Transmission Outside of Scripture

[Mark Foote]

A friend of mine was kind enough as to offer criticism of my latest post (on my own site). She said:
 

I found it very meandering.

 

Cut to the quick, she's good with swords!  

I responded:

 

I view what I’m doing as more like a mathematical proof. My favorite proofs, and I believe those of my instructors, are the ones where the result just falls out from seemingly unrelated or seemingly unimportant related work.

I thought the most interesting part of this post was the characterization of transmission outside of scripture as the transmission through demonstration of activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. That being the characteristic of the fourth concentration, and while it’s true there are a number of sermons where Gautama arrived at “profound knowledge” (enlightenment) while in the fourth concentration, it’s also true (by the “seven persons existing in the world” sermon) that attainment of the fourth concentration alone does not automatically result in the complete destruction of the cankers.

 

Folks wonder why their authentic Zen master has been sleeping around, they think enlightenment should preclude this. From the time of Gautama, the answer has been no, that’s not necessarily the case. What is transmitted in the Zen tradition does not in and of itself mean that sensory desire is cut off at the root.

Something I didn’t delve into in the essay, because I didn’t need to in order to make the points I wanted to make, is the record of how Gautama arrived at “profound knowledge” in the fourth concentration.  He did so by using the pliability of his mind in that state to reflect on “former habitations”, and “the passing and arising of beings”, after which he attained insight into the four truths about suffering and a similar four truths about the cankers.  That’s how the cankers were “cut off at the root” for him. I dare say, if I were witnessing my habitations in past lives, and my own past and future lives as well as those of the people around me, the cankers might come to be completely destroyed in me as well!  But I don’t expect that.

And as I point out in the essay, I can aspire to live the way of life of Gautama that was a thing “perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living besides” without enlightenment. You can too, if you catch a glimpse of the “base of consciousness”, the mind, moving as you’re dropping off to sleep.  It’s nothing to be afraid of, you know.

 

In fact, helps me fall asleep, all the time!

 

 

The post is here, love to have all  the sword-masters here weigh in...
 

 

 

Edited January 19 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

I neglected to mention something, with regard to activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness (the characteristic of the fourth concentration).  

When such activity is witnessed, there's a falling away of "latent conceits that I am the doer, mine is the doer, with regard to this consciousness-informed body" (MN 109, Pali Text Society vol III p 68). What remains is something like this:

 

When (one's) mind is thus concentrated, pure and bright, unblemished, free from defects, malleable, wieldy, steady and attained to imperturbability, (one) directs and inclines it to knowledge and vision. (One) understands thus: ‘This is my body, having material form, composed of the four primary elements, originating from father and mother, built up out of rice and gruel, impermanent, subject to rubbing and pressing, to dissolution and dispersion. And this is my consciousness, supported by it and bound up with it.’

Great king, suppose there were a beautiful beryl gem of purest water, eight-faceted, well cut, clear, limpid, flawless, endowed with all excellent qualities. And through it there would run a blue, yellow, red, white, or brown thread. A (person) with keen sight, taking it in (their) hand, would reflect upon it thus: ‘This is a beautiful beryl gem of purest water, eight faceted, well cut, clear, limpid, flawless, endowed with all excellent qualities. And running through it there is this blue, yellow, red, white, or brown thread.’ In the same way, great king, when (a person's) mind is thus concentrated, pure and bright … (that person then) directs and inclines it to knowledge and vision and understands thus: ‘This is my body, having material form, composed of the four primary elements, originating from father and mother, built up out of rice and gruel, impermanent, subject to rubbing and pressing, to dissolution and dispersion. and this is my consciousness, supported by it and bound up with it.’

 

(DN 2 Sāmaññaphala Sutta, tr. Bhikkyu Bodhi)
 

 

Consciousness tied to the body like a jewel on a string.  Activity of the body by virtue of the free location of consciousness, in particular the activity of inhalation and exhalation by virtue of the free location of consciousness, allows the recognition that the free location of consciousness is nevertheless tied to the body.

That's at the heart of the "knowledge and vision" that Gautama saw as a desirable outcome of the religious life.

Of course, even Robert Munroe saw that as the case, in his "Far Journeys".  He learned that in order to come back into his body (after he had travelled out of it, to god knows where), all he had to do was to make himself aware of his breathing. Didn't seem to give Robert the "intuitive wisdom" that is synonymous with the destruction of the cravings that Gautama saw as obstacles to the religious life (“craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” [DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340]--when the cankers are “destroyed”, the roots of the craving for sense-pleasures, the roots of the craving “to continue, to survive, to be” [tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato], and the roots of the craving not “to be” [the craving for the ignorance of being] are destroyed).
 

That insight, that consciousness is bound to the body, is also likely the source of statements of Gautama like this:

 

It were better… if the untaught manyfolk approached this body, child of the four great elements, as the self rather than the mind. Why so? Seen is it… how this body, child of the four great elements, persists for a year, persists for two years, persists for three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, persists for forty, for fifty years, persists for a hundred years and even longer. But this… that we call thought, that we call mind, that we call consciousness, that arises as one thing, ceases as another, whether by night or by day.
 

(Pali Text Society SN vol. II p 66)

 

A more humble view of the mind and consciousness, acquired through maintaining a presence of mind with the location of consciousness, the location of the "heart-mind", until activity of the body is solely by virtue of the location of that consciousness (until habit and volition in the activity of the body have ceased). And realizing that the location of consciousness is by necessity, necessity in the movement of breath, necessity in the structure of the sacrum and spine, necessity that arrives from beyond the boundaries of the senses but is nevertheless tied to them. The location of consciousness, bound to the necessity of the body.

Yes, talking to myself, forgive me...

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:42 AM by Mark Foote

[Lairg]

On 1/20/2025 at 9:11 AM, Mark Foote said:

transmission through demonstration of activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness

 

There is a proposition that consciousness requires a material vehicle (e.g. brain) so that consciousness is an interaction of spirit and matter.

 

What happens when the spirit is not attached to a physical vehicle?   

 

Perhaps that is the state of awareness - not restricted by the need for a nearby physical body

 

I have often become conscious of a sound/sensation that was already in the back of my  awareness for quite a while.

 

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

On 2/17/2025 at 4:51 PM, Lairg said:

 

There is a proposition that consciousness requires a material vehicle (e.g. brain) so that consciousness is an interaction of spirit and matter.

 

What happens when the spirit is not attached to a physical vehicle?   

 

Perhaps that is the state of awareness - not restricted by the need for a nearby physical body

 

I have often become conscious of a sound/sensation that was already in the back of my  awareness for quite a while.

Bodies manifest within the field of awareness.  Awareness does not manifest within a physical form.  Physical form is one small, dense aspect of awareness.  Rest as awareness.

[Lairg]

3 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Awareness does not manifest within a physical form.

 

On 2/18/2025 at 10:51 AM, Lairg said:

Perhaps that is the state of awareness - not restricted by the need for a nearby physical body

 

It seems we are somewhat in agreement.

 

I wonder whether awareness is unified in the cosmos.   Or can an individual have its own awareness?

 

What is the means of propagation of awareness?

 

 

[Mark Foote]

On 2/17/2025 at 4:51 PM, Lairg said:

 

There is a proposition that consciousness requires a material vehicle (e.g. brain) so that consciousness is an interaction of spirit and matter.

 

What happens when the spirit is not attached to a physical vehicle?   

 

Perhaps that is the state of awareness - not restricted by the need for a nearby physical body

 

I have often become conscious of a sound/sensation that was already in the back of my  awareness for quite a while.

 

 

 

I think it's complicated.

 

In his “Genjo Koan”, Dogen wrote:

 

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

 

(Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi, from “Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen”, p 69)

 

 

My explanation:  given a presence of mind that can “hold consciousness by itself”, 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.

 

Dogen continued:
 

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

 

(ibid)

 

My explanation:  “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.

 

(Take the Backward Step)

 

 

Dogen didn't stop there:

 

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

(ibid)

 

Kobun Chino Otogawa gave a practical example of that, even though he wasn’t talking about “Genjo Koan” at the time:
 

You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around.

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, my recollection of a lecture at S. F. Zen Center in the 1980’s)

 

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.  When action turns out to accord with future events in an uncanny way, the source of that action may well be described as “the inconceivable”.
 

I have found that zazen is more likely to “get up and walk around” when the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of friendliness and compassion, an extension beyond the boundaries of the senses. Gautama the Buddha described such an extension:
 

[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 7; translation Pali Text Society vol. I p 48)

 

Gautama said that “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of the mind of compassion was the first of the further concentrations, a concentration he called “the infinity of ether” (SN 46.54; © Pali Text Society Vol V p 100-102).
 

The Oxford English Dictionary offers some quotes about “ether” (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “ether (n.),” March 2024):

 

They [sc. the Brahmins] thought the stars moved, and the planets they called fishes, because they moved in the ether, as fishes do in water.
 

(Vince, Complete System. Astronomy vol. II. 253 [1799])

 

Plato considered that the stars, chiefly formed of fire, move through the ether, a particularly pure form of air.
 

(Popular Astronomy vol. 24 364 [1916])

 

When the free location of consciousness is accompanied by an extension of the mind of compassion, there can be a feeling that the necessity of breath is connected to things that lie outside the boundaries of the senses.  That, to me, is an experience of “the infinity of ether”.

(The Inconceivable Nature of the Wind)
 

Maybe you're hearing the cosmic wind!

 

 

[Lairg]

 

It is commonplace that dreams usually need to be recorded immediately upon waking as the memory fades very quickly.

 

It may be that while asleep we are usually out of the body, thus operating with the mind but without the brain connection.

 

If the concept of parallel universes/timelines is considered, the brain is largely restricted to this 3D timeline, but the mind may be on several streams at once

 

 

[stirling]

With deference Mark, I feel like you are seeking something with this continued line of questioning. What IS it? Did you have an experience that you can't reconcile and are trying to understand? Are you trying to construct a theory for something you haven't experienced? Do you feel like there is some "hidden" Buddhism that others have missed out on, best explained on some cludge of Zen and Theravada doctrines? What do you REALLY want to know? I ask this with what I hope you see as great compassion for your continued quest.

[stirling]

As far as real transmission outside of scripture, it happens all the time... Sufis, Hindus, Jains, and even Christians and Jews, amongst a multitude of even those with no formal belief system can come to realization.