Mark Foote

feel the tumblers place eek out a meagre living says the wise ol' geek says the wise ol' geek there's nothing to it, just touch- feel the tumblers place feel the tumblers place spin the di-al it will start five, seven, five, yes? five, seven, five, yes? five will get you ten, oh yes no one has to know

it's five, seven, five spin the dial before you start feel the tumblers place

I don't know about you, Marblehead, but I like working the words. I seem to need them to get the skiff in the water, so to speak, they're like florescence in the tide. Our potential may be different, yet I think without a practice of some sort we are adrift. Not that a practice can be held to without change. And navigating over the horizon at night takes some getting used to!

I'm not saying you shouldn't live life to the fullest; the question is how you do that. In particular, how do you practice living life to the fullest? What does that mean to you?

I think it's more practical than that. When we really live from where we are, and consciousness takes place freely in response to our senses and our mind, there's an immaterial happiness- a happiness that is not related to physical or mental pleasure or pain. How can there be a happiness that is not related to physical or mental pleasure or pain?- I can't say, but that doesn't mean it isn't so! Now I would contend that if we do not live from where we are, we don't really live, our ability to feel is not truly alive with the fluidity of our nature. In some sense when we are truly alive, we are as though already dead, because the fluidity of our nature acts while we wake or sleep to it. Already dead, fully alive. It's not possible to be anywhere other than exactly where we are. Who's there, that's my name.

When my father passed away, I wanted to cover the mirrors. I think that's the custom in some parts of the world. It was just that I would see so much of him when I looked in the mirror, and it was a sorrow. "Making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind". Well, I can't even make self-surrender the object of thought, when you get right down to it. Helpless, helpless, helpless. The relationship between the necessity of our life and our ability to feel that necessity is falling off a log, the Shaker's true simplicity, and I would like to bow, bend and turn with the bones in the wind in this world of dreams. Just myself in the way!

I confess, a lot of the reason I write on Tao Bums (and on HardCore Zen Blog) is because it helps me think, and allows me to stumble on things serendipitously. The other day I wrote: "...for me something seemed to flow as I accepted the ability of the cranial-sacral rhythm at my place of mind to open the cranial-sacral rhythm elsewhere in my body." Today I played with this focus, and I have to say, I felt an ease like an old friend. That's a good thing!

Somatic awareness?- that would be bodily awareness, I guess, and it sounds like Hanna has some concern for the body of referred sensation. By that I mean the ability to feel, the ability to feel throughout the body.

My experience is that the place of mind triggers activity in the body, and this is the ox.

That's a great, clear description of what you felt and maybe something of how it came about. I was dancing a little bit tonight to a pair of guitar players at an event, and for me something seemed to flow as I accepted the ability of the cranial-sacral rhythm at my place of mind to open the cranial-sacral rhythm elsewhere in my body. Sometimes our unconscious arranges for consciousness to take place at precisely the location necessary to impact a stretch and open the exit of nerves from the sacrum, spinal column, or skull; I would say that's exactly what happened when you bent over to pick up that shoe. It wasn't just the bending; it was the impact of consciousness at a particular place with regard to your mind and body that added just a tiny bit of movement to the cranial-sacral rhythm where it was already moving well, opening the movement where it was not. When I describe something I do that comes to me out of a necessity of breath and posture, like the way I dance or the stretches involved in the way I sit, I have to add that the real thing happens waking up and falling asleep. If I grasp at the feeling I have, I am no longer waking up and falling asleep, and my ability to feel changes. If what I feel informs the place of occurrence of consciousness, then the ability to feel is my necessity of breath and posture, and I find myself waking up or falling asleep in the midst of my activity. You could not have opened movement in your sacrum and pelvis without a necessity that placed your mind just so, in response to your ability to feel. I think I'm going to go bow to my cushion, turn around and bow to the universe in ten directions, and sit my prayers for the night.

I'll give it to you another way, using the practice of waking up and falling asleep: "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". If you start where you are and try to apprehend "now", you are somewhere looking at something; in contrast, if you perceive in this moment where you are, you are all of one piece. The difference is indeed a matter of life and death, as we are only truly alive in one piece; thankfully, even the biggest fool can only be as they are where they are, even if they imagine otherwise. Waking up or falling asleep in the midst of activity is pure like snow, and by many names the practice of waking up and falling asleep is practiced throughout the world in a posture or carriage on the knees or involving bending the knees. The watch that's referred to is the occurrence of consciousness in connection with contact between sense organ and sense object, the impact as consciousness takes place, and the ability to feel- takes place, takes place, takes place.

"... making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (Samyutta Nikaya V 208, Pali Text Society volume 5 pgs 175-176) My personal take is that one-pointedness of mind is synonymous with a sense of location that takes in each of the senses (including the mind). For me, this sense of location is nothing more than where I feel I am in space right now. If I stop to reflect on it (making self-surrender the object of thought?), one-pointedness of mind comes forward. "An empty hand grasps the hoe handle, Walking along I ride the ox, The ox crosses the wooden bridge, The bridge is flowing, the water is still." (Fuxi, from "Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson copyright 2000 pg 2) This is a very physical practice for me, and if anyone is interested they could read about it here. As to the application of the experience of concentration in everyday life, my best shot is waking up and falling asleep. Mostly I thought I would share Fuxi's poem, which is a constant star in my daily practice.

A veritable manifesto, manitou! Thanks for giving the low down, on the tripod. Not sure I follow on 3D but sounds amazing. 20-30 years, is what I have read several times is the interval between initial insight and being able to do something substantive and positive, usually mentioned in the context of Zen. Some interesting threads you might have missed, at least they were interesting for me: Apech's Myth of the Eight Hour Sleep, and Ya Mu's Chinese Taoist Medicine and Stillness-Movement Medical Qigong. "Self-Realization" pinned topic sounds interesting. I am always looking to find the places where my own "practice" lines up with historical and contemporary practices, as a means of expanding my own boundaries and vocabulary. I tend to describe my own practice elsewhere, and come here to learn to make my description more universal. I think you could make a topic out of the inclusion of the mind as the sixth sense in the experience of the "where" of consciousness. That's my way of describing thoughtlessness, or "nonthinking", as Dogen described it. He declared it "the pivot of zazen", I love that! The ease and absorption of thoughtlessness, I have to experience a necessity for it; sounds like fortunately or unfortunately, you are ahead of me in experiencing that necessity!

I had a dream where I was going down into the sea with a friend, and she was afraid, so I parted the water. I get tsunami dreams with frequency. Had one the other day, the tsunami was busting in the windows. I kind of like them, hope they are opportunity as well as crisis; I believe all dreams are positive if I find the real interpretation (not counting the myoclonic twitch stuff that occurs in hypnogogia, which is apparently not really dreams- see Wikipedia under hypnic jerk).

Triangulate? Interested in this ability and the 3-D thing you mention, there. What is this in regards to? I return to what I put together in 2005, that the place of occurrence of consciousness can be the tool of the autonomic respirations (pulmonary and cranial-sacral) in opening up the responsiveness of the entire body. John Upledger used his hands to accentuate places with good cranial-sacral movement, and that caused the places that were stuck to open up. My well-being can do the same thing, if I realize the place I find myself in from moment to moment, kind of like in 3-D. Probably nothing like what you're referring to... Different reflections of myself can make me feel insane, that happens when I get away from other people, like I'm on another wave-length from the mind-set of the people I'm around. And yet I'm not. It's just the wilderness in me in the midst of the city. Wondered where you were, missed that avatar of the kid with the candle!

If yer a fake K, yer the best fake K I ever ran into! I think the cow is right, but maybe he gives people credit as individuals when it's the collective voice speaking through the individual that deserves the credit. I think that's a lot of what brings me back to Tao Bums, I want to hear that voice. Not to mention the very real information that folks have to offer; I have learned so much here, just lately about the movement/stillness and gift of Tao practice of Ya Mu- light in the tan-tian that grows and opens the channels, and heals others. Anybody that puts their energy into the collective voice here is a part of something amazing, as far as I'm concerned, and contributes equally.

Hi, Ya Mu, You and kempomaster are a great inspiration to me, it is great work that you are doing. I'd like to thank you for the description of the dan tian and light on your blog. Based on my own experiences and study, I can accept this explanation, and I will keep an eye open for what that means in my practice. In many ways it's a higher power thing, educating people, but it helps to have some folks like you and kempomaster around that are performing what used to be called miracles, and are actually Eastern science (my opinion). I've read that John Upledger would say that, when he used cranial-sacral osteopathy to perform an amazing healing; it's not a miracle, it's just a kind of science that hasn't been explored and accepted by Western practitioners yet.

I'm encouraged by the fact that Godel was able to demonstrate that any language that can describe all of our experience will allow contradictions, and any language that will not contain contradictions cannot describe all of our experience. At least that's the way I interpret his incompleteness theorem. So the trick as I understand it is, not to try to describe everything, but to be consistent with what I do describe. I'm elated that humbleone was able to find his sense of location shifting with his awareness as he was falling asleep. I'm not sure how to get the word out about that, I agree with him that I think there are a lot of people out there who would have an easier time getting back to sleep if they looked to follow their awareness from moment to moment. That he could find the same thing waking up, the sense of location shifting with awareness, also amazing. Should be easy to let everybody know, soon as I think of how!

I fully agree. Awe-inspiring, and my thanks to all the good folks who volunteer to prune the vines when necessary to keep the light shining, you do a great job. It's a strange world, with many wonderful things, and we could all use the practice expressing in words the kind of relationships that make the Eastern wisdom traditions so appealing. The beauty of Tao Bums to me is that it encourages people to take part in that practice, and to begin to find the words that I am convinced will one day transform our Western culture. Welcome, indeed!

"Sleeping quigong", can you spare a few words about that? There's definitely a state of mind that kicks in for me when I accept that I can be falling down, sleeping, standing up- and I find it helpful. As to what I had to heal to sit the lotus, what I would say is that in 2005 I wrote that the movement of breath and the cranial-sacral rhythm place the occurrence of consciousness in such a way as to open an ability to feel. What that says to me is that by attending to the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness, my natural well-being will open the appropriate ability to feel in my senses. From there, it's a case of my natural well-being healing both my body and my mind, as it were- experiences that allow me to remember what I need to attend to the sense of location in the occurrence of consciousness from moment to moment. Greek, probably! here's the link, as close as I could get it, to humbleone's experience with his dream.

I'm talking about the place of occurrence of consciousness, and the impact and ability to feel synonymous with the sense of place associated with consciousness, not the object of mind as the sixth sense organ. That's what I mean by "the place the mind is at the moment". "humbleone" applied the practice I describe in "waking up and falling asleep" to discover an awareness of the place of his consciousness in the back of his head, and he found a recollection of a dream he had many years ago. Not an experience I have had, but there is something about the sense of location in connection with the occurrence of consciousness from moment to moment, and I suspect it's not so different from Listening, although I wouldn't know. Clearly, I already went so far as to say the place of mind was identically the circumstance and the healing approach, but that is based on my experience healing myself of nothing more than my own ignorance of my body and inability to sit the lotus. I'm embarassed, slightly.

Ok, I follow you. In Cheng Man-Ch'ing's "Thirteen Chapters", he speaks of the stage of heaven, which consists of 1) listening to energy; 2) interpreting energy; 3) perfect clarity. Any relationship?

I said: "In bringing up the psychic, and I could mention many other traditions of healing, I meant to point out that the particular technique involved is in some ways subordinate to the intuitive reception of the circumstance and the healing approach." You said: "Indeed, yes, many traditions do utilize this. We don't." I said: 'Wonder what you meant by "I have observed your progression in the Listening"?' So the question was really, if you didn't mean "intuitive reception of the circumstance and healing approach" by "the Listening", what did you mean? I would have thought that "the Listening" meant some kind of intuitive reception of the nature of the circumstance, the illness if you would, and of the path to health- I'm not sure what you meant by "the Listening".

"Indeed, yes, many traditions do utilize this. We don't." Wonder what you meant by "I have observed your progression in the Listening"?