Mark Foote

Sad tales, Nungali.

Michael Caine as the Buddha:

Careful what you wish for? Like the Chinese say, it's a curse to be born in interesting times.

You mean like:

Sorry--I thought you said, "face plant"!

"but I love her--it's my own damn fault."

Here are some lines from the Stanford project (at zazenshin--unfortunately permission is now required to access the project), translating Dogen's words: Daji said, "How can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile?" Nanyue replied, "How can you make a buddha by sitting in meditation (zazen)?" Daji asked, "Then, what is right?" Nanyue replied, "When someone is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should he beat the cart or beat the ox?" Daji had no response. (That's all from here: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/13341-soto-zen-buddhism-and-the-afterllife/?page=2) Here's my summary of Gautama's approach to mindfulness in everyday life: 1) Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation; 2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation; 3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation; 4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation. (Applying the Pali Instructions, edited) The trick is in the feeling of ease that I'm looking for: I would now have to say that the feeling of ease associated with concentration is the feeling of ease that arises from activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness. Activity of the body can follow automatically as the location of consciousness leads the balance of the body. Automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness has a feeling of ease, and initially a feeling of energy (or “zest”) as well. Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity. The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point. (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) The effort for me, the "beating of the ox" if you will, is in finding ease in the free location of consciousness. Nevertheless, I need practice with some very physical elements of posture and carriage, apparently--my free consciousness keeps coming back to them, and they have taken me decades to comprehend in a way that abets the ease of concentration. They're in the post I quote from above.

local talent: Lake County Music Guide (by Mike Guarniero) 1.8K followers • 2 following Want to know where to find live music in Lake County, here's your local guide. No need to call around ... And speaking of the Shannon Ridge Mercantile in Finley, they are pleased to bring you the fantastic band, Fogg Revisited on Saturday afternoon from 4 to 7:00. Imagine Pink Floyd playing Classic Rock covers, that would best describe this band – and the Floyd they perform is fantastic! Stock up on your favorite Shannon Ridge wines and enjoy delicious tacos hosted by the local travel soccer team! Every bite supports the team’s upcoming season and travel expenses. Rock on!...

I think Jiimmy Buffet did alright too, although he was no Warren Buffet. Jimmy had a real estate and restaurant thing going for a while, in Florida and around. You can read all about it, book a stay, even! https://www.jimmybuffett.com/

liminal_luke, you might like this: One Way or Another (from my blog, at zenmudra.com/zazen-notes) An excerpt: If a person can exhibit a mindfulness like Gautama’s without having become enlightened, and can have “seen by means of wisdom” without having completely destroyed the cankers, then how can one know who to trust as a teacher? Gautama’s advice was to go by the words of the teacher rather than any claim to authority, to compare the instructions of a teacher to the sermons Gautama himself had given and to the rules of the order that Gautama himself had laid down (DN 16 PTS vol. ii pp 133-136). Nevertheless, activity solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness, the hallmark of the fourth concentration, has been conveyed by demonstration in some branches of Buddhism for millennia. The transmission of a central part of the teaching through such conveyance, and the certification of that transmission by the presiding teacher, is regarded by some schools as the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher. The teachers so authenticated have in many cases disappointed their students, when circumstances revealed that the teacher’s cankers had not been completely destroyed. Furthermore, some schools appear to have certified transmission without the conveyance that has kept the tradition alive, perhaps for the sake of the continuation of the school.

Took some digging to get down to the basics of "Aston Movement", which is where Linda Krier got her start (and she's the originator of the "Diamond Body Practice"). Turns out "Aston Movement" is a program of movement that was developed in conjunction with Ida Rolf: https://www.abmp.com/updates/blog-posts/sitting-her-doorstep-how-movement-pioneer-judith-aston-partnered-dr-ida-rolf Rolf was famous for using painful force to cause the fascial attachments of the body to rearrange--you can correct me if I'm misstating that. I'm thinking you might find something of mine informative, with regard to the fascial support of the spine. Here's an excerpt, and the link to the post: Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress. A frailty in the structure of the lower spine emerged in the 1940’s, when research demonstrated that the discs of the spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight. In the 1950’s, D. L. Bartelink concluded that pressure in the “fluid ball” of the abdominal cavity takes load off the structure of the spine when weight is lifted (“The Role of Abdominal Pressure in Relieving the Pressure on the Lumbar Intervertebral Discs”; J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1957 Nov; 39-B[4]:718-25). The pressure in the “fluid ball” is induced by activity in the abdominal muscles. Bartelink theorized that animals (as well as humans) make use of pressure in the abdominal cavity to protect the spine, and he noted that breathing can continue even when the abdomen is tensed: Animals undoubtedly make an extensive use of the protection of their spines by the tensed somatic cavity, and probably also use it as a support upon which muscles of posture find a hold… Breathing can go on even when the abdomen is used as a support and cannot be relaxed. (ibid) In the 1980’s, Gracovetsky, Farfan and Lamay suggested that in weight lifting, the abdominals work against the extensor muscles of the spine to allow the displacement of the fascial sheet behind the sacrum and spine: If this interpretation is correct, it would partly explain why the abdominal muscles work hard during weight-lifting. They apparently work against the extensor muscles. Furthermore their lever arm gives them considerable effect. In fact, we propose that the effect of the abdominal muscles is two-fold: to balance the moment created by the abdominal pressure (hence, the abdominal muscles do not work against the weight lifter) and to generate abdominal pressure up to 1 psi, which would help the extensors to push away the fascia. It is essential that the supraspinous ligament and the lumbodorsal fascia be brought into action to permit weight lifting without disk or vertebral failure. … It must be kept in mind that in some circumstances ligament tension may reach 1800 lb., whereas no muscle can pull as hard. (Gracovetsky, S., Farfan HF, Lamay C, 1997. A mathematical model of the lumbar spine using an optimal system to control muscles and ligaments. Orthopedic Clinics of North America 8: 135-153) Dr. Rene Cailliet summarized these findings: In the Lamy-Farfan model the abdominal pressure is considered to be exerted posteriorly against the lumbodorsal fascia, causing the fascia to become taut…. thus relieving the tension upon the erector spinae muscles. (“Low Back Pain Syndrome”, ed. 3, F. A. Davis Co., pp 140-141) Farfan, Lamay and Cailliet referred to the “lumbodorsal fascia”. That fascia is now more commonly referred to as the “thoracolumbar fascia”. The Lamay-Farfan model presupposed a flattening of the lumbar curve, like that of a person bent over to lift weight from the floor, but acknowledged that the control of the ligament system afforded by activity between the abdominals and extensors could not be directly accounted for in the model. My assumption is that in the cross-legged posture, activity engendered by the location of consciousness can bring about at least a partial engagement of fascial support behind the spine. There may be another factor at work in the engagement of fascial support. Behind the sacrum, the fascia can be stretched rearward by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. As Farfan noted: There is another peculiarity of the erector muscles of the spine. Below the level of the fifth lumbar vertebra, the muscle contracts in a compartment enclosed by bone anteriorly, laterally, and medially. Posteriorly, the compartment is closed by the lumbodorsal fascia. When contracted, the diameter of the muscle mass tends to increase. This change in shape of the muscle may exert a wedging effect between the sacrum and the lumbodorsal fascia, thereby increasing the tension in the fascia. This may be one of the few instances where a muscle can exert force by pushing. (“Mechanical Disorders of the Low Back”, H. F. Farfan; 1973 Lea & Febiger; p 183) Farfan mentions a “wedging effect” on the “lumbodorsal fascia” caused by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. The extensor muscles run in two sets behind the spine, one on either side of the vertebral column, and the wedging effect of the extensors on the thoracolumbar fascial sheet can therefore alternate from side to side. That alternation may be the source of a comment made by Ch’an teacher Yuanwu: … Hsiang Lin said, “Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome.” If you understand this way, you are “turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind.” (“The Blue Cliff Record”, Yuanwu, Case 17; tr. Cleary & Cleary, ed. Shambala, p 114) I believe “turning to the left, turning to the right” is a description of the feeling imparted by the wedging of the extensors, first on one side, then on the other. “Following up behind”, meanwhile, is a description of the feeling sustained by the wedging, behind the sacrum. The fascial sheet behind the neck and the base of the skull, the nuchal fascia, is in part a continuation of the thoracolumbar fascia. Through the nuchal fascia, the alignment of the skull and the placement of the jaw can enter into the tension on the thoracolumbar fascial sheet. (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) A lot of kinesiology there. The post on my blog is about how all that plays into "consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress". Anyway, thanks for the interesting link, hope you and your wife continue to benefit from your new practice!

On breath or nostrils I finished a post about the kinesiology that enters into my sitting. A brief excerpt: Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress. ... I would now have to say that the feeling of ease associated with concentration is the feeling of ease that arises from activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness. Activity of the body can follow automatically as the location of consciousness leads the balance of the body. Automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness has a feeling of ease, and initially a feeling of energy (or “zest”) as well. Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity. The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point. (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) In particular, the ease applies to the automatic activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation. If you restrain the location of consciousness, difficulties will likely ensue, yet I personally have had the need of an extensive study of kinesiology to allow me to relax and remain calm with a consciousness that moves. Most of that kinesiology is in the post I link to above.

What to do when the daily slop hits:

Use a phillips-head!

As long as we're in the unpopular opinions thread, yes, I am so nice!

That's my opinion, and it's very true popular!

…I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of sensual lust, if not already arisen, or, if arisen, to cause its more-becoming and increase, as the feature of beauty (in things). In (one) who pays not systematic attention to the feature of beauty, sensual lust, if not already arisen, arises: or, if already arisen, is liable to more-becoming and increase. …I know not of any other single thing of such power to prevent the arising of sensual lust, if not already arisen: or, if arisen, to cause its abandonment, as the feature of ugliness (in things). In (one) who gives systematic attention to the feature of ugliness (in things) sensual lust, if not already arisen, arises not: or, if arisen, it is abandoned. (AN 1.11, 1.12, tr. Pali Text Society vol I pp 2-3) On the other hand: So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Vesālī, at the Great Wood, in the hall with the peaked roof. Now at that time the Buddha spoke in many ways to the mendicants about the meditation on ugliness. He praised the meditation on ugliness and its development. Then the Buddha said to the mendicants, “Mendicants, I wish to go on retreat for a fortnight. No-one should approach me, except for the one who brings my almsfood.” “Yes, sir,” replied those mendicants. And no-one approached him, except for the one who brought the almsfood. Then those mendicants thought, “The Buddha spoke in many ways about the meditation on ugliness. He praised the meditation on ugliness and its development.” They committed themselves to developing the many different facets of the meditation on ugliness. Becoming horrified, repelled, and disgusted with this body, they looked for a suicide weapon. Each day ten, twenty, or thirty mendicants committed suicide. Then after a fortnight had passed, the Buddha came out of retreat and addressed Ānanda, “Ānanda, why does the mendicant Saṅgha seem so diminished?” Ānanda told the Buddha all that had happened, and said, “Sir, please explain another way for the mendicant Saṅgha to get enlightened.” “Well then, Ānanda, gather all the mendicants staying in the vicinity of Vesālī together in the assembly hall.” “Yes, sir,” replied Ānanda. He did what the Buddha asked, went up to him, and said, “Sir, the mendicant Saṅgha has assembled. Please, sir, come at your convenience.” Then the Buddha went to the assembly hall, sat down on the seat spread out, and addressed the mendicants: “Mendicants, when this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated it’s peaceful and sublime, a deliciously pleasant meditation. And it disperses and settles unskillful qualities on the spot whenever they arise. In the last month of summer, when the dust and dirt is stirred up, a large sudden storm disperses and settles it on the spot. In the same way, when this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated it’s peaceful and sublime, a deliciously pleasant meditation. And it disperses and settles unskillful qualities on the spot whenever they arise. And how is it so developed and cultivated? It’s when a mendicant—gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut—sits down cross-legged, sets their body straight, and establishes mindfulness in their presence. (SN 54.9, tr. Sujato) Gautama goes on to explain what he means by mindfulness, in the context above. I have summarized that mindfulness: 1) Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation; 2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation; 3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation; 4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation. (Applying the Pali Instructions, edited) You might try that.

Oh yes, free willy still exists, though not its star: Keiko (c. 1976 – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979, and widely known for his portrayal of Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of being prepared for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.

True that Gautama said: Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (SN 48.10; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 174) What I find is more like: The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. (Common Ground) Involuntary. Likewise with regard to the "thought applied and sustained" of the first concentration: Applying and sustaining thought would appear to be a preparatory practice, but in Gautama’s “intent concentration”, the thought comes out of necessity in the free placement of attention in the movement of breath. When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention draws out thoughts initial and sustained, and brings on the stages of concentration. (Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages) Again, involuntary. Nan-yueh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent; they are not to be defiled." (“Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, Carl Bielefeldt, p 138) Not defiled through the exercise of will. From my current post: Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress. A frailty in the structure of the lower spine emerged in the 1940’s, when research demonstrated that the discs of the spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight... (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) A lot of useful kinesiology in that post, some of which I only discovered through research in the course of writing it.

Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity. The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point. (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) How to use the mind becomes "quite clear": So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom. (“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added) For me, it's always been more about getting out of my head, how to use my mind, than anything else. The will only has to do with a clarity of view regarding suffering. The trick, though, is that thicket of thorns. If the root cause of suffering is ignorance of being, then I must find a way to open to the point to point occurrence of embodied self-location as the source of activity, and that opening is the opening of the nerve exits between the vertebrae of the sacrum and spine. Regarding the concentration in which activity of the body is purely by virtue of the location of consciousness, by virtue of the "embodied self-location", Gautama said: … it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth. (MN 119, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III p 134) Feeling over the surface of the entire body, in each of the dermatomes of the chart above. How those nerve exits come to be open in sitting, is the topic of my latest post.

The teaching of Gautama the Shakyan is that the impulses and choices cease in successive states of concentration, first the impulses and choices in speech, then in the activity of the body, then in the activity of the mind. The question is how to arrive at these states of concentration, of which Gautama said: Lack of desire even for the attainment of (any of the concentrations) has been spoken of by [me]; for whatever (one) imagines (a concentration) to be, it is otherwise. (MN 113, tr. PTS vol III pp 92-94)

stepping lively now leaping, as it were, through space words flow unconscious words flow unconscious from the unenlightened hand worse than misplaced feet worse than misplaced feet in a pasture, thick with stuff haiku-writing 'roo haiku-writing 'roo bouncing around the outback tall eucalyptus

New post, on the ol' site: The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns

So true, that translation can make all the difference. I am fond of the Pali Text Society translations of the first four Nikayas, and of the Cleary brothers translations of so many Ch'an texts. I would not have been able to begin with these texts, without these translations. F. L. Woodward of the Pali Text Society translates the two feelings that are characteristic of the first concentration as "zest and ease". Others have translated these terms as "joy and bliss". I'd be lost, without Woodward. Sometimes, though, the off-beat translation speaks to me. I like Nishijima's translation of a line in Dogen's "Genjo Koan" about birds and fish: …each one realizes its limitations at every moment and each one somersaults (in complete freedom) at every place… ("Genjo Koan", Nishijima-Cross) Nobody else translates it that way.

If you get right down to it, it's the history of mathematics in the first half of the twentieth century. The mathematicians of the day were keen to put all of mathematics on an axiomatic basis. Sort of like, Euclid's Geometry, Redux--set up some axioms, and all of the known mathematical truths of the day would fall out as theorems. Along comes Kurt Godel, who demonstrates with logic and the properties of prime numbers that if your axioms are consistent, you cannot generate all that is known to be true in mathematics from them, and if you can generate all that is known in mathematics from a set of axioms, then you can also generate contradictory "truths" from those axioms. IMHO, the two-truths doctrine is just accepting a set of axioms about reality that yield contradictions, and regarding that as inevitable. Nah. There's a whole school of mathematics that rejects the law of the excluded middle (if it's not x, then it must be y). The reason most mathematicians are not eager to sign up as "intuitionists", as that school is called, is because it's not possible to generate all the beautiful results of modern mathematics from the logic the intuitionists are willing to accept. To me, the beauty of the teaching in the first four Nikayas is that there is an outline of a way of living, a way of living that Gautama said: … if cultivated and made much of, (the concentration) is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too. (SN 54.9, tr. Pali Text Society vol. V p 285) Gautama declared it to have been his way of living before his enlightenment, as well as after (same chapter, different sermons). He is intentionally taking the emphasis off enlightenment, probably because of the incident recorded in the same chapter where scores of monks a day "took the knife", or committed suicide. Seems Gautama had preached on the virtues of mindfulness of the ugly aspects of the body, just before he took a three week retreat, and the monks got hysterical. When Gautama returned, his attendant Ananda said, "it were well, Lord, if the Lord were to teach some other method of gnosis." The result was a lecture on the concentration that "is something peaceful and choice", which he called either "the concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing" as in the chapter above, or "the (mind-)development that is mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing", if you prefer MN 118 (Anapansati). Just finished a post titled "The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns"--all about that practice, if you're interested. Not about two truths. Not what it sounds like, the "intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing". Amounts to "just sitting", if you can swallow the thicket of thorns and see your way clear to leap out of the diamond trap: But usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit. (“The Background of Shikantaza”; Shunryu Suzuki, Sunday, February 22, 1970, San Francisco; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)