Into the Stream ~ A Study Guide on the First Stage of Awakening

[stirling]

On 3/14/2023 at 9:28 PM, Mark Foote said:

I'm saying the voice in many of the sermons in Khuddaka doesn't quite sound quite like the voice in the first four Nikayas.  Even the voice of the chief disciple, Sariputta, in speeches in the first four Nikayas approved by the Gautamid himself, doesn't sound like Gautama to me, as far as what he has to say.  That's only to be expected, but I find many of the speeches attributed to Gautama in the first four Nikayas resonate with me, somehow.  And I don't trust the later compositions, from my experience with them so far.

 

I think you are saying that you only trust a portion of the Tripitaka teachings to be authentic dharma, is that correct? Are you also saying to you don't trust the written or spoken dharma of later teachers?

 

I guess I would keep in mind that, like many religious historical figures, the first written accounts were made many years after the initial events. In this case the Pali Canon is mostly 500 years after the life of the historical Buddha. Being that we apparently aren't even sure who shot JFK, I think expecting the exact words, or even complete intention, of what the Buddha MIGHT have said could only truly have been preserved IF it had been passed verbally down through enlightened teachers. It still would be unlikely to be the exact words of the Buddha, so pouring over every word would be folly, IMHO. It is the INTENT the matters, and the only way to be sure about what that intent was would be to have a complete understanding (Wisdom/Prajna) of the topic at hand.
 

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"Zazen sits zazen" when the activity of the body in the movement of breath follows autonomically from exactly where I sense myself to be, from one moment to the next.  The idea of "not self" is in the head, but the place where I sense myself to be is where I am when I detach from thought.  That place can sit, as a part of the movement of breath, with the whole body contributing.

 

I would say that no-self is the experience of being. Non-conceptual. This is when zazen sits zazen. Suzuki knew this intimately... completely. He wasn't watching his breath when he sat. Watching the breath is akin to picking up the raft and pointless carrying it with you after you have crossed the river. Unnecessary. Not sure if you knew this but Blanche ALSO had complete understanding:

 

 

This is the back of her rakusu. It says, "Finished".

 

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According to Gautama, the thinking mind, as one of the six senses, remains a regular "disturbance" even when volition in "feeling and perceiving" has ceased.

 

Oh... absolutely. It becomes deprecated, from the sense of being what "we" are, to being just another sensory input on awakening. In fact, the six doors are eventually realized to be empty like everything else - there ARE no doors, just unlabeled perceptions in consciousness arising and passing.

 

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Gautama said he returned to "that state of concentration in which I constantly abide" after he spoke. 

I'm sure. This "state", which is no state at all, is just shikantazaa/dzogchen/open awareness. 

 

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Although he apparently arrived at the cessation of volition in the activity of in-breathing and out-breathing regularly, I gather that he then used the survey-sign of the concentration to return to that cessation as necessary and was satisfied to apply and sustain thought in the four arisings most of the time--he described a particular course of thoughts applied and sustained in the four arisings as his way of living (both before and after his enlightenment).

 

I would guess that he probably just got his posture right and dropped/surrendered all of his "doing". 
 

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At times allowing the place where I am, and the contact in the senses experienced in the place where I am, to sit requires relaxation, calm, detachment, and presence.  Most of the time.  Some of the time it's effortless.  Maybe that's the stage of the practice I'm in, but I suspect it will always take me a while to settle in.

 

With practice, this is really all it takes. It does take a bit to allow the stillness to well up, but making this seem like there is a procedure just gives you one more thing you'll need to drop eventually. 

 

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If you're asking me do I think that all the lineage holders are enlightened, I don't think that's a requirement, to be a lineage holder.  If you're asking me have I met any enlightened teachers, I don't think so, but that hasn't kept some teachers from being a life-long influence on me.  

 

I think you'd be surprised at how many there are, though I agree that something like 60% of "transmitted" teachers may not be enlightened. The standards for this are lax, IMHO.

 

Buddhism wasn't created because it was almost impossible to become enlightened, but because it is ABSOLUTELY possible to become enlightened. Why else would Syd bother, right?  Why dedicate yourself to an impossible task, or keep writing new perspectives and practices about it.

 

I think you said you met Blanche... there's at least one you've met. If you met Suzuki, that is certainly two. Kobun would make three... I could go on and on, and these are just the dead people. I ask this question because I am wondering if you believe in the efficacy of teachings from anyone alive (or even someone labeled the Buddha in a sutra, but not meeting your personal criteria) but also because I believe it is of great benefit to seek out and meet and work with those who have this insight.

Edited March 16, 2023 by stirling
*clarity*

[stirling]

On 3/14/2023 at 3:21 PM, Maddie said:

Probably, but the elimination of ego would make discovering these people very difficult, because they would most likely feel no need to proclaim this to anyone. 

 

You raise and interesting point: How are we defining "ego" (or "self"?) in this context. I've met a number of more obnoxious outgoing people with insight. At least one that I haven't met (but am entirely convinced by) Is a very boisterous outgoing personality that is not afraid to talk about his insight, OR get attention for the non-profit dharma-based projects he is working on. 

Edited March 16, 2023 by stirling

[Maddie]

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

You raise and interesting point: How are we defining "ego" (or "self"?) in this context. I've met a number of more obnoxious outgoing people with insight. At least one that I haven't met (but am entirely convinced by) Is a very boisterous outgoing personality that is not afraid to talk about his insight, OR get attention for the non-profit dharma-based projects he is working on. 

 

The way the Buddha defined the ego was identifying with any of the five aggregates as being the self. 

[Mark Foote]

5 hours ago, stirling said:

 

(below)
 

 

I think you are saying that you only trust a portion of the Tripitaka teachings to be authentic dharma, is that correct? Are you also saying to you don't trust the written or spoken dharma of later teachers?

I trust the first four Nikayas, the sermons delivered by Gautama.  There are later teachers I trust, especially Yuanwu, and Dogen--though Dogen tends to go on and on commenting on the Chinese material, and for me there's not much in that.  

 

I guess I would keep in mind that, like many religious historical figures, the first written accounts were made many years after the initial events. In this case the Pali Canon is mostly 500 years after the life of the historical Buddha. Being that we apparently aren't even sure who shot JFK, I think expecting the exact words, or even complete intention, of what the Buddha MIGHT have said could only truly have been preserved IF it had been passed verbally down through enlightened teachers. It still would be unlikely to be the exact words of the Buddha, so pouring over every word would be folly, IMHO. It is the INTENT the matters, and the only way to be sure about what that intent was would be to have a complete understanding (Wisdom/Prajna) of the topic at hand.

My understanding is that many of the monks had photographic memories for sound, in particular Gautama's attendant of many years Ananda had such a memory.  My assumption is that what was rehearsed after Gautama's death and what was written down in Sri Lanka around the start of the common era is remarkably true to the words of one individual, mostly because of what that individual said and did not say.  The tendency was for his disciples to say more than he said, and somehow the additions don't ring true to me.

 

I would say that no-self is the experience of being. Non-conceptual. This is when zazen sits zazen. Suzuki knew this intimately... completely. He wasn't watching his breath when he sat. Watching the breath is akin to picking up the raft and pointless carrying it with you after you have crossed the river. Unnecessary. Not sure if you knew this but Blanche ALSO had complete understanding:

 

The beauty of Chadwick's "Crooked Cucumber"!  We learn that after Suzuki nearly drowned at a Tassajara swimming hole (he was fished out by the students at the 'hole), he stressed awareness of the breath in practice and daily life for awhile.

 

This is the back of her rakusu. It says, "Finished".

 

I remember Blanche recalling at a Kobun memorial gathering how, one morning, she set off to teach mindfulness and discovered she had buttoned her blouse one button off.  That was something I loved about Blanche, she didn't feel like she was enlightened.  After she received transmission, she asked Kobun what she should teach, and he said, "whatever you like", something like that--she found that reassuring.  
 

Oh... absolutely. It becomes deprecated, from the sense of being what "we" are, to being just another sensory input on awakening. In fact, the six doors are eventually realized to be empty like everything else - there ARE no doors, just unlabeled perceptions in consciousness arising and passing.

Consciousness arises from contact in one of the six senses--I don't experience it that way, but I believe Gautama experienced it that way, perhaps just in the cessation of feeling and perceiving (lecture "The Great Sixfold (Sense-) Field" in MN III).

(Quote:  Gautama said he returned to "that state of concentration in which I constantly abide" after he spoke.)

I'm sure. This "state", which is no state at all, is just shikantazaa/dzogchen/open awareness. 

I would guess it was the first concentration, where mindfulness of inhalation or exhalation is accompanied by thought applied and sustained in one of the sixteen elements Gautama described as his way of living.

 

I would guess that he probably just got his posture right and dropped/surrendered all of his "doing". 

With you on that, but maybe he simply included the big drop among the juggling pins that made up his mindfulness.

 

With practice, this is really all it takes. It does take a bit to allow the stillness to well up, but making this seem like there is a procedure just gives you one more thing you'll need to drop eventually. 

Therein lies the rub.  Did Gautama give practical advice?  Yes.  Is it possible to intentionally drop mind and body?  Yes and no.  For the most part, we're left with the situation Foyan described at his monastery as "two illnesses"--looking for the ass while riding the ass, and riding the ass unable to dismount the ass.  Foyan concluded by saying "you are the ass", but I think it's ok to relax the current activity of breath, find calm in the face of involuntary activity, detach the mind, and find some presence of mind.  When "purity by the pureness of mind" can be found, then I really am the ass, fine.

 

I think you'd be surprised at how many there are, though I agree that something like 60% of "transmitted" teachers may not be enlightened. The standards for this are lax, IMHO.

That's why the Oakland Zen Center and Reverend Akiba have been raising money (from Japan) and building a finishing school for American Zen teachers in Lower Lake, California (Tenpyozan). 
 

http://www.tenpyozan.org/

 

Buddhism wasn't created because it was almost impossible to become enlightened, but because it is ABSOLUTELY possible to become enlightened. Why else would Syd bother, right?  Why dedicate yourself to an impossible task, or keep writing new perspectives and practices about it.

Even if I don't attain the cessation of feeling and perceiving, and see for myself the truth that Gautama realized in that attainment, the teaching that he and others left behind has helped me like a miracle, somehow.  As I said, even the words of his disciples, words approved by him at the time, seem a little off the mark to me in their additions.  The story about Gautama holding up a flower--turns out the Mandarva trees blossomed out of season, and Mahakasyapa encountered a naked ascetic holding one who relayed the news about Gautama's death.  Kasayapa proceded to the town with Gautama's funeral pyre, and after his circumabulations, he took the bowl and robe (it's in DN Mahaparanirvana Sutta).  Wordless transmission!  Yes, I do believe there are masters whose physical presence can teach, but it's best when the presence is accompanied by a few words (IMHO).  That is what really set Gautama apart.

 

I think you said you met Blanche... there's at least one you've met. If you met Suzuki, that is certainly two. Kobun would make three... I could go on and on, and these are just the dead people. I ask this question because I am wondering if you believe in the efficacy of teachings from anyone alive (or even someone labeled the Buddha in a sutra, but not meeting your personal criteria) but also because I believe it is of great benefit to seek out and meet and work with those who have this insight.

(see above?)  I've quoted that first part of "Two Shores of Zen" by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler before, but I'll quote it again.  

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara. 

I'm not saying that when the autonomic activity of the body comes out of the placement of attention by the movement of breath, attention is always in the hara, but it does happen that way a lot.  Nevertheless, at such time, "there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind"--the mind that moves, even if it's in the hara.

Not opposed to teachers, but as I'm sure you know, zazen is a teacher.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Lairg]

2 hours ago, stirling said:

. I've met a number of more obnoxious outgoing people with insight.

 

It may be that there are various modes of human incarnation with some spirits coming from other systems to enter the human race.

 

Such spirits take quite a while to learn how to pass for an Earth human. 

 

Meanwhile they may carry beneficial or adverse payloads that they are keen to discharge - regardless of their imperfect humanness.

 

When an Earth human stills its mind,  it may be able to test/measure such non-standard humans.

 

Judgement is not required, but wise perception is the basis of right relationship with such entities

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Lairg

[stirling]

Quite right. Does that mean someone wouldn't announce or share that their understanding that all appearances, senses and thoughts are empty of "self"?

 

It would be pointless, naturally, since the emptiness of "self" is the understanding that the entirety of the dharmakaya is already enlightened, and yet this is the first thing most of those that have this insight are compelled to do. It is precisely what the Buddha did - he shared his understanding with others. He declared his awakening in his first sermon.

[stirling]

19 hours ago, Lairg said:

It may be that there are various modes of human incarnation with some spirits coming from other systems to enter the human race.

 

Such spirits take quite a while to learn how to pass for an Earth human. 

 

Meanwhile they may carry beneficial or adverse payloads that they are keen to discharge - regardless of their imperfect humanness.

 

When an Earth human stills its mind,  it may be able to test/measure such non-standard humans.

 

Judgement is not required, but wise perception is the basis of right relationship with such entities

 

Honestly I would say "earth humans" are some of the most obnoxious beings out there... but that's what comes of belief in intrinsic existence.

 

I agree that learning to still the mind leads to some very interesting abilities of discernment, and I have seen some STRANGE things, but confess that humans all still seem like humans to me.

[stirling]

On 3/16/2023 at 5:18 PM, Mark Foote said:

My understanding is that many of the monks had photographic memories for sound, in particular Gautama's attendant of many years Ananda had such a memory.  My assumption is that what was rehearsed after Gautama's death and what was written down in Sri Lanka around the start of the common era is remarkably true to the words of one individual, mostly because of what that individual said and did not say.  The tendency was for his disciples to say more than he said, and somehow the additions don't ring true to me.

 

The monks that might have heard Syd speak probably didn't even live to be 30. I appreciate your interest in authenticity, but to expect there to be 500 years of people with photographic memories that passed down the teachings of one chap seems far fetched to me. Even so, I respect that this is your belief - there is enough in that narrow selection to do the job.

 

 

Quote

The beauty of Chadwick's "Crooked Cucumber"!  We learn that after Suzuki nearly drowned at a Tassajara swimming hole (he was fished out by the students at the 'hole), he stressed awareness of the breath in practice and daily life for awhile.

 

Sure. A teacher using "skillful means" will start with teaching some to watch the breath and teach others shikantaza, each according to their abilities. The relative is a bridge to the absolute, and not just in Buddhism. The synchronicity of Suzuki's near death in the water and Kobun's drowning while at Vanya's Felsentor is an interesting parallel I had forgotten about!

 

I remember Blanche recalling at a Kobun memorial gathering how, one morning, she set off to teach mindfulness and discovered she had buttoned her blouse one button off.  That was something I loved about Blanche, she didn't feel like she was enlightened.  After she received transmission, she asked Kobun what she should teach, and he said, "whatever you like", something like that--she found that reassuring.

 

My own late teacher (one of Blanche's transmitted teachers) told me something similar - to trust Wisdom to determine what to talk about in a dharma talk. She always put a small piece of paper with a few notes up the sleeve of her robes, and very occasionally would pull it to see if she had covered everything (or anything) she had set out to speak about. Sometimes it would be about something completely different. She loved that!

Consciousness arises from contact in one of the six senses--I don't experience it that way, but I believe Gautama experienced it that way, perhaps just in the cessation of feeling and perceiving (lecture "The Great Sixfold (Sense-) Field" in MN III).

(Quote:  Gautama said he returned to "that state of concentration in which I constantly abide" after he spoke.)

 

For sure, but this teaching about 6 senses is itself a relative teaching. When seen from "self", we impute 6 senses. Ultimately there are no senses just perceptions arising and passing. "Color and Light". 

 

The "state of concentration in which I constantly abide" is shikantaza (vs. zazen), which is also precisely dzogchen... resting in open awareness (emptiness) watching the play of the dharmakaya arise and pass away. I'm sure you know what I mean... it is what happens when the "technique" or watching the breath drops away and there is just presence and stillness.

Therein lies the rub.  Did Gautama give practical advice?  Yes.  Is it possible to intentionally drop mind and body?  Yes and no.  For the most part, we're left with the situation Foyan described at his monastery as "two illnesses"--looking for the ass while riding the ass, and riding the ass unable to dismount the ass.  Foyan concluded by saying "you are the ass", but I think it's ok to relax the current activity of breath, find calm in the face of involuntary activity, detach the mind, and find some presence of mind.  When "purity by the pureness of mind" can be found, then I really am the ass, fine.

 

All of the Syd's advice is practical, but practical for whom? He was a teacher in the presence of students in most of his sutras. He seems to have known his audience in whichever of the bodies of his teaching you consider... so he gives relative teachings AND he gives absolute teachings. 

 

"In the seeing, just the seen" (Bahiya sutra) is PITH instruction, regardless of who you think passed it on. Pure absolute teaching. Just as "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" is. No messing around... no practices, no prevarication. Yes, I am a fan of this kind of thing.

 

That's why the Oakland Zen Center and Reverend Akiba have been raising money (from Japan) and building a finishing school for American Zen teachers in Lower Lake, California (Tenpyozan). 
 

http://www.tenpyozan.org/

 

Wow... that's great! I'll have to ask my teacher about her take on that one. It's a great idea, depending on who is running it. Insight often comes with 10 years of "finishing". Zen "sickness" happens in all traditions, though it may not have a name. Many will naturally be driven to run away to a cave or monastery for this period. This is where having a tradition and a teacher really come in handy. 

 

Even if I don't attain the cessation of feeling and perceiving, and see for myself the truth that Gautama realized in that attainment, the teaching that he and others left behind has helped me like a miracle, somehow.  As I said, even the words of his disciples, words approved by him at the time, seem a little off the mark to me in their additions.  The story about Gautama holding up a flower--turns out the Mandarva trees blossomed out of season, and Mahakasyapa encountered a naked ascetic holding one who relayed the news about Gautama's death.  Kasayapa proceded to the town with Gautama's funeral pyre, and after his circumabulations, he took the bowl and robe (it's in DN Mahaparanirvana Sutta).  Wordless transmission!  Yes, I do believe there are masters whose physical presence can teach, but it's best when the presence is accompanied by a few words (IMHO).  That is what really set Gautama apart.

 

For sure! Just sitting every day, doing practices like metta, and rolling around the ideas of the teaching are enough to begin to seriously soften the "2nd arrow". Many in the "mindfulness" movement find out that even their secular practice is going to bring up their obscurations one by one. The way out is through. This is where the Tibetan traditions really shine - the Vajrayana tradition REALLY gets bodhicitta and using daily experiences as teachings in a way that no other traditions do. 

(see above?)  I've quoted that first part of "Two Shores of Zen" by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler before, but I'll quote it again.  

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara. 

I'm not saying that when the autonomic activity of the body comes out of the placement of attention by the movement of breath, attention is always in the hara, but it does happen that way a lot.  Nevertheless, at such time, "there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind"--the mind that moves, even if it's in the hara.

 

 

I'm ultimately fine with energy centers, chakras, the hara, whatever conceptual teachings get used to localize non-local phenomena, but ultimately these are relative teachings. They are "pointing at the moon". The "hara" isn't a place, just as the border of two provinces, countries, or states are just conceptual designations when seen from the air. Nothing wrong with that (skillful means), but I am inclined to point directly first and see how that goes first. 

Not opposed to teachers, but as I'm sure you know, zazen is a teacher.

 

Ah, but do you afford any teachers but Syd the same (or at least some) of the respect or deference? What makes you think the teachers or your daily encounters with the world are different from your zazen?

 

[Taoist Texts]

5 hours ago, stirling said:

appreciate your interest in authenticity, but to expect there to be 500 years of people with photographic memories that passed down the teachings of one chap seems far fetched to me.

The Vedas have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas

5 hours ago, stirling said:

The monks that might have heard Syd speak probably didn't even live to be 30.

Buddha was born in B.C. 560 and died at the age of eighty in B.C. 480. 

[stirling]

7 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

The Vedas have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas

Buddha was born in B.C. 560 and died at the age of eighty in B.C. 480. 

 

There are problems with these too. Hasn't only one of the vedas survived? How would we know if the pre-written vedas texts were preserved up to the point that one was recorded? While the Buddha has been said to have lived to be 80, is there any recorded proof (not that it matters)? Historical documentation of the Buddha's existence at all is thin on the ground, just as it is with Jesus. I was being generous with the age of 30... taken from a remembered fact about the average documented age of Europeans in the 1700's. I'm sure the average age of someone in Asia 500 years before Jesus was lower. I could probably google the most recent research for these things and post them here, but I don't think it is what is important about these teachings. 

 

There is this drive toward materialism in our Western society to try to reify religious ideas and figures using facts, and have them be "authentic" in some way. My experience is that putting this burden on the teachings trivializes what is actually important about them. What really matters is whether they are efficacious in a practical way - do they work, and (where there is deep understanding of them)...  do they really address and embody the transformative shift in perspective that they portend.

 

I am very satisfied that the body of Buddhism and the Upanishads (amongst others) directly point to the aspect of non-duality always present in this world. That is what I think truly matters. 

[Mark Foote]

19 hours ago, stirling said:

 

see below.

 

 

The monks that might have heard Syd speak probably didn't even live to be 30. I appreciate your interest in authenticity, but to expect there to be 500 years of people with photographic memories that passed down the teachings of one chap seems far fetched to me. Even so, I respect that this is your belief - there is enough in that narrow selection to do the job.

Not just my belief:

Indologist Richard Gombrich, following Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali's arguments, states that "it makes good sense to believe ... that large parts of the Pali Canon do preserve for us the Buddha-vacana, 'the Buddha's words', transmitted to us via his disciple Ānanda and the First Council".

 

(Wikipedia, "Ananda")

The 'doctrine' (dharma) was first recited by Ananda, who being the Buddha's personal attendant had heard more than anyone else.  Kasyapa asked him about all the dialogues, etc., he remembered, and the assembly (the First Rehearsal) endorsed his versions as correct.  The doctrine thus compiled became known as the Sutra Pitaka, the collection of sutras.

The discipline was similarly recited by Upali, a specialist in that subject, and codified as the Vinaya Pitaka....

 

... the Sutra Pitaka was arranged in five agamas, 'traditions' (the usual term, but the Sthaviravadins more often called them nikayas, 'collections')... (the fifth agama was) Ksudraka Agama (outside the first four agamas there remained a number of texts regarded by all the schools as of inferior importance, either because they were compositions of followers of the Buddha and not the words of the Master himself, or because they were of doubtful authenticity, these were collected in this minor tradition).

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. Delhi 1980 p 201-203)

 

 

Sure. A teacher using "skillful means" will start with teaching some to watch the breath and teach others shikantaza, each according to their abilities. The relative is a bridge to the absolute, and not just in Buddhism. The synchronicity of Suzuki's near death in the water and Kobun's drowning while at Vanya's Felsentor is an interesting parallel I had forgotten about!

I don't think there's any doubt that Gautama the Buddha always began his practical instructions with a description of a mindfulness that was pegged to inhalation and exhalation.   At some point, especially in Tibet and China, the emphasis shifted to other aspects of the teaching.  I'm not well-versed in the history of how that happened, but I suspect something to do with Nagarjuna (circa 150-circa 250 C.E., and his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā:
 

In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "[A]ll experienced phenomena are empty (sunya). This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness.

 

(Wikipedia, "Nagarjuna")

 

... this teaching about 6 senses is itself a relative teaching. When seen from "self", we impute 6 senses. Ultimately there are no senses just perceptions arising and passing. 

 

See above, Nagarjuna and emptiness.

 

The "state of concentration in which I constantly abide" is shikantaza (vs. zazen), which is also precisely dzogchen... resting in open awareness (emptiness) watching the play of the dharmakaya arise and pass away. I'm sure you know what I mean... it is what happens when the "technique" or watching the breath drops away and there is just presence and stillness.

Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. The dynamics of all Buddhas are in it.  When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

... If you explain shikantaza it becomes something which you don't understand, but you can experience sitting with everything with the understanding that everything is there, is there with you. 

(“Aspects of Sitting Meditation”, “Shikantaza”; Kobun Chino Otogawa;
http://www.jikoji.org/intro-aspects/)

 

Actually, I don't think that Gautama returned to shikantaza after he lectured.  I think he returned to "making self-surrender the object of thought", and to "one-pointedness of mind".  For Gautama, the concentration wherein there is no part of the body that is not suffused with the "purity by the pureness of mind", which I believe is shikantaza, would cause a person to sit down--"comes to be seated".  I personally think the same concentration is possible in a standing art like Tai Chi, or in dance.  

Again, from Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler:

I have labored for years to open out my meditation—which is, after all “just sitting”—away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza.

(“Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk’s Japan”, Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, pg 4-5)

I think a large part of Tenpyozan might be a Japanese perception that many American Zen teachers are like Rutschman-Byler.  

 

All of the Syd's advice is practical, but practical for whom? He was a teacher in the presence of students in most of his sutras. He seems to have known his audience in whichever of the bodies of his teaching you consider... so he gives relative teachings AND he gives absolute teachings. 

I have taught the Dhamma, Ânanda, without making any distinction between exoteric and esoteric doctrine; for in respect of the truths, Ânanda, the Tathâgata has no such thing as the closed fist of a teacher who hides some essential knowledge from the pupil.

(Mahâ Parinibbâa Sutta, D. No. 16; II,100)
 

 

"In the seeing, just the seen" (Bahiya sutra) is PITH instruction, regardless of who you think passed it on. Pure absolute teaching. Just as "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" is. No messing around... no practices, no prevarication. Yes, I am a fan of this kind of thing.

 

Sure.  As Dogen said, "when you find your place where you are, practice occurs..."--"when you find your way at this moment, practice occurs...".

 

http://www.tenpyozan.org/

 

Wow... that's great! I'll have to ask my teacher about her take on that one. It's a great idea, depending on who is running it. Insight often comes with 10 years of "finishing". Zen "sickness" happens in all traditions, though it may not have a name. Many will naturally be driven to run away to a cave or monastery for this period. This is where having a tradition and a teacher really come in handy. 

 

Not sure why, but I don't think there's been any construction on Tenpyozan for awhile. 

I know that Demian Kwong was voted "best attitude" at Eiheiji when he went there for six months a few years ago, and subsequent to that he had a transmission ceremony at Sonoma Mountain, and Sonoma Mountain Zen Center became an official training temple in the Sotoshu.  I don't think there are many Zen centers in the USA with that designation from the Sotoshu.

 

I'm ultimately fine with energy centers, chakras, the hara, whatever conceptual teachings get used to localize non-local phenomena, but ultimately these are relative teachings. They are "pointing at the moon". The "hara" isn't a place, just as the border of two provinces, countries, or states are just conceptual designations when seen from the air. Nothing wrong with that (skillful means), but I am inclined to point directly first and see how that goes first. 

How about Rujing, Dogen's teacher?

 

Breath enters and reaches the tanden, and yet there is no place from which it comes. Therefore it is neither long nor short. Breath emerges from the tanden, and yet there is nowhere it goes. Therefore it is neither short nor long.

 

( “Eihei Koroku”, Dogen, vol. 5, #390, tr Okumura)

 

Rujing questions the second element in Gautama's elucidation of the practice of mindfulness, comprehension of the long or short of the current inhalation or exhalation, but he doesn't seem to question the existence of the hara or that there exists an experience of a relationship between the breath and the tanden (approximately the hara).

 

How about the classics of Tai Chi?

 

The T’ai-chi ch’uan classics say that the mind and the ch’i must both be maintained in the tan-t’ien.

(“Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man-Ch’ing tr Douglas Wile, p 36)

 

From my 'way-back machine:

 

Bodily self-consciousness (BSC) is commonly thought to involve self-identification (the experience of owning ‘my’ body), self-location (the experience of where ‘I’ am in space), and first-person perspective (the experience from where ‘I’ perceive the world).

 

… BSC stems from the integration of visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular signals.

 

(“Visual consciousness and bodily self-consciousness”, Nathan Faivre, Roy Salomon, and Olaf Blanke:
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/203878/files/reprint.pdf)

 

Left out in the list of senses above is the sense of gravity, but neuroscientist Olaf Blanke mentions the otolithic organs (the organs that detect gravity) in his work on bodily self-consciousness (“Neuroscience of Self-Consciousness and Subjectivity”, Olaf Blanke:  http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv121/sv121-blanke.pdf).
 

Both Blanke and Dogen point to the capacity of the eyes to influence a person’s perception, using essentially the same example: Dogen speaks of how a person in a boat might mistakenly perceive the shore to be moving ("Genjo Koan"), while Blanke describes how a person in a stationary train might perceive that train to be moving if another train passes by going in the opposite direction (“Rotating Chair Experiment in Neurobiology”, Olaf Blanke on YouTube). 

Keeping one’s eyes on the boat means paying attention to the location of awareness itself, rather than to the location of an object in awareness. Distinguishing the influence of the eyes from the influence of the other senses can allow the location of awareness to register; in particular, separating the influence of the eyes from the influence of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception can allow the feeling of location associated with awareness to register.

(Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha's "Pleasant Way of Living")

 

Ah, but do you afford any teachers but Syd the same (or at least some) of the respect or deference?

I think I mentioned I'm a fan of Yuanwu, and sometimes of Dogen.  Clearly a fan of Kobun's, as his several appearances in my dreams would testify.  By the way, Shunryu Suzuki's near-drowning and Kobun's drowning, I don't think were similar.  My take on Kobun's drowning is here.

What makes you think the teachers or your daily encounters with the world are different from your zazen?

What I said was, zazen is a teacher.  I found a "Genjo Koan" translation that contained two characterizations of practice I really like (a particular Tanahashi-Aitken translation, here), plus a bonus statement:
 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point… Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

"Practice occurs"--I like that.  He is describing zazen, but it's the zazen that sits zazen, the zazen that gets up and walks around.  Not watching the shoreline.  If I'm not watching the shoreline, teachers and daily encounters can have new meaning.  Eating when hungry, sleeping when tired can have new meaning.

Got the milk of the inconceivable in action?--that's the question off the cushion, as far as I'm concerned.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

On 3/17/2023 at 8:45 PM, stirling said:

(something!)
 

For you, Stirling:

Frogzen "Encounters", "Blanche Hartman":  http://www.frogzen.com/encounters/#:~:text=Blanche Hartman

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Mark Foote

[stirling]

19 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Not just my belief:

Indologist Richard Gombrich, following Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali's arguments, states that "it makes good sense to believe ... that large parts of the Pali Canon do preserve for us the Buddha-vacana, 'the Buddha's words', transmitted to us via his disciple Ānanda and the First Council".

 

(Wikipedia, "Ananda")

The 'doctrine' (dharma) was first recited by Ananda, who being the Buddha's personal attendant had heard more than anyone else.  Kasyapa asked him about all the dialogues, etc., he remembered, and the assembly (the First Rehearsal) endorsed his versions as correct.  The doctrine thus compiled became known as the Sutra Pitaka, the collection of sutras.

The discipline was similarly recited by Upali, a specialist in that subject, and codified as the Vinaya Pitaka....

... the Sutra Pitaka was arranged in five agamas, 'traditions' (the usual term, but the Sthaviravadins more often called them nikayas, 'collections')... (the fifth agama was) Ksudraka Agama (outside the first four agamas there remained a number of texts regarded by all the schools as of inferior importance, either because they were compositions of followers of the Buddha and not the words of the Master himself, or because they were of doubtful authenticity, these were collected in this minor tradition).

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. Delhi 1980 p 201-203)

 

Evidence for the Buddha as a historical is very thin on the ground. I could point at the Wikipedia page for the Buddha for this, but I don't think this is a surprise to anyone. The teachings are what they are - efficacious and pithy. We are lucky to have them, regardless of who or when they are from.

 

 

Quote

The "state of concentration in which I constantly abide" is shikantaza (vs. zazen), which is also precisely dzogchen... resting in open awareness (emptiness) watching the play of the dharmakaya arise and pass away. I'm sure you know what I mean... it is what happens when the "technique" or watching the breath drops away and there is just presence and stillness.

Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. The dynamics of all Buddhas are in it.  When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

... If you explain shikantaza it becomes something which you don't understand, but you can experience sitting with everything with the understanding that everything is there, is there with you. 

(“Aspects of Sitting Meditation”, “Shikantaza”; Kobun Chino Otogawa;
http://www.jikoji.org/intro-aspects/)
 

 

Indeed. Love Kobun Chino Roshi. 

 

 

Quote

 

Actually, I don't think that Gautama returned to shikantaza after he lectured.  I think he returned to "making self-surrender the object of thought", and to "one-pointedness of mind".  For Gautama, the concentration wherein there is no part of the body that is not suffused with the "purity by the pureness of mind", which I believe is shikantaza, would cause a person to sit down--"comes to be seated".  I personally think the same concentration is possible in a standing art like Tai Chi, or in dance.  

Again, from Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler:

I have labored for years to open out my meditation—which is, after all “just sitting”—away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza.

(“Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk’s Japan”, Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, pg 4-5)

I think a large part of Tenpyozan might be a Japanese perception that many American Zen teachers are like Rutschman-Byler.  

 

 

After enlightenment the default way of being is open awareness, so I would say that in any idle moment "resting in the natural state" is how the mind is in any realized body/mind. When you quote Kobun -  "zazen gets up and walks around" - this is what is being indicated. The Tibetan traditions really emphasize the portability of this way of being. It can be present anywhere, at any time. The mind in shikantazaa/dzogchen is not contrived, or in any temporary "state" it is at the ground level of what being is. I don't know anything about Rutschman-Byler, but this focus on the hara wouldn't agree with any of my training, UNLESS what is meant is that hara focus can be accomplished in shikantaza, which I am sure it can. Being that the hara, like the senses, is ultimately empty, attention can come the area of the hara like any other place where sensation or attention appears.

 

Quote

All of the Syd's advice is practical, but practical for whom? He was a teacher in the presence of students in most of his sutras. He seems to have known his audience in whichever of the bodies of his teaching you consider... so he gives relative teachings AND he gives absolute teachings. 

I have taught the Dhamma, Ânanda, without making any distinction between exoteric and esoteric doctrine; for in respect of the truths, Ânanda, the Tathâgata has no such thing as the closed fist of a teacher who hides some essential knowledge from the pupil.

(Mahâ Parinibbâa Sutta, D. No. 16; II,100)

 

Yes! Sometimes both teachings in the same sentence!

 

Quote

Not sure why, but I don't think there's been any construction on Tenpyozan for awhile. 

I know that Demian Kwong was voted "best attitude" at Eiheiji when he went there for six months a few years ago, and subsequent to that he had a transmission ceremony at Sonoma Mountain, and Sonoma Mountain Zen Center became an official training temple in the Sotoshu.  I don't think there are many Zen centers in the USA with that designation from the Sotoshu.

 

That is a pity. The business of Buddhist centers is a tough one. I think there are going to be some shifts coming soon even from behemoths like the SF Zen Center. 

 

 

Quote

 

How about Rujing, Dogen's teacher?

 

Breath enters and reaches the tanden, and yet there is no place from which it comes. Therefore it is neither long nor short. Breath emerges from the tanden, and yet there is nowhere it goes. Therefore it is neither short nor long.

 

( “Eihei Koroku”, Dogen, vol. 5, #390, tr Okumura)

 

Rujing questions the second element in Gautama's elucidation of the practice of mindfulness, comprehension of the long or short of the current inhalation or exhalation, but he doesn't seem to question the existence of the hara or that there exists an experience of a relationship between the breath and the tanden (approximately the hara).

 

How about the classics of Tai Chi?

 

The T’ai-chi ch’uan classics say that the mind and the ch’i must both be maintained in the tan-t’ien.

(“Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man-Ch’ing tr Douglas Wile, p 36)

 

From my 'way-back machine:

 

Bodily self-consciousness (BSC) is commonly thought to involve self-identification (the experience of owning ‘my’ body), self-location (the experience of where ‘I’ am in space), and first-person perspective (the experience from where ‘I’ perceive the world).

 

… BSC stems from the integration of visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular signals.

 

(“Visual consciousness and bodily self-consciousness”, Nathan Faivre, Roy Salomon, and Olaf Blanke:
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/203878/files/reprint.pdf)

 

Left out in the list of senses above is the sense of gravity, but neuroscientist Olaf Blanke mentions the otolithic organs (the organs that detect gravity) in his work on bodily self-consciousness (“Neuroscience of Self-Consciousness and Subjectivity”, Olaf Blanke:  http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv121/sv121-blanke.pdf).
 

Both Blanke and Dogen point to the capacity of the eyes to influence a person’s perception, using essentially the same example: Dogen speaks of how a person in a boat might mistakenly perceive the shore to be moving ("Genjo Koan"), while Blanke describes how a person in a stationary train might perceive that train to be moving if another train passes by going in the opposite direction (“Rotating Chair Experiment in Neurobiology”, Olaf Blanke on YouTube). 

Keeping one’s eyes on the boat means paying attention to the location of awareness itself, rather than to the location of an object in awareness. Distinguishing the influence of the eyes from the influence of the other senses can allow the location of awareness to register; in particular, separating the influence of the eyes from the influence of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception can allow the feeling of location associated with awareness to register.

(Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha's "Pleasant Way of Living")

 

 

 

In my opinion Nagarjuna is Buddhism's Einstein. He brilliantly illustrated the very real implications of Dependent Origination, and your previous quote of his is perfect for this purpose:

 

Quote

In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "[A]ll experienced phenomena are empty (sunya). This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness.

 

Or, as Ken Wilber would say, "Absolute reality includes, but supersedes relative reality". Objects of the mind all have provisional reality, but not absolute reality. If it helps to point to an energy center as a teaching tool, why not? But energy centers are ultimately only relative teachings -  the absolute understanding that these things are merely projections is always still present and always encapsulates them. 

 

Quote

 

What I said was, zazen is a teacher.  I found a "Genjo Koan" translation that contained two characterizations of practice I really like (a particular Tanahashi-Aitken translation, here), plus a bonus statement:
 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point… Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

"Practice occurs"--I like that.  He is describing zazen, but it's the zazen that sits zazen, the zazen that gets up and walks around.  Not watching the shoreline.  If I'm not watching the shoreline, teachers and daily encounters can have new meaning.  Eating when hungry, sleeping when tired can have new meaning.

 

 

 

Nicely said by all 4 of you.  Glad to have a fellow Zen presence to bounce ideas off of.

[stirling]

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

For you, Stirling:

Frogzen "Encounters", "Blanch Hartman" (sic):  http://www.frogzen.com/encounters/#:~:text=Blanch Hartman

 

 

Delightful to get a few minutes of Blanche's time, even posthumously. Her kindness was always contagious!

[Mark Foote]

6 hours ago, stirling said:

 

(below)
 

 

Evidence for the Buddha as a historical is very thin on the ground. I could point at the Wikipedia page for the Buddha for this, but I don't think this is a surprise to anyone. The teachings are what they are - efficacious and pithy. We are lucky to have them, regardless of who or when they are from.

Please do cite sources, when you can.  Hey, I'll start!

From Wikipedia, "The Buddha", under the section entitled "Scholarly views on the earliest teachings":
 

Scholars such as Richard Gombrich, Akira Hirakawa, Alexander Wynne and A.K. Warder hold that these Early Buddhist Texts contain material that could possibly be traced to the Buddha. Richard Gombrich argues that since the content of the earliest texts "presents such originality, intelligence, grandeur and—most relevantly—coherence...it is hard to see it as a composite work." Thus he concludes they are "the work of one genius." Peter Harvey also agrees that "much" of the Pali Canon "must derive from his [the Buddha's] teachings." Likewise, A. K. Warder has written that "there is no evidence to suggest that it [the shared teaching of the early schools] was formulated by anyone other than the Buddha and his immediate followers." According to Alexander Wynne, "the internal evidence of the early Buddhist literature proves its historical authenticity."
 

Other scholars of Buddhist studies have disagreed with the mostly positive view that the early Buddhist texts reflect the teachings of the historical Buddha, arguing that some teachings contained in the early texts are the authentic teachings of the Buddha, but not others. According to Tilmann Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies. According to Tilmann Vetter, the earliest core of the Buddhist teachings is the meditative practice of dhyāna, but "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition only at a later date.

 

He posits that the Fourth Noble Truths, the Eightfold path and Dependent Origination, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight". Lambert Schmithausen similarly argues that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the four dhyānas, is a later addition. Johannes Bronkhorst also argues that the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight".

 

Edward Conze argued that the attempts of European scholars to reconstruct the original teachings of the Buddha were "all mere guesswork."

I would agree with Gombrich, and that's what I've been saying here.  There's a unique voice in the sermons attributed to Gautama in the first four Nikayas, at least IMHO.  Tillman, Schmithausen, and Bronkhurst--I don't agree with them, but the severance of the linkage between the final attainment in dhyana and the lived experience of the four truths, I do think that came later.

 

After enlightenment the default way of being is open awareness, so I would say that in any idle moment "resting in the natural state" is how the mind is in any realized body/mind. When you quote Kobun -  "zazen gets up and walks around" - this is what is being indicated.

I would agree that the practice of the teachings can be kind of supernatural--the practice aligning with human well-being to make a person seem essentially more human, more natural than before, in spite of the presence of some intent (to surrender the self).   

But no, what Kobun described was a person sitting zazen, who experiences their body getting up and walking around without any intent to do so, as though they were acting out hypnotic suggestion.  Have you ever experienced hypnotic suggestion?--you know, the old "your arm is getting lighter, it's starting to rise, lighter and lighter" and watched your arm rise without willing it to do so?  That can happen in sitting, you can be sitting (in my case, on a chair), usually with some awareness of the breath, and find your body getting up and walking around.  At least, I think that's what I understand him to have been talking about.  I think I had the experience on account of him, just like I got deashi harai (the foot sweep) by osmosis from my old judo teacher.  Zazen got up and walked around in my life almost a decade before I heard him talk about it, at S.F. Zen Center.  He put it forward at the close of his lecture, as a kind of admonition to the folks at the Zen Center:  "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around."  I think he felt they didn't realize that last part of Dogen's teaching, "although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent."

Completely disruptive.  I've spent 50 years finding the natural context for such experience.  I believe it's there in the sixteen elements of mindfulness Gautama described as his way of living, under "breathing in, breathing out beholding stopping".  Gautama's way of living, as I've said before, for me comes down to this:

 

I begin with making the surrender of volition in activity related to the movement of breath the object of thought.  For me, that necessitates thought applied and sustained with regard to relaxation of the activity of the body, with regard to the exercise of calm in the stretch of ligaments, with regard to the detachment of mind, and with regard to the presence of mind.  I find that a presence of mind from one breath to the next can precipitate “one-pointedness of mind”, but laying hold of “one-pointedness of mind” requires a surrender of willful activity in the body much like falling asleep.

 

The stretch of ligaments can be found in what the Tai Chi classics describe as "the precariousness of posture (in seated meditation)".

As I wrote in Response to “Not the Wind, Not the Flag”:

 

If a person “takes the attitude of someone who… lets go of both hands and feet” (as Dogen instructed), then perhaps there will come a moment when the hands and feet walk around.  At that moment, there will be new meaning to be had in cleaning cat boxes, cooking, shopping, driving, and bathing, though these experiences might not involve the attitude that advances from the top of a 100-foot pole throughout.
 

Having said that, I have to add that it’s my belief that not every Zen teacher has experienced the zazen that gets up and walks around.  That doesn’t say that they haven’t experienced the cessation of volition in action of the body, or that they are not qualified to teach Zen, but I think they must have a different perspective on the relationship of practice to the actions of everyday life.

The Tibetan traditions really emphasize the portability of this way of being. It can be present anywhere, at any time. The mind in shikantazaa/dzogchen is not contrived, or in any temporary "state" it is at the ground level of what being is. I don't know anything about Rutschman-Byler, but this focus on the hara wouldn't agree with any of my training, UNLESS what is meant is that hara focus can be accomplished in shikantaza, which I am sure it can. Being that the hara, like the senses, is ultimately empty, attention can come the area of the hara like any other place where sensation or attention appears.

That's exactly how it happens.  Not something that is "accomplished".  Here's a good description, from koun Franz:

 

I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go...

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site)

 

Franz speaks about mind relocating to the "centre of gravity" in particular, and that's in the tanden or hara.  Sometimes that, but there's a trick, that Franz also described:
 

I was taught we should be constantly aware of our eyes when we sit. Specifically, we should be aware of how we narrow and widen the aperture, how our field of vision gets narrower and narrower as our mind gets narrower and narrower. When you see that clearly, you also see how easily you can just open it up; the degree to which we open it up is the degree to which we’re here.

(Ibid)

 

Gautama's description of the feeling of the fourth meditative state involves a similar opening up--opening the occurrence of "mind" (of the "base of consciousness", of the placement of attention in the autonomic functionality of breath) to every part of the body, throughout the body to the surface of the skin, regardless of where the "mind" takes place:
 

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. … just as a (person) might sit with (their) head swathed in a clean cloth; even so (one) sits suffusing (their) body with purity…

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19; Gautama pointed to a feeling as though the head were “swathed in a clean cloth”, but in other expositions of the fourth concentration, he pointed instead to a feeling as though the whole body were “swathed in a clean cloth”)

 

Key point is to turn it around, so that the singular placement of attention by the current movement of breath is the balance of the autonomic function of the entire body in the movement of breath.  "Making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind."

 

 

That is a pity. The business of Buddhist centers is a tough one. I think there are going to be some shifts coming soon even from behemoths like the SF Zen Center. 

Especially in the USA, where these centers have undertaken to include women and family life in the practice.  I hope they succeed in that, but you're right, tough for new teachers to carry that model out into the wider American community, I think.

 

In my opinion Nagarjuna is Buddhism's Einstein. He brilliantly illustrated the very real implications of Dependent Origination, and your previous quote of his is perfect for this purpose:

 

Or, as Ken Wilber would say, "Absolute reality includes, but supersedes relative reality". Objects of the mind all have provisional reality, but not absolute reality. If it helps to point to an energy center as a teaching tool, why not? But energy centers are ultimately only relative teachings -  the absolute understanding that these things are merely projections is always still present and always encapsulates them. 

I'll stick with the teachings on dyana in the first four Nikayas, and the dependent causation thread in those Nikayas that makes sense to me (ignorance>activities>persistence of consciousness>stationing of consciousness>identification of self with body, feeling, mind, habitual tendency, and consciousness).  Plus, the cases in "Blue Cliff Record" I can make sense of, and some of the teachings of Dogen, Shunryu Suzuki, and Kobun.  A few modern Japanese teachers, not many non-Japanese teachers, I'm afraid.  The best American teachers confess to just being fellow-travellers, IMO, and those teachers I admire and respect (like Blanche, Reb, Vanja, and most of the senior folks at Jikoji).

 

Glad to have a fellow Zen presence to bounce ideas off of. 

I agree.  /\  Our exchange comes back to me when I sit, with fresh life, and I find that helpful.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Mark Foote

[stirling]

On 3/19/2023 at 3:56 PM, Mark Foote said:

Please do cite sources, when you can.  Hey, I'll start!

From Wikipedia, "The Buddha", under the section entitled "Scholarly views on the earliest teachings":
 

Scholars such as Richard Gombrich, Akira Hirakawa, Alexander Wynne and A.K. Warder hold that these Early Buddhist Texts contain material that could possibly be traced to the Buddha. Richard Gombrich argues that since the content of the earliest texts "presents such originality, intelligence, grandeur and—most relevantly—coherence...it is hard to see it as a composite work." Thus he concludes they are "the work of one genius." Peter Harvey also agrees that "much" of the Pali Canon "must derive from his [the Buddha's] teachings." Likewise, A. K. Warder has written that "there is no evidence to suggest that it [the shared teaching of the early schools] was formulated by anyone other than the Buddha and his immediate followers." According to Alexander Wynne, "the internal evidence of the early Buddhist literature proves its historical authenticity."
 

Other scholars of Buddhist studies have disagreed with the mostly positive view that the early Buddhist texts reflect the teachings of the historical Buddha, arguing that some teachings contained in the early texts are the authentic teachings of the Buddha, but not others. According to Tilmann Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies. According to Tilmann Vetter, the earliest core of the Buddhist teachings is the meditative practice of dhyāna, but "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition only at a later date.

 

He posits that the Fourth Noble Truths, the Eightfold path and Dependent Origination, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight". Lambert Schmithausen similarly argues that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the four dhyānas, is a later addition. Johannes Bronkhorst also argues that the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight".

 

Edward Conze argued that the attempts of European scholars to reconstruct the original teachings of the Buddha were "all mere guesswork."

I would agree with Gombrich, and that's what I've been saying here.  There's a unique voice in the sermons attributed to Gautama in the first four Nikayas, at least IMHO.  Tillman, Schmithausen, and Bronkhurst--I don't agree with them, but the severance of the linkage between the final attainment in dhyana and the lived experience of the four truths, I do think that came later.

 

I started a protracted reply to your message, but lost it as I haven't logged in for a few days.

 

I'll simply say this: Your link to the "Buddha" entry on Wikipedia does a fine job.

 

The link:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buddha#Understanding_the_historical_person

 

The first line is a far as one needs to go, IMHO (and as far as I will go):

 

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Scholars are hesitant to make claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life.

 

Are some of the works attributed to the Buddha written in what appears to be the same voice? Sure... why not? Is it the Buddhas voice? I don't know how we could know for sure, but I would say that it is someone with authentic realization, and that this is all that matters to me. In my opinion, all dharma is the emanation of the dharmakaya. While I think some of it is more direct than other parts, even those have their purpose - suiting those who feel a need to believe they are "doing" something. To argue the "true" or "authentic" dharma, however,  is to misunderstand its essence.

 

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“Primordial wisdom (dharmakaya) has many names, but in truth it refers simply to the inseparability of the ground and fruit, the one and only essence-drop of the dharmakaya. If it is assessed from the standpoint of its utterly pure nature, it is the actual dharmakaya, primordial Buddhahood. For, from its own side, it is free from every obscuration. We must understand that we are Buddha from the very beginning. Without this understanding, we will fail to recognize the spontaneously present mandala of the ground, and we will be obliged to assert, in accordance with the vehicle of the paramitas, that Buddhahood has a cause. We will fail to recognize the authentic view of the Secret Mantra.” - Jamgön Mipham, White Lotus

 

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“Consider the fact that no matter how many planets and stars are reflected in a lake, these reflections are encompassed within the water itself; that no matter how many universes there are, they are encompassed within a single space; and that no matter how vast and how numerous the sensory appearances of samsara and nirvana may be, they are encompassed within the single nature of mind.” - Dudjom Lingpa

 

 

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I would agree that the practice of the teachings can be kind of supernatural--the practice aligning with human well-being to make a person seem essentially more human, more natural than before, in spite of the presence of some intent (to surrender the self). 

 

Definitely. Insight into the nature of reality, and the simple actualizing of enlightenment in open awareness are absolutely "supernatural" in that they transcend (but include) the relative nature of reality. The absence of insight is the only reason this isn't plainly seen. The intent to surrender the self is seen for what it always was, a delusion that there was ever anything or anyone to offer to surrender. 

 

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But no, what Kobun described was a person sitting zazen, who experiences their body getting up and walking around without any intent to do so, as though they were acting out hypnotic suggestion.  Have you ever experienced hypnotic suggestion?--you know, the old "your arm is getting lighter, it's starting to rise, lighter and lighter" and watched your arm rise without willing it to do so?  That can happen in sitting, you can be sitting (in my case, on a chair), usually with some awareness of the breath, and find your body getting up and walking around.  At least, I think that's what I understand him to have been talking about.  I think I had the experience on account of him, just like I got deashi harai (the foot sweep) by osmosis from my old judo teacher.  Zazen got up and walked around in my life almost a decade before I heard him talk about it, at S.F. Zen Center.  He put it forward at the close of his lecture, as a kind of admonition to the folks at the Zen Center:  "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around."  I think he felt they didn't realize that last part of Dogen's teaching, "although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent."

 

I differ with you here. Kobun is absolutely describing non-doership, which is the natural state of enlightened mind where self (and self as "controller" of a "body" is understood to be a delusion. We CAN get tastes of this in meditation, being that open awareness differs from enlightened mind ONLY due to lack of Wisdom/insight. Meditation IS actualizing enlightenment, as Dogen will tell you. All that is required is dropping "self", and with it the delusion of agency (the illusion of bodily control) ) for complete understanding.

 

 

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...perhaps there will come a moment when the hands and feet walk around.  At that moment, there will be new meaning to be had in cleaning cat boxes, cooking, shopping, driving, and bathing, though these experiences might not involve the attitude that advances from the top of a 100-foot pole throughout.

 

This is the natural state! 

 

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Having said that, I have to add that it’s my belief that not every Zen teacher has experienced the zazen that gets up and walks around.  That doesn’t say that they haven’t experienced the cessation of volition in action of the body, or that they are not qualified to teach Zen, but I think they must have a different perspective on the relationship of practice to the actions of everyday life.

 

It is the simple difference between enlightenment/realization/Wisdom and the lack thereof. Not every "transmitted" lineage holding Soto (or Rinzai) Zen teacher I have met is realized by a long shot, which I have my misgivings about. There are also plenty of non-Buddhist teachers and others that DO have realization and aren't "people" in the conventional sense, and so have seen through the delusion of agency. 

 

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I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go...

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site)

 

You might like Loch Kelly's book "Shift Into Freedom". It is full of similar exercises intended to "unhook" awareness from its imagined constraints in "self". 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Shift-into-Freedom-Open-Hearted-Awareness/dp/1622033507

 

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I'll stick with the teachings on dyana in the first four Nikayas, and the dependent causation thread in those Nikayas that makes sense to me (ignorance>activities>persistence of consciousness>stationing of consciousness>identification of self with body, feeling, mind, habitual tendency, and consciousness).  Plus, the cases in "Blue Cliff Record" I can make sense of, and some of the teachings of Dogen, Shunryu Suzuki, and Kobun.  A few modern Japanese teachers, not many non-Japanese teachers, I'm afraid.  The best American teachers confess to just being fellow-travellers, IMO, and those teachers I admire and respect (like Blanche, Reb, Vanja, and most of the senior folks at Jikoji).

 

If you have real interest in the jhanas, I can heartily recommend Leigh Brassington's book:

 

http://rc.leighb.com/index.html

 

Amongst many of the Buddhist communities of all schools, his book is revered. My teacher even purposely took a course with him at Tassajara and quotes his teachings about them. It is important to remember that these are STATES, not any permanent insight. The point of learning to rest in them is that they are analogous to levels of realization and so make them more familiar when they naturally arise in practice. 

 

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I agree.  /\  Our exchange comes back to me when I sit, with fresh life, and I find that helpful.

 

_/\_  Bows to you. 

[Mark Foote]

On 3/22/2023 at 12:19 PM, stirling said:

 

If you have real interest in the jhanas, I can heartily recommend Leigh Brassington's book:

 

http://rc.leighb.com/index.html

 

Reading this, from "Entering the Jhanas" by Leigh Brassington on "Lion's Roar" (May 23, 2017):
 

So to summarize the method for entering the first jhana: You sit in a comfortable upright position and generate access concentration by placing, and eventually maintaining, your attention on a single meditation object. When access concentration is firmly established, then you shift your attention from the breath (or whatever your meditation object is) to a pleasant sensation, preferably a physical sensation. You put your attention on that sensation, maintain your attention on it, and do nothing else.

 

(https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/)

 

Here's the full two paragraphs of koun Franz's explanation of "place your mind here":
 

Okay… So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your centre of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

Brassington may be repeating the current teaching of monks in the Theravadin tradition in Southeast Asia, when he advocates "generate access concentration by placing, and eventually maintaining, your attention on a single meditation object."  I think that's "navel gazing", as koun Franz put it.

Here's Gautama's description of the feeling of the first concentration:
 

… just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (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, also MN III 92-93, PTS p 132-134)

 

 

To me, that's got to do with "laying hold of one-pointedness of mind", and the cultivation of "one-pointedness of mind"--in koun Franz's terms, the cultivation of the mind that moves. 

Gautama said the first concentration was characterized by "thought applied and sustained", and the cessation of dis-ease.  Gautama further stated that thought applied and sustained ceases in the second concentration, along with unhappiness, but that doesn't say that "you shift your attention from the breath to a pleasant sensation". 

The fourth concentration is marked by the cessation of (habit and volition in) inhalation and exhalation--Gautama states that this is the cessation of deeds, of "determinate thought" in bodily action, and the main characteristic is the cessation of (habit or volition in) inhalation and exhalation.  That doesn't sound like "shift your attention from the breath" to me.

My take:

 

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.

 

 

I find that my ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts depends in large part on my ability to relax, to stay calm with the stretch of ligaments (and the activity that the stretch of ligaments engenders), to detach from thought, and to exercise some presence.  To me, those are exactly the action elements of Gautama's way of living, and I'm looking for a rhythm of those elements as the first concentration, not a ticket to a pleasant sensation.  

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Mark Foote

[stirling]

17 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Brassington may be repeating the current teaching of monks in the Theravadin tradition in Southeast Asia, when he advocates "generate access concentration by placing, and eventually maintaining, your attention on a single meditation object."  I think that's "navel gazing", as koun Franz put it.

He has given talks at some of the most prestigious meditation centers and monasteries in the world. I have personally used his instruction to become proficient at accessing the jhanas, as has my teacher. His methodology is clean and clear, and understands perfectly the layers of what becomes "empty" and what to incline the mind toward. I think you underestimate his expertise on this topic.

 

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Brasington is a Pali translator that has studied in both the Zen schools and the Insight schools. He is authorized to teach by Ven. Ayya Khema. Leigh began assisting Ven. Ayya Khemma in 1994, and began teaching retreats on his on in 1997. He is also authorized to teach by Jack Kornfield.

 

 

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To me, that's got to do with "laying hold of one-pointedness of mind", and the cultivation of "one-pointedness of mind"--in koun Franz's terms, the cultivation of the mind that moves. 

Gautama said the first concentration was characterized by "thought applied and sustained", and the cessation of dis-ease.  Gautama further stated that thought applied and sustained ceases in the second concentration, along with unhappiness, but that doesn't say that "you shift your attention from the breath to a pleasant sensation". 

The fourth concentration is marked by the cessation of (habit and volition in) inhalation and exhalation--Gautama states that this is the cessation of deeds, of "determinate thought" in bodily action, and the main characteristic is the cessation of (habit or volition in) inhalation and exhalation.  That doesn't sound like "shift your attention from the breath" to me.

My take:

 

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.

 

 

I find that my ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts depends in large part on my ability to relax, to stay calm with the stretch of ligaments (and the activity that the stretch of ligaments engenders), to detach from thought, and to exercise some presence.  To me, those are exactly the action elements of Gautama's way of living, and I'm looking for a rhythm of those elements as the first concentration, not a ticket to a pleasant sensation (what in the world is Leighton thinking!).

 

My take: If we are talking about the jhanas here, it is not my understanding or experience that they have anything to do with the body, or with contriving some kind of experience by getting the body to do something specific. Piti and sukkha arise naturally and of their own accord and this happens in almost any sit. Both are alluded to in the original Pali source material. They come up in the first few jhanas, both are naturally arising - noticed, NOT sought. The 4th is the first "empty" jhana, the first step into getting a taste of emptiness proper. The following 4 are previews of deepening aspects of the understanding of emptiness, but not actual insight.

 

Brasington relies on the Pañcaṅgikasutta as the source for much of this teaching. From the Pali instructions for first jhana:

 

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DN 2.77. “Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, he enters and dwells in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought and filled with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion. He drenches, steeps, saturates, and suffuses his body with this rapture and happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of his entire body which is not suffused by this rapture and happiness.

 

DN 2.78. “Great king, suppose a skilled bath attendant or his apprentice were to pour soap-powder into a metal basin, sprinkle it with water, and knead it into a ball, so that the ball of soap-powder be pervaded by moisture, encompassed by moisture, suffused with moisture inside and out, yet would not trickle. In the same way, great king, the bhikkhu drenches, steeps, saturates, and suffuses his body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of his entire body which is not suffused by this rapture and happiness. This, great king, is a visible fruit of recluseship more excellent and sublime than the previous ones.

 

DN 9.10. "Having reached the first jhāna, one remains in it. .... At that time there is present a true but subtle perception of pīti and sukha born of seclusion, and one becomes one who is conscious of this pīti and sukha."

 

https://suttacentral.net/an5.28/en/bodhi?reference=none&highlight=false

 

-

 

Unrelated: Since it is a topic of interest, you might find Leigh's take on the authenticity of the suttas interesting too. It's on his website.

Edited March 23, 2023 by stirling

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, stirling said:

below.
 

 

He has given talks at some of the most prestigious meditation centers and monasteries in the world. I have personally used his instruction to become proficient at accessing the jhanas, as has my teacher. His methodology is clean and clear, and understands perfectly the layers of what becomes "empty" and what to incline the mind toward. I think you underestimate his expertise on this topic.

 

Maybe so.  I'm a stubborn old man, now, that's for sure.

I am emailing Leigh my last post, along with some material I imagine he might value about the authenticity of the first four Nikayas (and the lack of authenticity of the fifth), from A. K. Warder.  I previously quoted most of that here, but I added one more paragraph from Warder:

 

… This order of the five ‘traditions’ [DN, MN, SN, AN, KN] happens also to be the order of their authenticity, probably because it was easier to insert short texts among a large number of to get a composition of doubtful origin admitted to the already doubtful Minor Tradition of a school.  This is soon ascertained by comparing the various available recensions as we have in the preceding chapters.  It has been suggested that some schools did not have a Minor Tradition at all, although they still had some of the minor texts, incorporated in their Vinayas, hence the ‘Four Agamas’ are sometimes spoken of as representing the Sutra.

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. Delhi 1980 p 201-203)

 

My take: If we are talking about the jhanas here, it is not my understanding or experience that they have anything to do with the body, or with contriving some kind of experience by getting the body to do something specific. Piti and sukkha arise naturally and of their own accord and this happens in almost any sit. Both are alluded to in the original Pali source material. They come up in the first few jhanas, both are naturally arising - noticed, NOT sought. The 4th is the first "empty" jhana, the first step into getting a taste of emptiness proper. The following 4 are previews of deepening aspects of the understanding of emptiness, but not actual insight.

 

Gautama described the induction of the second jhana:
 

“… fare along contemplating the body in the body, but do not apply yourself to a train of thought connected with the body; fare along contemplating the feelings in the feelings … the mind in the mind… mental states in mental states, but do not apply yourself to a train of thought connected with mental states. . .. By allaying initial and discursive thought, with the mind subjectively tranquillized and fixed on one point, [one] enters on and abides in the second meditation…”
 

(MN III 136, Vol III pg 182)

Would seem that "contemplation" of the body, feelings, mind, and mental states continues, only the "initial and discursive" thought connected with the four arisings ceases (not the contemplation of same).
 

Incidentally, Woodward translated "rapture and happiness" as "zest and ease".  I think Woodward is closer to the truth, especially with regard to "happiness", as the "happiness" of the first and second jhanas ceases in the third, while Gautama said that happiness was a characteristic of all the meditative states.
 

…I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought.

 

(AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III p 294)

How does your understanding of the 4th jhana as the empty jhana correspond with "the ceasing of in-breathing and out-breathing", which is likewise the cessation of "determinate thought" in the action of deeds? 

Not saying there isn't something to what you say--certainly the first of the further states was said to be "the excellence of the heart's release" through the extension of the mind of compassion throughout the world, and likewise the second and third states were "the excellence of the heart's release" through the extensions of the minds of sympathetic joy and of equanimity, but the extension of the mind of friendliness throughout the world is left out in Gautama's description of "the heart's release".  There's a borderline there between equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses, and equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses, and I know that for me the extension of the mind of friendliness is often a necessity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses.   Bringing the other side of the wall and throughout the world into the practice, that smacks of emptiness, in my book.  Maybe not your conception of emptiness, though!   
 

Brasington relies on the Pañcaṅgikasutta as the source for much of this teaching. From the Pali instructions for first jhana:

 

https://suttacentral.net/an5.28/en/bodhi?reference=none&highlight=false

 

Unrelated: Since it is a topic of interest, you might find Leigh's take on the authenticity of the suttas interesting too. It's on his website.

No quarrel with the sermon, though I don't think that's the best translation.  I offered Leigh the link to the Pali Text Society translations, as he didn't seem to know that there was a source for all the suttas and the vinaya on the web.

[stirling]

17 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Maybe so.  I'm a stubborn old man, now, that's for sure.

 

Hahahahaha! I resemble that remark!  

 

Quote

I am emailing Leigh my last post, along with some material I imagine he might value about the authenticity of the first four Nikayas (and the lack of authenticity of the fifth), from A. K. Warder.  I previously quoted most of that here, but I added one more paragraph from Warder:

 

… This order of the five ‘traditions’ [DN, MN, SN, AN, KN] happens also to be the order of their authenticity, probably because it was easier to insert short texts among a large number of to get a composition of doubtful origin admitted to the already doubtful Minor Tradition of a school.  This is soon ascertained by comparing the various available recensions as we have in the preceding chapters.  It has been suggested that some schools did not have a Minor Tradition at all, although they still had some of the minor texts, incorporated in their Vinayas, hence the ‘Four Agamas’ are sometimes spoken of as representing the Sutra.

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. Delhi 1980 p 201-203)

 

I guess I lean toward the pragmatic (which is not to say that you don't) in that, if this technology as presented works, I'm OK with it. I am satisfied that Brasington's teaching as presented meets this criteria. 

 

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Incidentally, Woodward translated "rapture and happiness" as "zest and ease".  I think Woodward is closer to the truth, especially with regard to "happiness", as the "happiness" of the first and second jhanas ceases in the third, while Gautama said that happiness was a characteristic of all the meditative states.

 

Experientially I would identify what arises as markedly less energetic that what you say Woodward suggests.

 

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How does your understanding of the 4th jhana as the empty jhana correspond with "the ceasing of in-breathing and out-breathing", which is likewise the cessation of "determinate thought" in the action of deeds?

 

My experience is that awareness of breath or a breather drop away and there is just the presence of "being". 

 

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Not saying there isn't something to what you say--certainly the first of the further states was said to be "the excellence of the heart's release" through the extension of the mind of compassion throughout the world, and likewise the second and third states were "the excellence of the heart's release" through the extensions of the minds of sympathetic joy and of equanimity, but the extension of the mind of friendliness throughout the world is left out in Gautama's description of "the heart's release".  There's a borderline there between equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses, and equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses, and I know that for me the extension of the mind of friendliness is often a necessity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses.   Bringing the other side of the wall and throughout the world into the practice, that smacks of emptiness, in my book.  Maybe not your conception of emptiness, though!   

 

All of these "minds" sound recognizably like variations of the same terminology to me. Dropping all of these "minds" 4th jhana, in my experience anyway - the emptiness of any contrived ways of being. I honestly think these are all conceptual ways of pointing to the same thing. 

 

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No quarrel with the sermon, though I don't think that's the best translation.  I offered Leigh the link to the Pali Text Society translations, as he didn't seem to know that there was a source for all the suttas and the vinaya on the web.

 

I imagine that Mr. Brasington is aware of the various online sources for Pali translations. Doesn't he link to a number of them on his site, somewhere?

[Mark Foote]

3 hours ago, stirling said:

 

All of these "minds" sound recognizably like variations of the same terminology to me. Dropping all of these "minds" 4th jhana, in my experience anyway - the emptiness of any contrived ways of being. I honestly think these are all conceptual ways of pointing to the same thing. 

 

I imagine that Mr. Brasington is aware of the various online sources for Pali translations. Doesn't he link to a number of them on his site, somewhere?
 

 

Brasington gives links to a number of the Pali sermons, but in the section of his site on the "suttas" tab, he says:

 

The Sutta Pitaka, the second division of the Tipitaka, consists of over 10,000 suttas, or discourses, delivered by the Buddha and his close disciples during the Buddha's forty-five year teaching career, as well as many additional verses by other members of the Sangha. Many of these suttas are available on-line in English - particularly at Sutta Central and at Access to Insight - but not all.

 

I believe they are all available in translation, the Pali Text Society translations listed on Alex Genaud's site.

I don't have a lot of experience with the further states.  As I mentioned, I do feel the necessity to "bring the other side of the wall and throughout the world into the practice"--into the placement of awareness by the movement of breath.  I have experienced things on the other side of the wall or across town moving my feet, and there does seem to have to be a certain extension of goodwill for that to happen.

I like Gautama's description:
 

[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.

 

(MN I 38, Pali Text Society Vol I p 48)

 

In some sermons, Gautama described eight deliverances, culminating in the cessation of (habit or volition in) feeling and perceiving as the eighth.  The first three, he gave as:

 

Being in the fine-material sphere, (one) sees material shapes...

Not perceiving material shapes internally, (one) sees external material shapes...

By thinking of the Fair, (one) is intent on it...

 

(MN II 12-13, Pali Text Society vol II p 213)
 

I have no idea, what he means by "(one) sees material shapes" and "not perceiving material shapes internally, (one) sees external material shapes".

In the description above, "the Fair" immediately precedes "the sphere of infinite space", that being the first of the further concentrations, which seemingly associates "the Fair" with the last of the initial concentrations.

I believe that what I. B. Horner translates as "the Fair", F. L. Woodward translates as "the beautiful".

In F. L. Woodward's translation of Samyutta Nikaya, Gautama offers another method to arrive at "the beautiful", and I can't help but think that the extension of the mind of friendliness throughout the world (& etc.) that Gautama described in the first quote above is the means of arriving at the excellence of the heart's release:

 

... the heart's release by goodwill has the beautiful for its excellence, I declare.  

... passing utterly beyond all consciousness of object, by putting an end to consciousness of reaction, by disregarding consciousness of diversity, thinking "Infinite is space," (one) attains and abides in the sphere of infinite space.  ... the heart's release by compassion has the infinity of space for its excellence, I declare.

 

... by passing utterly beyond the sphere of infinite space, with the idea of "consciousness is infinite," he attains and abides in the sphere of infinite consciousness.  ... the heart's release by sympathy has the sphere of infinite consciousness for its excellence, I declare.

 

... passing utterly beyond the sphere of infinite consciousness, (one) attains and abides in the sphere wherein (one) is conscious of the existence of nothing.  ... the heart's release by equanimity has for its excellence the sphere wherein nought exists.

(SN V 118-120, Pali Text Society V p 100-102)

 

From that, t'would seem that in order to arrive at the further states, one must embrace the world with a particular spirit.  Easy to describe friendliness, compassion, and sympathy as particular spirits--a tad more difficult to describe "equanimity" as a spirit, but there you have it