Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential II: Open Tradition Edition

[Thrice Daily]

After looking further in. I really only need to stick to the five seasons to regulate. Might be worth a look if you haven't already. The Solar Cycles are interesting though to get familiar with for more subtle intentions that may fit on a bi weekly basis.

[Mark Foote]

On 11/15/2024 at 11:07 AM, stirling said:

 

"Will" is just this, your response in this moment, colored and conditioned by the circumstances you are experiencing, and not yours. Will is impersonal. This is how things are in my experience. 

 

 

 

How to reconcile the zazen that gets up and walks around with the exercise of will?  For years, I tried to let zazen act, only.

I understand the mechanism of that action a little better now:

 

From “Genjo Koan”:

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

 

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Tanahashi)

 

 

Given a presence of mind that can “hold consciousness by itself” (Nisargadatta's advice for meditation), activity in the body begins to coordinate by virtue of the sense of place associated with consciousness.  A relationship between the free location of consciousness and activity in the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, “practice occurs”.  Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested in the activity of the body.

 

The second line in Genjo Koan about "actualization", and my explanation:

 

When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point…

(ibid)

 

 

“When you find your way at this moment”, activity takes place solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. A relationship between the freedom of consciousness and the automatic activity of the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, practice occurs. Through such practice, the placement of consciousness is manifested as the activity of the body.

 

There’s a third line about actualization in “Genjo Koan”:

 

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

(ibid)

 

 

Activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness can sometimes get up and walk around, without any thought to do so.

 

Action like that resembles action that takes place through hypnotic suggestion, but unlike action by hypnotic suggestion, action by virtue of the free location of consciousness can turn out to be timely after the fact.

 

(The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind, edited)

 

 

Over time I discovered that my beliefs could also become the source of "will-less" action, very much like hypnotic suggestion.  The moral of that story is to be completely honest about one's beliefs, and strive to ground them on reality, because one's actions will surely follow.  

My understanding is that the contemplation of a cessation of habit and volition, of will, in the activity of inhalation and exhalation was a part of the observations/thoughts that made up Gautama's way of living, before and after his enlightenment. I've summarized the actionable elements of his mindfulness for myself:
 

1) Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

 

Mindfulness at some level is a necessity of breath, but in my experience to remain mindful requires the inclusion of the cessation of habit and volition in inhalation and exhalation in mindfulness--in more substantive terms, the inclusion of the experience of automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation solely by virtue of the location of consciousness. 

 

Occasionally, comes a feeling that the necessity of breath is connected to things that lie outside the boundaries of the senses, and zazen may get up and walk around, yet the extension of compassion that makes that possible is not inherently a part of the mindfulness of daily living.

"Making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness."  Self-surrender is the surrender of action by habit or volition, by will.  Gautama said that he returned to that first characteristic of concentration after he lectured, presumably one-pointedness, and that would imply that the mindfulness that made up his way of living was the thought initial and sustained of the first concentration.
 

Edited Sunday at 11:29 PM by Mark Foote

[forestofclarity]

Quote

Profound, peaceful, stainless, lucid, and unconditioned‍—
Such is the nectar-like truth I have realized.
Were I to teach it, no one would understand,
So I will silently remain in the forest.

I have discovered the supremely sublime and astonishing absolute,
The ineffable state, untainted by language,
Suchness, the sky-like nature of phenomena,
Completely free of discursive, conceptual movement.

This meaning cannot be understood through words;
Rather it is comprehended through reaching their limit.
Yet when sentient beings, whom previous victorious ones took under their care,
Hear about this truth, they develop confidence in it.

 

-- the Buddha, Lalitavistara Sutra, recollecting his moment of enlightenment

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, forestofclarity said:

 

-- the Buddha, Lalitavistara Sutra, recollecting his moment of enlightenment

 

and what happened later to change things?  (rhetorical question)

[dwai]

On 11/14/2024 at 7:38 PM, Shadow_self said:

True Wisdom is also a siddhi of sorts   Thats something thats been proven to be abundantly clear to me  

That is the only Siddhi, rest are all parlor tricks of varying degrees. 

[dwai]

The mind is a mirror in which we see the reflection of our Self -- that's the seeing and recognizing part.

The dust of life settles on this mirror gradually and obscures the image.  So we clean the mirror every day -- that's the maintaining part. 

Is it necessary to keep cleaning the mirror after seeing and recognizing it? The question arises "Who is recognizing, and who is cleaning/maintaining? Who knows if the image is clear or obscure?"  That one doesn't (need to) do anything. 

[Ascetic]

45 minutes ago, dwai said:

The mind is a mirror in which we see the reflection of our Self -- that's the seeing and recognizing part.

The dust of life settles on this mirror gradually and obscures the image.  So we clean the mirror every day -- that's the maintaining part. 

Is it necessary to keep cleaning the mirror after seeing and recognizing it? The question arises "Who is recognizing, and who is cleaning/maintaining? Who knows if the image is clear or obscure?"  That one doesn't (need to) do anything. 

How do we make the mental work we do permanent? Especially if it is not included in what opening chakras would clear

Edited Thursday at 10:39 PM by Ascetic

[dwai]

2 hours ago, Ascetic said:

How do we make the mental work we do permanent? Especially if it is not included in what opening chakras would clear

What will opening chakras clear? 

[Mark Foote]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

The mind is a mirror in which we see the reflection of our Self -- that's the seeing and recognizing part.

The dust of life settles on this mirror gradually and obscures the image.  So we clean the mirror every day -- that's the maintaining part. 

Is it necessary to keep cleaning the mirror after seeing and recognizing it? The question arises "Who is recognizing, and who is cleaning/maintaining? Who knows if the image is clear or obscure?"  That one doesn't (need to) do anything. 
 

 

 

In physical terms, activity of the body solely by virtue of the location of consciousness is regulated by the stretch of ligaments and fascia.  Ligaments in particular stretch and resile, especially waking and sleeping, and each day the relationship of freedom in the location of consciousness to the stretch of ligaments and the activity of the body changes. 

I've written about the fourth jhana:

 

Things can shift from activity of the body coordinated by the free placement of consciousness, to activity that takes place solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness.  Here’s Gautama’s description of the fourth concentration:

 

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 Book of Fives, The Fivefold, The Five-Limbed, Pali Text Society vol. III p 18-19)

 

... In some sermons, Gautama offered a variation on his metaphor for the fourth concentration:

 

… it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth. 

 

(MN III 119 Pali Text Society vol. III p 134)

 

 

In the fourth concentration, ease in the nerve exits between vertebrae along the sacrum and spine provides an ability to feel right to the surface of the skin all over the body, such that “there is not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of consciousness.

 

(Applying the Pali Instructions)

 

 

With regard to the description of the fourth concentration:

 

Gautama made clear through his choice of words (“not one particle… that is not pervaded”) that the mind can remain one-pointed, even as the body is suffused with “purity by the pureness of mind”.
 

An evenness in the nerve exits between vertebrae along the sacrum and spine is effected by a freedom of location in the one-pointed consciousness identified with the self in the body. The prior three jhanas involve particular patterns of coordination between the location of consciousness and stretch and resile in the ligaments of the pelvis, sacrum, and spine, patterns of coordination that effect the stretch and resile of ligaments necessary to open the related nerve exits and realize feeling throughout the body.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:12 AM by Mark Foote

[Ascetic]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

What will opening chakras clear? 

I’m not sure, things that it should but not leading the way towards self-desires to be fulfilled. Certain practices seem to be excluded out of the scope of spiritual remedies ever addressing them.