Mark Foote

A friend of mine emailed to say that he had consulted a healer. I'd like to offer what he wrote about that, just to say that people come to healing from different places, as well: "As you know, I've always been interested in psychic functioning and I have been in contact with a real one for about a year now. Real ones are scarce. He also does energy work, and I have actually felt his energy enter through my feet and up in to my body, to give me a quick look-see. He told me about several injuries that I had completely forgotten about, as well as the ones that plague me occasionally, due to my crotchety age ha ha. Anyway, always learning new things. Now, I have never met the man in person, only in email, he lives in (another state). ...he was adjusting energy through what he call his 'wild-assed' methods, involving thought forms and a connective technique he calls cording. ( a little like reiki , tho from 800 miles away ). The other noteworthy aspect is that he refuses payment and is willing to help at the drop of a hat." Now I don't know what this man went through to become a healer, maybe his path was complicated and difficult too, but I think there are folks out there who just discover that they have a talent for this and go from there. Maybe a different kind of healing is possible from those who go through a traditional Chinese medicine training, and anyway, in the end the most important healing I guess has to do with our relationship with ourselves and our community. That would be the one that I am seeking to feel out, with the insanity of Tao Bums, and writing from such original thinkers as Drew. Most of the crew here are pretty original, although some of us have to get righteously indignant before we open our hearts and share our private moments. I appreciate that people share these moments and are willing to make themselves vulnerable; I find the concrete examples useful to me as I reflect on the meaning of things, where sometimes the left-brain's attempt to rationalize the right-brain material doesn't quite get it for me. But that's where we can help each other.

I like the ha ha m'self, 'cause it feels like Drew is acknowledging that his point of view is full-on crazed from the viewpoint of a typical American, but he can't help it because what's real from the point of view of birth and death is in fact full-on crazed from the viewpoint of a typical American. I believe that he feels his experiences bear out his understanding; I feel that way about my experiences too, but I'm not concerned as he is to become a healer. I do think his effort to become a healer is a positive force in his life. There's been discussion about how the left-brain essentially makes stuff up to try to explain right-brain initiated behaviour. In a way, that's what Tao Bums is all about. If we think we are explaining it to someone other than ourselves, well maybe we are, but mostly we are searching for the living word that returns us to where we are with feeling. The writing needs to be as positive and substantive as possible to have that effect. Drew is brewing up the medicine, mostly with the same ingredients, if you're bored it's because you think he's brewing it for you. Look, his hair is falling out, maybe you want to hold off drinking that, haha.

I'm curious about people's impressions of what happens after the ch'i reaches the head-top; let me assume we are all in agreement that ch'i does circulate through the body, accumulate at the tan-t'ien, penetrate the tail-bone (no force must be used) and rise up the spine to the head-top, since most of the sources I've been exposed to are in agreement about that (Chen Man-Ch'ing's description, I borrowed). Question is, what happens after that. Here's a comment I made on the blog of a former Tao Bum regular, to summarize my impression: 'Not sure that's right about "there must be an emptying of the mind to enable the spirit light energy to descend along the front channel and by doing so it turns the generative fluid into generative force and with the breath to drive it then turns into chi vitality energy." Probably right according to Taoist Yoga, but I notice a divergence of descriptions on that front channel and something descending along it. I should probably open my mind more to a frontal presence. I'm thinking the ability to feel depends on alignment of the spine made possible by the return of the cranial-sacral rhythm from the whole body to the extensors and the bones of the skull, and by the reinforcement of the cranial-sacral rhythm that this return initiates, and yet the manifestation is in the ability to feel and presence of mind at the tan-t'ien. Chen Man-Ch'ing suggested keeping the mind in the company of the ch'i at the tan-t'ien, yet I think it's a natural outcome.' Pretty sketchy, but this is my inquiry these days, even if my method is simply to allow my feelings to inform my sense of place. Thanks for odd experiences, quirky coincidences, and tales of astonishment and wonder!

It is possible to act without intent, and to do so in the course of daily life. This is wu wei to me, even if I'm not so impeccable about it. As soon as there's intent, there's discrimination of good and bad, and there's nothing natural about that. I think the best is to accept falling asleep with waking up, and waking up with falling asleep; too much emphasis on waking up, and we can't sleep. Too much emphasis on falling asleep, and we can't wake up. "The 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, around 5th century C.E.) The place associated with the occurrence of consciousness flows waking up and falling asleep, the impact of place generates an ability to feel, the feeling informs the occurrence of consciousness and the habitual activity of perception and sensation ceases. Really, there's nothing we can do to wake up or fall asleep, and that leaves us right where we are.

so beautiful, thanks Steve!

Exactly so, I would say! Intent is in fact a consequence of ignorance and the "station of consciousness", a term I found in the Pali Canon (I think the term "Buddhism" was only coined after the Pali Canon had already been composed, although it was not in Pali at that time). The habitual activities that the Gautamid spoke of are the coupling of intent to action, and the cessation of the habitual activities that he taught depended on the induction of meditative states; he taught that this cessation was gradual, first in speech, then in body, and then in mind. He seemingly did not teach that the habitual activities ceased and never came back, only that they ceased as the meditative states occurred, and at some point the desire for again-becoming was cut off, even though the habitual activities resumed as the trance states were exited. He also taught that for one who saw as it really is sense organ, sense object, consciousness, impact, and feeling, all the parts of the eight-fold path and all the prerequisites of enlightenment develop and come to fruition. That's why I say: '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.' The place I find myself in, the place and the things that enter into the place even before I know it, that is sense organ, sense object, consciousness, impact, and feeling. As it really is, is as much about the actual experience as it occurs, to me, as to the nature of the experience being empty of self, of mine, of any "my".

How do shamans and healers learn their craft, and what part does sexuality play in their experience? Drew thinks they use celibacy as a part of their art, and he believes that a climax without external emission preserves what he needs at the moment in that regard. If he can do that, my hat is off, and I have no reason to believe he can't. Drew can sit the lotus for two hours, and does so regularly if not daily. My hat is off again. Too bad we can't ask him how he does these things! Something here reminds me of Robert Munroe's "Far Journeys", where Monroe discovered he could cross into a parallel world and inhabit a man's body, and he absolutely ruined the man's life. Munroe was astonished he could do it, to the point of forgetting the consequences of what he was doing. You want to hear about strange things done by a New Jersey insurance salesman who accidentally learned how to travel out of his body, there's a book for you. So not all these things are done by masters, and not all who do these things know what they are doing. How do the shamans and healers learn their craft, is the knowledge really passed down or just the approval after the fact?

Hey Drew, I would be interested to hear more about what it felt like when you practiced that, if you have any words. Ha ha! Not that I would ever... you know! ok kidding aside, I know that the pineal sits on the butterfly bone the sphenoid. Cranial-sacral theory posits that the changes in the volume of the cranial-sacral fluid flex and extend the bones of the skull, including the sphenoid and the occiput. The sacrum likewise is flexed and extended, and all the bones rotate with the rhythm of that fluid. My personal take is that the sacral ligaments and fascia generate activity that moves through all three sections of extensors up the back of the spine to rotate the temporal bones, the parietals, and so affect the nerves that control the cranial-sacral rhythm along the sagittal suture. The activity in the extensors is a result of weight resting on the ligaments that connect the sacrum to the pelvis and the enclosure of the extensors behind the sacrum by bone on three sides and the lumbar-dorsal fascia in the rear (roughly). Motion of the sacrum reflects changes in the cranial-sacral rhythm induced by activity in the extensors, activity in the extensors depends on motion at the sacrum induced by the cranial-sacral rhythm. I try sometimes to relax and sink, right where I am, but where I am keeps shifting. Anyway, I get that you once felt like the tailbone was bent back on itself, interesting feeling and I'm sure the tailbone wasn't actually bent back on itself but nevertheless a real feeling, and I'm sure that you have a feeling for flexing the pineal, and I'm wondering if you are actually flexing the sphenoid with its ends on the outer sides of the eye-sockets and its base down by the occiput base. What does the occiput feel like when you do this, I wonder? If the idea is that everyone should be at peace with themselves, that everyone should find their own salvation in the midst of change, then like the Taoists say maybe the important action doesn't look like anything and what marks the sage is that they have a glimmer of how important the action of being where they are, as they are, is (possibly because sometimes they can't breathe without it? Maybe that's reverse breathing?) Anyway,

That's very interesting, then. The Zen teacher Dogen went to China wondering why, if everyone has Buddha nature, must one practice zazen (essentially). So the 'pre-Laozi" logic points to the word and the task. Lately I am drawn to just being where I am moment after moment, the experience of a location in consciousness in three dimensions as it were, and how that acts and opens feeling. I recall many things, then I realize all I have to do is be where I am, and there's no way I can't be where I am if you get right down to it. Sort of the same question Dogen had, sort of the notion of the word and the task and yet easy peasy. Steve, I just like the part about floating on clouds and following the wind. I frequently lose Dogen as he justifies the Buddhism of his teaching- that's the way it reads to me. There were are again, the word and the task as it were- words up in the air on clouds, following the wind a task (seemingly), something like that. Hard to believe it could be easy peasy, have to keep open to that experience where I am, or it's all too much!

The research I heard about indicated that the left brain basically is left to make up explanations of right-brain behaviour, most of the time. Mathematicians have a corpus callosum that somehow manages more of a connection, so they can describe relationships in symbols. just an aside, and now back to the scintillatin' and somewhat scandalous Tao Bummery. Seems like there was at least one person looking to experiment long distance with O at D, wonder how that worked out. Myself, I just keep coming back to "I don't know!", is there a natural place that the hormones and the energy draw to that provides a greater sense of well-being with retention? All my life, I just figured it was the goddess's provence, and out of my hands. You got me thinking about it again Drew, and yet. I don't seem to have the ability or the desire to sit more than the 50 minutes I max out at now. And I'm not sure I want to channel energy for healing people, as laudable as that is. I guess I will explore a little more what kind of stretch that is, at 50 minutes, although I rely on the posture to tell me when to get up. That just means I need to listen very carefully now, I guess.

These mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the old buddhas. Each, abiding in its own dharma state, fulfills exhaustive virtues. Because they are the circumstances "prior to the kalpa of emptiness", they are this life of the present; because they are the self "before the germination of any subtle sign", they are liberated in their actual occurrence. Since the virtues of the mountain are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains, and the marvelous ability to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. from Dogen's Shobogenzo, translated by Bielefeldt, here. Love that!

I think it's along the lines of Foyan's two illnesses: looking for an ass while riding an ass, and riding an ass unable to dismount the ass. Why mount the ass at all, Foyan asked, back in the twelfth century. The monk who said "if I were doing something, that would be idleness" had no problems 'cause he never mounted the ass, even if he sometimes rode. I can't quite follow the quote from Ta Yi Sheng Shui- duty sounds Confucian, but I have no idea what's being expressed in these lines. Does it really translate "not boned"? Help, can you clarify this translation?

Thanks much for the clarification. A pause while I offer a view of the current state of cosmology: On wu wei, I like the monk who when asked what he was doing, replied he was doing nothing. When his questioner said that was idleness, the monk replied that if he were doing something, that would be idleness. Gautama the Buddha taught that the cessation of the activities is gradual. For one who has entered the first meditative state (hypnogogic state?), activity of speech has ceased; for one who has entered the fourth meditative state, activity of inhalation and exhalation has ceased; for one who has entered the realm of the cessation of perception and sensation, perception and sensation have ceased. The activities he referred to were the habitual activities, the volitive activities- thus, volitive activity in inhalation and exhalation ceases, volitive activity of perception and sensation has ceased. I'm going to just be where I am for awhile, and see what I feel and think, and maybe do nothing.

Not sure, not sure. The two hours a day is awesome to me. I guess the question for us both is how the chi comes to be "stored" in the tan-t'ien. I know yer thinkin' the long sitting and even the internal orgasm is important, and Chunyi Lin seems to encourage you to think the long sitting will work the trick for you; his remark about looking at how long someone can sit the lotus to see if they've mastered energy says it all, in that regard. Nevertheless, I am walking the ox as fast as the ox can be walked. I am betting the farm I can understand the process in terms of the place of occurrence of consciousness with respect to the locus of sense contact, impact on stretch, and ability to feel, even if I only realize the pleasant and unpleasant of it in my sense of location in practice. In particular I realize that there can be a feeling of absorption occasioned by impact when consciousness occurs in the vicinity of the tan-t'ien, and this is a pleasant thing, which informs my sense of location along with the feeling of near-pain occasioned by other impact of consciousness at stretches away from the tan-t'ien. I think I have a natural affinity for this feeling of absorption, and that affinity constitutes the storing of ch'i at the tan-t'ien in the parlance of Chinese martial arts. We'll see!

You can't really say that your friend wasn't reaching out to you psychicly when the thought occurred to you to contact him (or to try to get him to contact you). My take! Thanks, Drew, for the inspiration to look at sitting long. Brings back some things that maybe I'm ready for now, hard to say. Principally the piece in "Mechanical disorders of the lumbar spine", by Henry Farfan, pgs 182-183, about how the fascia behind the sacrum encloses the extensors on three sides and because the extensors bulk up as they contract, the extensors will stretch that fascia behind the sacrum when they contract (my illustration). This morning I am looking at the stretch of that fascia behind the sacrum, and thinking this is the critical stretch in support of the forward and backward motion of the sacrum, allowing the sacrum to pivot on the sacro-illiac joints. To my way of thinking, it is the sense of location in connection with consciousness that triggers the reciprocal innervation necessary to the stretch of the fascia behind the sacrum, and also to the stretch of the fascia from the sacrum to the sit-bones and the fascia from the sacrum to ischial spines (nice picture of the three sets of sacral ligaments). Hmmm, you know, I think I need a refresher course in this anatomy, while I'm at it! Taking what I'm feeling into that sense of location, I think I can open the activity of the extensors connected with that stretch behind the sacrum, in particular the way the stretch behind the sacrum supports activity and stretch up the spine. Maybe that will allow me to sit a little longer- long sitting this morning, probaby an hour, that's long for me!

Mula bandha, pubo-coccygeus? Ah, the Kegel! Look, Drew, something to back you up, from Wikipedia Kegel references: wow, fun, fun.

I think there are six miraculous feats spoken of in the Pali Canon- walking through walls is one. Let's see, diving through the earth like it was water; rising, floating through the air; making many out of one and one out of many, something like that; stroking the sun and moon with the hand; walking through solid earth or walls; walking on water. The Gautamid believed it was possible to stroke the sun and moon with the hand, and he also believed in a kind of small fairy. I like that he taught there was a further escape, that had a happiness associated with it. He described it as the cessation of perception and sensation, and said that others would question how a state where perception and sensation ceases could involve happiness but, he said, it did. This in the lecture where he told of how he nearly died as an ascetic, then after regaining his strength, he realized that the happiness he experienced as a boy meditating under a tree next to his father's fields was indeed the way. Happiness is the irresistible force, I do believe!

I feel that we now get down to it. Where's my crystal ball. For me, it's more about stepping past discriminations of good and bad, and letting the real feelings enter into the place I'm reading or writing from. I don't have to know what-all enters into my sense of place, to have a sense of place that is responsive. I do have to hold space for myself to develop a sense of place, to respond on Tao Bums. I have faith that if I myself am where I belong, what people have to give me will be appropriate, in spite of any appearances to the contrary. I have to find that faith, and deal with my own attraction, repulsion, and ignorance, but my experience has always shown me that such faith is well-placed. Have you read "Emotional Intelligence", by Daniel Goleman?

I think that waking up and falling asleep are the same practice, for me they depend on my sense of location. That's my experience. Meditative states I believe are hypnogogic states, between wakefulness and sleep. I think Gautama had it right when he taught that the cessation of the activities, meaning the habitual activities, is gradual; first in speech, then in body, and lastly in sensation and perception. In the first meditative state, he said, speech has ceased; in the fourth, inhalation and exhalation have ceased (this is habitual activity in the body and the effect of volition on the movement of breath, not the actual inhalation and exhalation, although some have tried to say otherwise!); and in the final meditative state, perception and sensation have ceased (again, the habitual or volitive activity of perception and sensation). I guess a person can get stuck on a posture, like the dialogue between the ancestors about trying to make a Buddha. I'm not sure that changing posture helps the individual to see where they are stuck. In the dialogue about making a Buddha, it's pointed out that when the cart won't go, you want to whip the horse, not the cart. For me this is what Drew is talking about with regard to consciousness, although I don't experience the energies that he speaks of; waking or sleeping, I find that the location of my consciousness moves, and if I allow the painful and the pleasant to inform the location of the occurrence of consciousness, the location of consciousness sits. If I am where I am as I am, the activities may cease; that's my experience, although I don't usually get the nice flow from ease to joy to equanimity to a further happiness that the Gautamid spoke of. Rough edges, but the mind of the lotus is somewhat unique in a proclivity to total stretch- at least it seems that way to me, from time to time.

I read somewhere that the latest research on PTSD shows that attitude toward the enemy affects recover, and maybe even the occurrence of PTSD in the first place. Those who respect their enemies, get over it, and those who denigrate their enemies do not. No surprises there, I suppose, from an Eastern wisdom perspective.

I really only look at my own energy, especially when I go to write, but also when I read. I try to reach into not knowing, until something comes out I didn't know before, or maybe something I knew before comes out in a different way. That's why I'm on Tao Bums, for the joy of discovery. I like reading what Drew has to say, although he is oftentimes speaking as though in a dream to me. I only look at how the relationships he describes feel to me, and I find some inspiration in what I feel, usually. I respect the masters of all the arts, but I like the statement of Foyan, a Ch'an teacher in 12th century China. He said that there were only two illnesses at his monastery: searching for an ass while riding an ass, and being mounted on an ass but unable to dismount. Isn't it better, he asked, never to mount the ass at all? I like what Scotty has to say, and pretty much what everybody on Tao Bums has to say. The folks who realized their own helplessness, who came to a crisis and found redemption, I feel particularly close to even when they are of another faith- I feel with them as I feel with Drew, that I have inspiration from the relationships they speak of when they describe how their faith operates in their daily life. I think Chunyi Lin mentioned that he does reverse breathing all day long. I find that as remarkable as his advice to sit the lotus 2 hours a day, to become a healer. Chunyi Lin by all accounts is an amazing healer, and I like what I have seen of his teaching. If I were able to sit the lotus two hours a day, I might think like Drew to become a healer. However, my effort has always been simply to teach myself to sit the lotus for forty minutes once or twice a day, to heal myself. Sometimes I think I should try to be more, to become an impeccable master, but then I realize that there's no way other than to be where I am 24/7 and that's more about not getting on the ass to begin with. So I give it up, to take it up, yet I don't expect I will become a healer. The energy in people's words, the effort should be to heal ourselves, and that comes through in strange ways sometimes. I love to dance, these words somehow make me feel like that!

snowless lands await down below, but for now- snow icycles hanging

I still think the ankh represents the cranial-sacral rhythm. The "ankh purification" above is a beautiful depiction of how the cranial-sacral rhythm is controlled by the nerves on the sagittal suture, and extends fluidly throughout the body. Thank you for that illustration, Vortex. The Egyptians seem to have understood that connection between the cranial-sacral rhythm and the movement of breath: and the relationship between ligaments of the sacrum (Isis Nephthys above), the cranial-sacral rhythm, and the free movement of consciousness. Also as I understand from Apech the importance of the hypnogogic states. They had the most amazing depictions of the relationship between human kinesthesiology, the cranial-sacral rhythm, the pulmonary rhythm, and consciousness; folks find it anathema to associate the spirit with the body, and look for some other explanation. I love that quote in Gospel of Thomas about being amazed at the riches in such poverty, to me that's what it means: