Grokking the Dharma

[Mark Foote]

13 minutes ago, Cobie said:

then he’s dead. 

 

 

 

“The cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing” is not an actual stoppage of breath. Gautama only spoke about the stoppage of breath once, in a description of the practices he undertook as an ascetic:
 

So I, Aggivessana, stopped breathing in and breathing out through the mouth and through the nose and through the ears.  When I, Aggivessana, had stopped breathing in and breathing out through the mouth and through the nose and through the ears, I came to have very bad headaches… very strong winds cut through my stomach… there came a fierce heat in my body.  Although, Aggivessana, unsluggish energy came to be stirred up in me, unmuddled mindfulness set up, yet my body was turbulent, not calmed, because I was harassed in striving by striving against that very pain.  But yet, Aggivesana, that painful feeling, arising in me, persisted without impinging on my mind…
 

(MN I 244-245, Pali Text Society vol I p 298-299)

 

Stopping the breath in and the breath out did not satisfy Gautama’s quest to “bring to a close the (holy)-faring”.  Only after he had abandoned such ascetic practices did he enter the states of concentration, and attain the state that caused him to say, “done is what was to be done”. 

 

(A Way of Living)

 

I know that while my father, the Sakyan, was ploughing, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, I entered on the first meditation, which is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness, and is rapturous and joyful, and while abiding therein, I thought: ‘Now could this be a way to awakening?’ Then, following on my mindfulness, Aggivissana, there was the consciousness: This is itself the Way to awakening. This occurred to me, Aggivissana: ‘Now, am I afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind?’ This occurred to me…: I am not afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind.’
 

(MN 1 246-247, Vol I p 301)

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

On 11/18/2023 at 8:54 AM, stirling said:

 

Buddhist translator and author Ken McLeod recommends the term "struggle" instead of suffering. This is a much better translation, since it captures the larger point that the problem isn't with the world as it is, the problem is our STRUGGLE with the world as it is, expressed and clinging and aversion (imagined stories about how things were, are, or will be) to past, present, and imagined future events. 

 

The struggle and karma are OURS. We can stop generating both once we change our perspective about how things are, and the results are obvious quickly. 
 

The struggle and karma are OURS. We can stop generating both once we experience how things are...



 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Sahaja]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:02 AM, Sahaja said:

I think there is a lot more to the mindfulness item. It’s hinted at in the statements “positioning the awareness” and “new vantage point”. In a different tradition they say tatah dvandah anabhigatah - no longer disturbed by the pairs of opposites. 

What I was thinking here - the opposites refer to subject and object -  once non differentiation with the object of meditation is reached this non differentiation extends to all objects 

[stirling]

21 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

The struggle and karma are OURS. We can stop generating both once we experience how things are, how things really are (and thereby lose "any latent conceits that "I am the doer", "mine is the doer" with regard to this consciousnesss-informed body").

 

The larger realization you are really looking for is into no-self, if we are using the Buddha as our reference. Nagarjuna classifies a few other ways in, including insight in the the illusory nature of time and space. Non-doership is functionally related to the no-self insight and could precipitate it, but is not an insight on its own. 

 

I know you are big fan of this doership idea. Have you read Ramesh Balsekar? He is an Advaita teacher whose primary theory revolves around the non-doership concept. You might like him.

 

https://rameshbalsekar.com/the-teaching/

[Mark Foote]

On 11/18/2023 at 8:54 AM, stirling said:

 

The struggle and karma are OURS. We can stop generating both once we change our perspective about how things are, and the results are obvious quickly. 
 

 

 

Apologies--I edited my original comment, instead of adding a new comment.  For anyone reading the thread and confused, stirling has quoted the original and responded to that.

The new comment was really just the heart of the old comment, with underlining both in stirling's original and in my response.  

The struggle and karma are OURS. We can stop generating both once we experience how things are, and the results are obvious quickly. 

 

The addition of "... and thereby lose "any latent conceits that "I am the doer", "mine is the doer" with regard to this consciousnesss-informed body" was just to emphasis the kind of experience that stops generating both.

Thanks for the recommendation, stirling--I'm guessing you're referring to this:  "Self-realization is simply the realization by the ego that the ego itself is not a separate doer, that the doing is merely a happening through a human mechanism or instrument."  That's an interesting way to put it.  I kind of prefer my own explanation:

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

 

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

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

I'll even take this, over an explanation in terms of the ego:

 

Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving.
 

(“Whole-Body Zazen”, lecture by Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara, June 28, 1970 [edited by Bill Redican], transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

 

 

[stirling]

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

Thanks for the recommendation, stirling--I'm guessing you're referring to this:  "Self-realization is simply the realization by the ego that the ego itself is not a separate doer, that the doing is merely a happening through a human mechanism or instrument." That's an interesting way to put it. 

 

Agreed. The idea that there is a "human mechanism or instrument" is something that is also seen through in my experience, but certainly doership is a delusion that gets seen through.  

 

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

I kind of prefer my own explanation:

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

 

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

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

Looks familiar.