The Garden of Eden

[Marblehead]

yeah but  ...... I was born with it  ....  but  it dont look like that no more      

That is but a testimonial of the nature of change.

[FraterUFA]

one of the things I learned is just how far removed these Israeli, Lurianic lineages are from 'Hermetic' Qabalah, and not in a religious sense, the concepts discussed were very advanced, beyond anything I've seen discussed in books and most interestingly their 'work' in the initiate was measurable.

 

The two are very different, in the sense that grape vines grown in the wild will continue to propagate their lineage but have neither the beauty nor capability of producing great wine that well-tended grape vines do.

 

Is there still value in the GD and their offshoots? Maybe? But it always seems to bottleneck at a certain point  (as with my experience in BOTA) and this is why we see the general disarray of mainstream western occult groups, there is no meat and potatoes under that gravy. So then, if Mathers, Westcott or whoever were not initiated into a true hebraic esoteric lineage how can we expect them to produce 'correct' diagrams explaining the meaning of Genesis? 

 

Digging deep into the origins of the QBL, we find their roots in Sumeria and Egypt. The teachings were passed along and expanded upon endlessly throughout the ages in true Judaic fashion, until they became as distant from the esoteric root as modern theology is from the teachings of Christ. These intellectual trappings are sometimes mistaken for "advanced" teachings.

 

One of the important developments that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries was that the nonessential growths were pruned away from the QBL, just as the bushy canes are trimmed from the cultivated grape vine, leaving behind a strong and productive trunk. Some of this core teaching was intentionally leaked (I do not believe it was an accident) and found its way into the GD. 

 

Whether that is important or not depends on the individual. But in all of these teachings, there are an infinite number of side paths and distractions and very few roads that lead to the center.

 

UFA

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

 

 

Yep.  The conceptual creation of good/evil, god/devil, etc.

 

 

Well.

 

That's barely your starter for ten.

 

...

Edited April 23, 2016 by Captain Mar-Vell

[Michael Sternbach]

In my view, the tree in this story is the World Tree which holds the three levels of the Universe together, i.e. in Celtic mythology. Virtually every spiritual tradition has an equivalent of this.

 

Human beings reflect this tree in the system of their chakras - from "root" to "crown." On the physical level, human anatomy reflects the tree in the spine and the branch-like nervous system associated with it.

 

Of course, we see this in animals too - most significantly, the snake's skeleton is little more than a spine. No animal (except the human one) is erect, their spine being more or less parallel to the ground. Again, the crawling snake serves as the classic example.

 

While plants are in full harmony with the macrocosm that surrounds them, there is little they can do to alter the conditions of their existence. The ability of applying survival skills sets in with the mobility of the animal - in particular with the "fight or flight" response. This is the domain of the root chakra which connects to the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys. (In the development of the fetus, the kidneys are further down, first.) The flooding of the body with adrenal hormones in case of an emergency is triggered by that most ancient part of the brain which sits at the upper end of the spine and which we have in common with the reptiles!

 

Gnostic philosophy insists that the soul originated in the angelic realms and descended into an animalic body. This was a regrettable Fall from Grace according to some, a worthwhile enterprise according to others. Optimistic Gnosis actually sees it as a progression from a state of sublime but eventually sterile bliss to a recognition and eventual mastery (or so it is hoped) of the world of opposing forces. In this view, the eating of the Apple of Knowledge was actually what was meant to happen!

 

Hoping that this would add another perspective on this very interesting myth. BTW, it would seem that there was an earlier Babylonian version of it.

 

As it happens (), I just talked about some of the topics touched here also on Junko's Origin of Mankind thread, from a somewhat different angle.

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/40620-the-origin-of-mankind/page-81#entry687550

 

Hoping that this thread will continue.

[Marblehead]

Hoping that this thread will continue.

It would likely die if I get involved in it again.

[Nungali]

Not unless I follow you to save it  

 

 

 

 

[Marblehead]

Yeah, but even the iron butterfly couldn't stay aloft.  (Nor could the lead zeppelin.)

[Michael Sternbach]

[Nungali]

I'm going for the mythic 'reality approach', a real place that got misinterpreted and exaggerated over time and through stories.

 

Tracing the history of the  religious idea back ( to a 'constructed Jewish Scripture', during / post captivity and borrowing Zoroastrian precepts)  ;  'Para diz'  ,   'Shangri-la /  Shamballa',  Airyana  Vaeja / Airyanam Dakhyunam , Arya Varta  (supposedly the best place in the world to live ....  back then ) . 

 

http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/location.htm#jamshid

 

 

Around the Wakhan Valley .    Not exactly a garden of Eden in today's world !  

 

 

Edited May 14, 2016 by Nungali

[Nungali]

Also, we have one down here  ;

 

 

 

 

 

[Marblehead]

I didn't see any apple trees.  Lots of snakes though.

[Nungali]

No apples ... never had any in the first place.  

 

So no probs.

 

And its still there !  

 

Apples,  nudity shame,  and all that other weird Biblical stuff,   that comes from Europe . 

 

Garden of Eden was different down here !  

 

 

 

 

 

Snakes were not a problem . 

 

 

 

Everything worked pretty well, for 10s of 1000s of years  ..... then, in this version of the story, the 'tempter' with the ' forbidden'  fruit arrived (not a snake )  ;

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2016 by Nungali

[Marblehead]

 ..... then, in this version of the story, the 'tempter' with the ' forbidden'  fruit arrived (not a snake )  ;

We're not going to talk about that though.

 

Yes, it's amazing how many cultures lived in nakedness until "civilized man" told them that it was a sin.

[Nungali]

I remember watching a dodo on some Arctic explorer.  He went to live with some group of Eskimo or Inuit (or whoever) to learn survival skills in case his crew got in trouble  (smart move learning off the locals ).    You would think a  European would be safe from 'nude shame' up there ?  

 

Things went well until bed time ; the men stripped naked, covered themselves with oil inside a big igloo and all got into bed together. 

 

The European  ?  

 

 

 "OHHH!  No no no, I will be OK over here in the corner ."

 

"No you won't, you will freeze to death, come over here and get in with us, "

 

 

Nope, he spent the night huddled in the corner hovering in and out of hypothermia .   If he had translated those 'skills' to his  crew if they got stranded, he would have been responsible for killing them. 

 

At least they would have gone out with ' moral dignity' intact  !           

[Bindi]

So, I had a dream about this topic which I’d like to share. “I” was driving along, and there was a bit of water on the road so I started to fishtail from left to right repeatedly, always just managing to stay in control. I was then sitting in a University lecture hall and I noticed on the stage where the lecturer was that there was a tree. In the next scene I was barging through a couple to get somewhere, and then I was under the tree and taking a piece of fruit and eating it. The fruit looked like a baby squash and had the texture of dates and tasted a bit like a fig, and it had a small bunch of spinach leaves growing downwards from its underside. I felt a bit ashamed that I had barged through the couple so I offered a piece of fruit to the man and he accepted it and ate it. 
 

Then the trunk of the tree disappeared and only the branches and leaves and fruit remained, suspended in the air. I sat  at a dining table under the suspended crown of the tree thinking I would like to get more fruit, but that it would be too uncouth to stand up on the table, so I just sat there waiting and the dream ended. 
 

I do think this dream refers to kundalini by the action of my driving, the constant fishtailing which is the same motion as a snake, and the fact that I was driving the car suggests to me that “i” was in the role of kundalini consciousness. The couple that I barged through to me were the subtle energy channels on the side of the central channel where they cross, and my offering the fruit to the man because I was a bit ashamed (immense overtones of the Adam Eve story here) in my interpretation was offering the fruit of the tree of knowledge to the masculine subtle energy channel which I equate with the mental plane - this image is where I get the idea that the mundane mental level is brought along on the ‘spiritual’ journey. 
 

I found it interesting that I only had one piece of fruit and the man only had one also, I also found it interesting that the trunk disappeared and that I was left waiting at the dining table underneath “the crown” for more. 
 

A fundamental question must be am I mapping my experience onto a Christian format, or is this the reality of the subtle energy system. I strongly think the latter myself. Bums thoughts welcome. 
 

 

Edited March 3 by Bindi

[Nungali]

They  ( the bums ) will be interpreting it for themselves  IF they have a Christian influence running internally ;  Oh yes,, Bindi  that is a conditioning from   Adam and Eve story. But if they dont have that and practice  'subtle energy systems' or 'just like the concept '  they will  agree with you .

 

In other words , its very hard to see inside someones head .... unless one knows a LOT about that person, background, current state  internally , what current influences , etc .

 

So, I would say ;   get some new tires and dont forget to take your lunch with you to Uni .  (and dont forget to eat some greens... and dont be so 'pushy'  ) .

 

[Mark Foote]

21 hours ago, Bindi said:

So, I had a dream about this topic which I’d like to share. “I” was driving along, and there was a bit of water on the road so I started to fishtail from left to right repeatedly, always just managing to stay in control. I was then sitting in a University lecture hall and I noticed on the stage where the lecturer was that there was a tree. In the next scene I was barging through a couple to get somewhere, and then I was under the tree and taking a piece of fruit and eating it. The fruit looked like a baby squash and had the texture of dates and tasted a bit like a fig, and it had a small bunch of spinach leaves growing downwards from its underside. I felt a bit ashamed that I had barged through the couple so I offered a piece of fruit to the man and he accepted it and ate it. 
 

Then the trunk of the tree disappeared and only the branches and leaves and fruit remained, suspended in the air. I sat  at a dining table under the suspended crown of the tree thinking I would like to get more fruit, but that it would be too uncouth to stand up on the table, so I just sat there waiting and the dream ended. 
 

I do think this dream refers to kundalini by the action of my driving, the constant fishtailing which is the same motion as a snake, and the fact that I was driving the car suggests to me that “i” was in the role of kundalini consciousness. The couple that I barged through to me were the subtle energy channels on the side of the central channel where they cross, and my offering the fruit to the man because I was a bit ashamed (immense overtones of the Adam Eve story here) in my interpretation was offering the fruit of the tree of knowledge to the masculine subtle energy channel which I equate with the mental plane - this image is where I get the idea that the mundane mental level is brought along on the ‘spiritual’ journey. 
 

I found it interesting that I only had one piece of fruit and the man only had one also, I also found it interesting that the trunk disappeared and that I was left waiting at the dining table underneath “the crown” for more. 
 

A fundamental question must be am I mapping my experience onto a Christian format, or is this the reality of the subtle energy system. I strongly think the latter myself. Bums thoughts welcome. 
 

 

What a profound dream!

I follow a progression like this in my sitting, for awhile now.  I drive, I'm at a tree with a trunk, there's a man and woman in the active and receptive aspects of my effort, there's a taste of action by virtue of the placement of attention rather than volition, then there's no trunk but just a recognition of something that I have already partaken of.

Forgive me if you've already read this, from a post of mine last fall:
 

Although attention can be directed to the movement of breath, necessity in the movement of breath can also direct attention, as I wrote previously:

 

There can… 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.

 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages.

 

... Foyan (12th-century Chinese Zen teacher) spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. (Shunryu) Suzuki provided an analogy:
 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.
 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:
 

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

[S:C]

Mind can and will find - in my opinion- many frames of reference and will use all your known  and unconscious inferences, draw from all (cultural) backgrounds, to make sense of something a bit like it was already mentioned in the thread about another dream interpretation recently. 
 

So every bum you ask will bring their own subjective „baggage“ and background into the interpretation.

For me it’s too many unconnected scenes in your dream to see a consistent story. However:

Were the scenes connected in your opinion and by what? 

Moreover what’s important is what you found interesting: the pieces of fruit of the man and yours and the then lacking trunk of the tree. 
 

What could the fruit be a symbol of? You were surprised that there was only one, maybe one is enough already? (Enough of what is your interpretation.) You were expecting more then one. Were all persons involved parts of yourself to conjoin? Or were they „really“ different persons albeit in a different perception mode?
 

You speak of a different kind of consciousness, all partaking, if I understand correctly. You also took reference of the tree to a human body. The lacking trunk (symbolizing personal energetic source) might refer to a different (more) ‚impersonal‘ source of energy and mind matter, unrooted in a subject, so to speak.

 

To your question:am I mapping my experience onto a Christian format, or is this the reality of the subtle energy system.

To me, the allegory works just as well with the daoist concepts, if you abstract it to some degree. (What’s the fruit in that modell.. a yes…) So I‘d tend to favor your latter option, but as so far as you experience your subtle energy system and that of others in your view. Cannot speak for any objectivity.

Edited March 4 by S:C

[Bindi]

On 5/3/2024 at 5:58 AM, Mark Foote said:

What a profound dream!

I follow a progression like this in my sitting, for awhile now.  I drive, I'm at a tree with a trunk, there's a man and woman in the active and receptive aspects of my effort, there's a taste of action by virtue of the placement of attention rather than volition, then there's no trunk but just a recognition of something that I have already partaken of.

 

 

Interesting, is this a scenario you have consciously created or did the scene just happen? 

 

On 5/3/2024 at 5:58 AM, Mark Foote said:

Forgive me if you've already read this, from a post of mine last fall:
 

Although attention can be directed to the movement of breath, necessity in the movement of breath can also direct attention, as I wrote previously:

 

There can… 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.

 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages.

 

... Foyan (12th-century Chinese Zen teacher) spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. (Shunryu) Suzuki provided an analogy:
 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.
 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:
 

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

[Bindi]

On 5/3/2024 at 6:07 AM, S:C said:

Mind can and will find - in my opinion- many frames of reference and will use all your known  and unconscious inferences, draw from all (cultural) backgrounds, to make sense of something a bit like it was already mentioned in the thread about another dream interpretation recently. 
 

So every bum you ask will bring their own subjective „baggage“ and background into the interpretation.

For me it’s too many unconnected scenes in your dream to see a consistent story. However:

Were the scenes connected in your opinion and by what? 

Moreover what’s important is what you found interesting: the pieces of fruit of the man and yours and the then lacking trunk of the tree. 

 

After a few days I am thinking that the tree trunk is the central channel, it disappears because my consciousness doesn’t need to travel downwards again once it’s arrived here, like that path no longer even exists so there’s not even an option to descend. I recall a dream someone told me where they were driving and crashed into the trunk of a tree and died. I think his dream was showing him that his method of entering the central channel was doomed to failure, as he was ‘playing’ with energy at the time. 

 

Quote

 

What could the fruit be a symbol of? You were surprised that there was only one, maybe one is enough already? (Enough of what is your interpretation.) You were expecting more then one.
 

 

I honestly think the fruit was “fruit of the tree of knowledge”, and only one piece because too much new knowledge would overwhelm a person. I imagine sitting at the dining table the fruit will drop onto the table at the right time, in the right amount. I’m thinking today that the dining table might be the chakra below the crown. 

 

Quote

Were all persons involved parts of yourself to conjoin? Or were they „really“ different persons albeit in a different perception mode?

 

Yes all persons were parts of myself, in the koshas model one identifies with various levels of the self over time, progressively identifying with a deeper part of the self until one arrives at the final layer, the true self. In my dream I believe I am identifying with kundalini consciousness and how that consciousness relates to the mundane mental level. Whether kundalini consciousness is the true self or the true self is deeper than that I will have to wait and see, as there is a lot to digest still at the kundalini consciousness level. 

 

Quote

 

You speak of a different kind of consciousness, all partaking, if I understand correctly. You also took reference of the tree to a human body. The lacking trunk (symbolizing personal energetic source) might refer to a different (more) ‚impersonal‘ source of energy and mind matter, unrooted in a subject, so to speak.

 

To your question:am I mapping my experience onto a Christian format, or is this the reality of the subtle energy system.

To me, the allegory works just as well with the daoist concepts, if you abstract it to some degree. (What’s the fruit in that modell.. a yes…) So I‘d tend to favor your latter option, but as so far as you experience your subtle energy system and that of others in your view. Cannot speak for any objectivity.

I think there is an objectively true subtle energy system that operates to a greater or lesser degree in everyone. I do aim to understand that system, for now my dreams give me some information, I can only hope that when my dream gets played out in real time within myself that information about the subtle energy system, it’s setup and operation, will become more direct. 

[Mark Foote]

On 3/6/2024 at 1:03 PM, Bindi said:

 

Quote

  On 3/4/2024 at 1:58 PM, Mark Foote said:

What a profound dream!

I follow a progression like this in my sitting, for awhile now.  I drive, I'm at a tree with a trunk, there's a man and woman in the active and receptive aspects of my effort, there's a taste of action by virtue of the placement of attention rather than volition, then there's no trunk but just a recognition of something that I have already partaken of.
 

Interesting, is this a scenario you have consciously created or did the scene just happen? 

 

 

I'm just relating the symbols in your dream to my experience in sitting.

The fruit that drops on the table--a one-pointedness of mind that can shift location and a sense of gravity that pervades the body are the fruit and the table to me.  There's no eating the fruit.
 

The striking thing to me about my experience on the cushion these days is that I am practicing some kind of scales, as it were.  Gautama outlined the feeling of four states, the initial three and then the “purity by the pureness of [one’s] mind”, the fourth.  I’ve described that “pureness of mind” as what remains when “doing something” ceases, and I wrote:

 

When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath.

 

The rest of the scales are looking for a grip where attention takes place in the body, as “one-pointedness” turns and engenders a counter-turn (without losing the freedom of movement of attention); finding ligaments that control reciprocal innervation in the lower body and along the spine through relaxation, and calming the stretch of ligaments; and discovering hands, feet, and teeth together with “one-pointedness” (“bite through here”, as Yuanwu advised; “then we can walk together hand in hand”, as Yuanwu’s teacher Wu Tsu advised).

 

In the months since I wrote my friend, I’ve had some time to reflect. There are some things I would add, on my practice of “scales”.

 

Gautama spoke of suffusing the body with “zest and ease” in the first concentration:

 

 “… (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.”

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134)

 

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey a sense of gravity, while the phrase “not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” speaks to the “one-pointedness” of attention, even as the body is suffused.

 

If I can find a way to experience gravity in the placement of attention as the source of activity in my posture, and particular ligaments as the source of the reciprocity in that activity, then I have an ease.

 

("To Enjoy Our Life")

 

 

 

[S:C]

2 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

bite through here”, as Yuanwu advised; “then we can walk together hand in hand”, as Yuanwu’s teacher Wu Tsu advised).

Sorry for the derailing: where is this from and what does it mean? 

[Mark Foote]

16 hours ago, S:C said:

 

Quote

 Mark Foote said:

bite through here”, as Yuanwu advised; “then we can walk together hand in hand”, as Yuanwu’s teacher Wu Tsu advised).
 

Sorry for the derailing: where is this from and what does it mean? 
 

As to "where it's from".

 

You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality.
 

("Zen Letters:  Teachings of Yuanwu", translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, p 84)

 

 

Wikipedia:  "Yuanwu Keqin (1063–1135) was a Han Chinese Chan monk who compiled the Blue Cliff Record." 

 

The "Blue Cliff Record" is a famous compendium of Zen "cases".

The quote from Wu Tsu, I took from Yuanwu's commentary on a case in the "Blue Cliff Record":

 

‘Hsueh Feng taught the assembly saying, “On South Mountain there’s a turtle-nosed snake. All of you people must take a good look.”’

 

… When Hsueh Feng speaks this way, ‘On South Mountain there’s a turtle-nosed snake,’ tell me, where is it?

 

... My late teacher Wu Tsu said, “With this turtle-nosed snake, you must have the ability not to get your hands or legs bitten. Hold him tight by the back of the neck with one quick grab. Then you can join hands and walk along with me.”

 

(The Blue Cliff Record, tr. Cleary Cleary, “Twenty-second Case: Hsueh Feng’s Turtle-Nosed Snake”, p 144, 151)

 

 

Regarding "one quick grab", I wrote:

 

I’m bound to be bitten by Wu Tsu, if I take his advice to mean there’s something I should do.  It’s about realizing a cessation of “doing”, but I think I might run into him, in the stretch of ligaments.

(Common Ground)

 

 

 

Edited March 9 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

16 hours ago, S:C said:

Sorry for the derailing: where is this from and what does it mean? 
 

As to what it means:  you could do worse, than to read my PDF A Natural Mindfulness.  Not by much, but you could.

 

I'll try for the Reader's Digest version.

 

 

Gautama spoke of laying hold of “one-pointedness” in the induction of the first “trance”:

 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.
  

(SN V 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; “noble” substituted for Ariyan)

 

I have described the experience of “one-pointedness of mind” as something that can occur in the movement of breath:

 

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.

 

In my experience, the “placement of attention” by the movement of breath only occurs freely in what Gautama described as “the fourth musing”:

 

Again, a (person), putting away ease… enters and abides in the fourth musing; seated, (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind.  
 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93)

 

The “pureness of mind” refers to the absence of any intention to act. Suffusing the body with “purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind” is widening awareness so that there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot become the location where attention is placed. 

 

Gautama's description of the feeling of the "third musing" went as follows:

 

… free from the fervor of zest, (one) enters and abides in the third musing; (one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease. … just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water-lillies, the plants are born in water, grow in water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one’s) body in zestless ease.

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134)

 

 

I wrote:

 

In my experience, the base of consciousness (the placement of attention) can shift to a location that reflects involuntary activity in the limbs and in the jaw and skull. The feeling for activity in the legs, the arms, and the skull is indeed like an awareness of three varieties of one plant grown entirely below a waterline. The experience does have an ease, does require equanimity with regard to the senses, and generally resembles a kind of waking sleep.

 

(The Early Record, parenthetical added)

 

 

About that "ease":

 

Gautama spoke of suffusing the body with “zest and ease” in the first concentration:

 

 “… (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.”

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134)

 

 

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey a sense of gravity, while the phrase “not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” speaks to the “one-pointedness” of attention, even as the body is suffused.

 

If I can find a way to experience gravity in the placement of attention as the source of activity in my posture, and particular ligaments as the source of the reciprocity in that activity, then I have an ease.

 

("To Enjoy Our Life")

 

 

The striking thing to me about my experience on the cushion these days is that I am practicing some kind of scales, as it were.  Gautama outlined the feeling of four states, the initial three and then the “purity by the pureness of [one’s] mind”, the fourth.  I’ve described that “pureness of mind” as what remains when “doing something” ceases, and I wrote:

 

When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath.

 

 

The rest of the scales are looking for a grip where attention takes place in the body, as “one-pointedness” turns and engenders a counter-turn (without losing the freedom of movement of attention); finding ligaments that control reciprocal innervation in the lower body and along the spine through relaxation, and calming the stretch of ligaments; and discovering hands, feet, and teeth together with “one-pointedness” (“bite through here”, as Yuanwu advised; “then we can walk together hand in hand”, as Yuanwu’s teacher Wu Tsu advised).

 

("To Enjoy Our Life")

 

Edited March 9 by Mark Foote