With Guest Mark Foote--Cuke Audio Podcast

[Mark Foote]

 

 

With Guest Mark Foote

12 hours ago

 

Follow Mark Foote's unique way-seeking mind story and thought. Delve into it at zenmudra.com and  at Zazen Notes on Facebook.

https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-dxczk-148dd26

 

My thanks to David Chadwick, author of "Crooked Cucumber" and "Thank You and Ok!: An American Zen Failure in Japan"; principal archivist of the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, founding teacher of the S. F. Zen Center.

transcript
 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Daniel]

2 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

David Chadwick, author of "Crooked Cucumber"

 

motto:  if your cuke isn't crooked... you're doing it wrong!  

 

~kidding~  Looks neat Mark!  I'll check it out!

[Mark Foote]

14 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

motto:  if your cuke isn't crooked... you're doing it wrong!  

 

~kidding~  Looks neat Mark!  I'll check it out!
 

Don't know if you're familiar with David's work--the book is "Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki".  Suzuki's teacher in Japan used to refer to Suzuki as "crooked cucumber", meaning the kind of cucumber nobody would buy--hence the title of the book and the website.

I like the book a lot, it's an unvarnished biography, and David is like that--no pretense, the human side of things.  Plus an amazing archive of all things Suzuki Roshi and S. F.  Zen Center early days, online.

Hope you like the podcast, it was recorded in early June (David is 'way behind in putting them up).

[Daniel]

1 minute ago, Mark Foote said:

Don't know if you're familiar with David's work--the book is "Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki".  Suzuki's teacher in Japan used to refer to Suzuki as "crooked cucumber", meaning the kind of cucumber nobody would buy--hence the title of the book and the website.

I like the book a lot, it's an unvarnished biography, and David is like that--no pretense, the human side of things.  Plus an amazing archive of all things Suzuki Roshi and S. F.  Zen Center early days, online.

Hope you like the podcast, it was recorded in early June (David is 'way behind in putting them up).

 

No, not familiar, I was being cukey silly. 

[Michael Sternbach]

That podcast was interesting. Thanks for sharing!

 

It brought back the good old days when I was practising zazen together with a zen monk here in Switzerland, and later at the Sosenji temple in Kyoto. I would generally prefer the full lotus posture, and while sitting in it for 45 minutes wasn't such a big deal, during a double session -- or a sesshin with several sessions in one day -- I surely did have my difficult moments.

 

For that matter, I remember how, on one occasion, sitting right next to the priest in the temple's meditation hall mysteriously made the two-hour session so much easier to endure.

 

Your suggestion to bring the centre of gravity slightly forward immediately brought to mind what I had learnt from Taiji practice (even long before you mentioned the latter yourself). There, letting the pelvis roll forward is said to align the vertebrae and straighten the spine, which normally has kind of an 'S' shape. Since I recently started thinking of getting my zafu and my zabuton out of the closet again anyway, I suppose I will soon have an opportunity to mess with that concept! 😃

 

Regarding the question whether one's focus ought to constantly remain on the kikai tanden, I recall a passage in Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen, where a practitioner finding his attention wandering to the Third Eye was advised to go along with that kind of spontaneous 'deviation'.

 

And finally, I definitely agree that it's a good idea to look at zazen practice (and other meditation techniques) from a modern scientific perspective. 

[Mark Foote]

On 8/30/2023 at 6:23 PM, Michael Sternbach said:

That podcast was interesting. Thanks for sharing!
 

 

Thanks for listening, Michael!
 

 

Quote

 

It brought back the good old days when I was practising zazen together with a zen monk here in Switzerland, and later at the Sosenji temple in Kyoto. I would generally prefer the full lotus posture, and while sitting in it for 45 minutes wasn't such a big deal, during a double session -- or a sesshin with several sessions in one day -- I surely did have my difficult moments.

 

 

Favorite Swiss monk & dharma teacher Vanja Palmers!  I did a dokusan with him at Jikoji in the Santa Cruz mountains, long time ago now, more to get to know him since I was not a student.  He said he just felt like a fellow traveler, even though most if not all in Kobun's lineage regard him as Kobun's dharma heir.  That he felt that way, so true to my impression of Kobun, also a fellow traveler in spite of his mastery.
 

 

Quote

 

Your suggestion to bring the centre of gravity slightly forward immediately brought to mind what I had learnt from Taiji practice (even long before you mentioned the latter yourself). There, letting the pelvis roll forward is said to align the vertebrae and straighten the spine, which normally has kind of an 'S' shape. Since I recently started thinking of getting my zafu and my zabuton out of the closet again anyway, I suppose I will soon have an opportunity to mess with that concept! 😃

 

 

I think the business about straightening out the "S"-curve is a nod to the special mechanism of support that I described in the podcast, but it's not an actual possibility in sitting or standing, unless you're bent over from the waist for something.

Details of that mechanism of support are here:  Appendix–Kinesthesiology of Fascial Support

 

The idea is that the oblique and transverse abdominals can add pressure to the fluid ball of the abdomen while simultaneously working against the fine muscles of the spine to control the alignment of vertebrae, and with the right alignment, the pressure can shift the thoracolumbar fascia very slightly rearward, and the stretched fascia provides support to the spine.  All without impinging on the diaphragm.  There's a feeling of straightness, perhaps, because of the displacement of the fascia, but no actual straightness.

In A Way of Living, I lay out the particulars of setting up automatic activity of the body in the movement of breath.  I also quote some material about why there's even a necessity to be concerned about such a thing:

 

 Fundamentally speaking, the basis of the way is perfectly pervasive; how could it be contingent on practice and verification?  The vehicle of the ancestors is naturally unrestricted; why should we expend sustained effort? Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement; who could believe in a method to polish it? Never is it apart from this very place; what is the use of a pilgrimage to practice it?

 

(Eihei Dogen, “Koroku Kukan zazen gi”, tr Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation” UC Press 1988 p 175)

 

 

Dogen’s questions are rhetorical, but I nevertheless believe they have an answer:  there’s a particular frailty of the human body that can require practice to overcome, at least for some people.

 

Moshe Feldenkrais described the reason that many people hold their breath for an instant when getting up out of a chair:

 

The tendency to hold one’s breath is instinctive, part of an attempt to prevent the establishment of shearing stresses or forces likely to shift the vertebrae horizontally, out of the vertical alignment of the spinal column that they constitute.

 

(“Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 83)

 

 

I go through Feldenkrais's "automatic movement" in getting up out of a chair, and Haramitsu's "center of the body’s weight in line with the center of the triangular base of the seated body" for automatic activity in zazen, in "A Way of Living".

 

 

Quote

 

Regarding the question whether one's focus ought to constantly remain on the kikai tanden, I recall a passage in Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen, where a practitioner finding his attention wandering to the Third Eye was advised to go along with that kind of spontaneous 'deviation'.

 

 

Relaxation allows the weight to rest on the ligaments, and the calm stretch of ligaments allows the generation of reciprocal activity in agonist/antagonist muscle groups. I look to detach from thought, and recognize the placement of attention by the movement of breath.  That's the leap to automatic activity in the movement of breath, the placement of attention by the movement of breath.  Here's my description in "A Way of Living":

“One-pointedness” can shift, as every particle of the body (with no part left out) comes into the placement of attention.  At the moment when “one-pointedness” can shift as though in open space, volition and habit in the activity of inhalation and exhalation ceases. 
 

 

"One-pointedness" being the characteristic of the placement of attention by the movement of breath.  So, yeah, third-eye.  That placement of attention can shift and move, or remain stationary.
 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Mark Foote