the sacrum on the pelvis, and the continuity of a balance there depends on "waking up and falling asleep", which to me implicates the cranial-sacral rhythm and some functionality connected with the pineal gland. If you're interested I have a description of translations of motion in the lotus that addresses the path by which activity of posture or carriage can feed back into the cranial-sacral rhythm; I confess that this is just a guess, but it's been very useful to me, and I've come to have faith that some mechanism like what I describe is at work in the human experience, even if my description may turn out to be inaccurate in some respect.

Astralc, thanks much for your post- very interesting! Can you cite any sources on this- especially on the connection between the active language centers and happiness. I read the Pali Sutta volumes in the 80's, and I am revisiting the descriptions of the jhanas now. The induction of the second material meditative state involves the cessation of prior mental unhappiness, and the fourth material state involves the "going down of whatever physical ease or dis-ease, and mental happiness or unhappiness, existed before"- something like that. More to the point, perhaps, is the Gautamid's description of his own practice before and after enlightenment- sixteen "recollections" in connection with the in-breath or out-breath, four of which are: 1) experiencing thought; 2) rejoicing in thought; 3) concentrating thought; 4) freeing thought (MN III 84, Pali Text Society volume 3 pg 126). These four he said corresponded to "recollection of mind" in the four recollections (mindfulnesses). I know Todd Murphy has proposed that the chakras involve referred sensation from areas of the brain that have no nerves for pleasure or pain. Sometimes I think the tan-tien is similarly involved with the area of the brain that is the language center; certainly we have Dogen talking about "non-thinking" as the pivot of zazen, yet most Tai-Ch'i masters will say that the start of practice is ch'i sinking to the tan-t'ien. I do find sometimes a connection between my ability to be present at the tan-t'ien and my recognition of a place of thinking as a part of the body as a whole.

Truffle oil over hamachi, I am looking for the place, someday maybe I will find myself there. Peculiarly human, who can say what we are here for, in our moment-to-moment dream of life- or what our actions mean, in the vegetable garden of the universe. Thanks for the story of the cucumber plant. Do animals think in pictures, how do plants think then. Can I think in pictures, can I relate to creatures that think in pictures or those who think some other way, apart from heart and mind? Apart from the soil of heart and mind? Night time in the big city, and all who come this way are in the middle of a saki punch, and I'm looking to try nigori sake now, with a friend online. Ha ha!

Some older film, with the elephants:

Pass the wasabi, gee, you're lookin' swell...

Soon as I can get this dang cloak on, I'm sure I have something to say here; thing seems to need alteration, who altered my cloak since I hung it in the closet last night! I like your "sign" of doing nothing, manitou; this morning I am falling down doing nothing, ox and rider. The morning glory has the magic, alright. Rules of posture they have in Soto Zen, and yet we all have to find our own, I'm a firm believer in that even if it takes me a whole lifetime to discover the turning toward the sun open. Not sure about the ox-herding pictures reflecting gradual and sudden. I read they are Chinese, and that the Japanese added the last two in the common ten-picture declension- the last two being the empty circle and the market-place. The Chinese version ended at the pine bough in the circle representing nature, according to what I read. If they are Zen or Ch'an pictures, how do they accord with sudden realization, the hallmark of the school (on the other hand, one could ask why if Zen and Ch'an are schools of sudden realization do the masters speak of 20-30 years ripening after the initial realization)? If they are Taoist, where in the classical literature of Taoism is there any reference to horse and cart, or ox and rider, I wonder? I don't know Taoist literature, it might be there. Very hard, to turn toward the sun all day. Impossible, not to turn toward the sun all day. Ha ha!

Thanks for all the info on these practices, interesting to me partly because many folks on this forum have employed them or practices similar to them, and partly because I am always interested in aspects of the mind/body phenomena (if I may call it that). Some people have a natural talent for isolating muscle groups and exercising new coordinations, I may not be one of them but when I Lomaximo's account I'm not so unhappy about it. Just being where I am doing nothing gets more appealing with everything I read, and it's not really different from any of these practices if these practices are what I need; the hardest thing is to discover what we really need right where we are, just at this moment, and the usual path to discovery is renunciation. That's where Lomaximo got into trouble, I think.

The trick is never to mount in the first place, per the Ch'an master Foyan; he said there were only two diseases at his monastery, searching for an ox while riding an ox and being mounted on an ox unable to dismount. He asked, isn't it better never to mount in the first place? I would say the meaning is that where we are is sufficient to act, if we can relax and accept the way our feelings inform consciousness. Our feelings do affect our sense of place, and our acceptance of what we feel allows the ability to feel to be spontaneous, and our consciousness to take place freely. Sometimes I look to falling asleep sitting up, where a little jerk wakes me up as I start to fall over, but I can realize the action without the jerk if I attend my sense of place. It's the same state of mind where I observe the dreams that happen sitting up, although those are very brief and the state of mind that catches sight of them can be continued. Why would I do that: because the sense of place from one moment to the next acts, and that is ox and rider without mounting. I can't be anywhere other than where I am, but to experience action out of being where I am requires a state between waking and sleeping. As I said, it's as simple as the sense of location as I fall asleep, which shifts from place to place; it's also as complicated as getting up and walking around with no idea of what I'm doing or why (and finding out later!). So no special effort, and yet I practice sitting doing nothing in the mornings, as I'm waking up. I practice at night until I'm falling asleep, too, although that's usually a shorter sitting. That's my approach to riding the ox home.

Yes, "Do Nothing" is "making an image in the place of an image", as is "waking up and falling asleep"- that's dropping mind and body, as it were, and allowing the feelings and the anxiety of falling to discover "in the place". Have to reflect on your koan, there! My committment and I believe the unstated committment of most of the Bums here is to develop a vocabulary that can be used to communicate experience forward, so that next time I am looking to remember what doing nothing means, I can pick up the "sign of the concentration" where I left off. something like that?

Hi, Manitou, you write so well I start to feel worked up, and emotional, and tears of sympathy are very close. Knowing that drinking coffee pushes me into being even more worked up and sometimes downright weepy over dog food commercials, I just have to get up in the middle of reading your post and make myself another cup. Ha ha! Life... The energy from the ground up, I look for that sometimes when I'm dancing. When I'm sitting, I sometimes look to feel like my whole body might clear (the ground) on inhalation, and like my body as a whole might cleave (at a point) on exhalation. I came up with this as a feeling-explanation of these two sayings: "Miraculous power and marvelous activity Drawing water and chopping wood." (Pangyun, a lay Zen practitioner, eight century C.E.) "Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there." (The Gospel According to Thomas, pg 43 log. 77, ©1959 E. J. Brill) Also there's this, regarding the eyes, hands and feet: "...when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, (and) an image in the place of an image, then shall you enter [the Kingdom]." (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 18-19 log. 22, ©1959 E. J. Brill) Yes, my reference to waking up and falling asleep is really this: "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... 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, yers truly) And for 3bob, from the same: "I sometimes overlook my location in space because I attach to what I’m feeling, or I’m averse to it, or I ignore it. The result is that I lose the freedom of my awareness to shift and move, and I have difficulty relaxing or staying alert. When I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, then my awareness remains free, and I can relax and keep my wits about me." Just lately, I find myself embracing the recollection that the cranial-sacral rhythm is present with the location of consciousness. John Upledger wrote that he was able to palpate a location in the body where the cranial-sacral rhythm was moving well, and add the pressure of 5 grams (the weight of a nickel) to the movement at that place in order to open the movement at other places in the body- places that were not moving so well, maybe even places that were stuck. When I recall that the cranial-sacral rhythm is present with the location of consciousness, I accept that the free occurrence of consciousness can by virtue of its location act like John Upledger's hands in adding movement to the cranial-sacral rhythm where the movement is good. I allow this to act to open places where I feel movement is needed, and the witness of activity and feeling born in this relationship reinforces my trust in the free occurrence of consciousness. Koichi Tohei the aikidoist taught four recollections: 1) keep one point; 2) weight underside; 3) relax; 4) extend ki. I never liked what I took to be the exercise of will implied in these recollections, but I now see that some of the time (at least) my consciousness cleaves to one place, I am aware of an underside like clearing the ground, I am looking to relax like waking up or falling asleep, and I recognize that the movement of the cranial-sacral rhythm where consciousness takes place opens movement appropriate to what is felt. gack. At least Tohei's approach has brevity! with sympathy over the parts and the wrenching, your openness and experiential approach are so valuable to me, I'm sure to all us Bums!

The free movement of awareness that we have falling asleep, we also have waking up. If we grasp after judgement, we are no longer waking up or falling asleep, a station of consciousness comes to exist. Here's a teaching from Gautama (who was later called the Buddha): "That which we will..., and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied:--this becomes an object for the persistance of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness. Consciousness being stationed and growing, rebirth of renewed existance takes place in the future, and here from birth, decay, and death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair come to pass. Such is the uprising of this mass of ill. Even if we do not will, or intend to do, and yet are occupied with something, this too becomes an object for the persistance of consciousness... whence birth... takes place. But if we neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistance of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness. Consciousness not being stationed and growing, no rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the future, and herefrom birth, decay-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow and despair cease. Such is the ceasing of this entire mass of ill." (SN II 65, Pali Text Society vol. 2 pg 45) That makes it sound like it's hard to be without will, intention, or preoccupation, but we do it all the time. We just have to wake up or fall asleep where we are, and hey presto!- the world takes care of itself. That's what it feels like to me, although I confess that I am not entirely at home with myself yet, still riding sometimes. Like Foyan said, "only two illnesses- looking for the ox while riding the ox, and mounted on the ox unable to get off. Better never to mount at all!"

read the last post, please grab the grub, and head for home way back in the woods

and yet we all do, go down in the black hole with head-lamps and ropes, go right over the waterfall in a barrel for laughs or maybe just down the white-water in a kayak. Carnival rides, scary movies. I hear you, army event horizons might not be the kind of place I particularly want to reach, yet even kids want to whirl until they fall down. A little off-topic, there. The navigating over the horizon: I attended a right-brain/left-brain class in the 70's where the teacher mentioned that when they studied South Pacific islanders, some could navigate over the horizon between islands without a compass or stars, but when you asked them for an explanation what you got was garbage. The teacher's explanation was that the right-side spatial/intuitive function worked well but the left-side language function was not always in sync. In some ways, I have always assumed that practice in daily life would be like the Pacific Islanders navigating over the horizon, and that what I had to do was get the left-side and right-side sync'd so that I could describe that practice to anyone else with an interest. Long time now, I've been at it, and all I've got to show is these beans (and a giant who is coming down the beanstalk pretty quick now)...

no one has to know the calypso orchid bloomed way back in the woods