Mark Foote

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About Mark Foote

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  1. More Unpopular Opinions

    A very unpopular question.
  2. Took me a lot of years, of always having it in mind and sitting mostly half-lotus. Dennis Merkel, Zen teacher who at one point in time was associated with the L. A. Zen Center, says he sat half-lotus for a couple of decades, then full-lotus for a couple, and now Burmese for a decade or so (ankles on the ground, one leg in front of the others). He has transmission in both the Rinzai and Soto traditions, if I understand correctly. I should confess, when I did that five-day sesshin at Jikoji Zen Center, they pretty much alternated 40- and 30- minute sittings, and I had to uncork my lotus at about 35 minutes every time on the 40 minute sittings. Very embarassing, but I was determined not to hurt my knees, and I consistently felt something in my knees at about 35 minutes. Last I heard, the periods at L. A. Zen Center sesshins are 35 minutes, except for one initial 50 minute sitting--guess I'm not the only one. Maybe a couple of years after that five-day sesshin, I began to feel something in my knees when I was out walking, and I decided to forget about the lotus and 40-minutes and just go with a sloppy half-lotus for 25 minutes. My knees returned to normal. Lately I sit beyond 25 minutes a lot, in the half-lotus (or Burmese, if my ankle falls off the opposite calf, as it seems to do with the right leg up). Seems like I have to finish the time I feel is mandatory, before I can "just sit". But my sitting has changed. I have a better idea, how to turn over the reins: 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. There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages. I don't know what Apech means by "look at your mind", but that's what I'm doing--looking at the location of my awareness, instead of the contents. 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”. Turn it around, let the "where" not the "who" act past 20 minutes or so (sooner if you can), and your knees will thank you. Issho Fujita, demonstrating a relationship between "one-pointedness of mind" and the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation in zazen: Shunryu Suzuki, describing to his students how they could avoid pain in their legs in sitting: If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness]. (“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, Shunryu Suzuki; August Sesshin Lecture; San Francisco, August 6, 1969) Dogen: When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. ("Genjo Koan", tr Tanahashi) The "where", as the source of the activity of the body from outbreath to inbreath, and from inbreath to outbreath: When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point… (ibid) ... the Blessed One addressed the monks. "Whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, 'O, that I might live for a day & night... for a day... for the interval that it takes to eat a meal... for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up four morsels of food, that I might attend to the Blessed One's instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal' — they are said to dwell heedlessly. They develop mindfulness of death slowly for the sake of ending the effluents. "But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, 'O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food... for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One's instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal' — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents. (AN 6.19 PTS: A iii 303; Maranassati Sutta: Mindfulness of Death (1) tr Thanissaro Bhikkhu)
  3. I was unsatisfied with my mind, in high school. In my senior year, a friend pointed me to the illustrations of zazen in the back of "The Three Pillars of Zen", by Kapleau, and I started to try to sit cross-legged on the floor for five or ten minutes at a stretch. A few years later, another friend took me to hear the lectures of a Zen teacher from Japan. Sitting was still very uncomfortable for me after about twenty minutes, but I persevered. The advice I got from that teacher was "take your time with the lotus". At one point I could sit about 35 minutes in the lotus, did so through a five day sesshin, but now I only sit a sloppy half-lotus, and often only for 25 minutes. Pretty much have sat in the mornings when I first get up, and at night before I go to bed, for all of my adult life now. The sitting has been the teacher, in my life, and I'm grateful every day.
  4. The Idiots Way

    Ok, that is actually different from what I said, when I said: But does the action of the body, and possibly of the mind, proceed from the experience of "just is" without departing the experience? That's the real test. You quote Thinley Norbu Rinpoche's commentary on the Ngondro from the treasure texts of Dudjom Lingpa: So therefore, the pure way of abiding in unconditioned wisdom and the way that appearances manifest are evenly pure. This is called the wisdom of eveness. He does not say that the way of abiding in unconditioned wisdom and the way that appearances manifest are the same thing, he only says they are evenly pure. That's the distinction I'm trying to make: they are separate, although I don't experience (or I haven't experienced) the complete separation that he seems to describe.
  5. More Unpopular Opinions

    I'm honored, but were you responding to: Let's get SO unpopular! Or were you responding to: As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized. (SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159) I'm guessing you were actually responding to Gautama the Shakyan, and in particular to Gautama's emphasis on a cessation of the desire "to do". I'm talking about how action can take place in the absence of volition, that to me is the verification part of "practice and verification". You're talking about how the lack of desire results in a particular state of mind, as far as I can tell. Here's a more modern treatment--notice that there is an action that is taking place, and the emphasis is on the action, even though desire has presumably been abandoned and a wide-open state of mind has presumably been realized: But usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit. (“The Background of Shikantaza”; Shunryu Suzuki, Sunday, February 22, 1970, San Francisco; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com) "Blown out"--necessity in the movement of breath places attention, and the activity of the body follows solely from the location of attention (which is not fixed). The only good thing Buddhaghosa ever wrote: The air element that courses through all the limbs and has the characteristic of moving and distending, being founded upon earth, held together by water, and maintained by fire, distends this body. And this body, being distended by the latter kind of air, does not collapse, but stands erect, and being propelled by the other (motile) air, it shows intimation and it flexes and extends and it wriggles the hands and feet, doing so in the postures comprising of walking, standing, sitting and lying down. So this mechanism of elements carries on like a magic trick… (Buddhaghosa, “Visuddhimagga” XI, 92; tr. Bhikku Nanamoli, Buddhist Publication Society p 360)
  6. The Idiots Way

    Is that different from what I said?
  7. The Idiots Way

    But does the action of the body, and possibly of the mind, proceed from the experience of "just is" without departing the experience? That's the real test.
  8. More Unpopular Opinions

    I think about these things a lot... if the cat brings me a rat, I will be sure to place it between my teeth, in hopes that the Jabberwocky will pass go and proceed directly to community chest. But seriously. Some voodoo fun from the Zen tradition: In the Yagyu-ryu (a school of swordsmanship), there is a secret teaching called “Seikosui”. Yagyu Toshinaga, a master of the Yagyu-ryu, taught that it was especially important to concentrate vital energy and power in the front of the body around the navel and at the back of the body in the koshi (pelvic) area when taking a stance. In other words, he means to fill the whole body with spiritual energy. In his “Nikon no Shimei” (“Mission of Japan”), Hida Haramitsu writes: “The strength of the hara alone is insufficient, the strength of the koshi alone is not sufficient, either. We should balance the power of the hara and the koshi and maintain equilibrium of the seated body by bringing the center of the body’s weight in line with the center of the triangular base of the seated body.” … we should expand the area ranging from the coccyx to the area right behind the navel in such a way as to push out the lower abdomen, while at the same time contracting the muscles of the anus. … It may be the least trouble to say as a general precaution that strength should be allowed to come to fullness naturally as one becomes proficient in sitting. We should sit so that our energy increases of itself and brims over instead of putting physical pressure on the lower abdomen by force. (“An Introduction to Zen Training: A Translation of Sanzen Nyumon”, Omori Sogen, tr. Dogen Hosokawa and Roy Yoshimoto, Tuttle Publishing, pg 59, parentheticals added) I believe in Gautama's teaching, the "brims over" described above is a feeling that belongs to the second concentration: … imagine a pool with a spring, but no water-inlet on the east side or the west side or on the north or on the south, and suppose the (rain-) deva supply not proper rains from time to time–cool waters would still well up from that pool, and that pool would be steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with the cold water so that not a drop but would be pervaded by the cold water; in just the same way… (one) steeps (their) body with zest and ease… (AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III p 18-19) Wait for it...
  9. More Unpopular Opinions

    It's good to be able to relinquish activity and the identification of self with an actor. Sometimes that might involve reflection on impermanence, and some detachment from the pleasant and unpleasant--maybe even from the neutral of sensation. (One) makes up one’s mind: Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out. (SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced, re-paragraphed) I know, I know--get outta here!
  10. More Unpopular Opinions

    Got an unpopular take on that for you, old3bob (I'm expanding, Apech!). In the chapter on inbreathing and outbreathing in Samyutta Nikaya V, there's an account of the time Gautama went on retreat for three weeks, and only the monk who brought his food was allowed near him. When he came back from the retreat, he noticed there were fewer monks than when he left. He asked his attendant Ananda about it, and Ananda reminded Gautama that before he left, Gautama had advised the monks to practice the meditation on the unlovely (aspects of the body). Consequently, said Ananda, as many as a score of monks a day had begun "taking the knife". Gautama had Ananda gather the monks, and he taught them what he said was his own way of living--basically, a particular set of thoughts connected with the four arisings of mindfulness. But get this--that way of living, he said, was "a thing perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living besides" (no enlightenment necessary). What I understand from that teaching is that I can knock myself out, looking to turn a corner and be a different person, or I can accept a way of living marked by thoughts initial and sustained, which is something like the way I live now. Well--he observed such thought with the placement of awareness by necessity ("one-pointedness of mind"), and in connection with an inbreath or an outbreath. He did so "most of the time", and "especially in the rainy season"--that's how it was for Gautama. The only thing I really need to master is the ability to arrive at the cessation of habit and volition in the activity of breath, such that I can experience cessation in daily living, when the occasion demands--to master "just sitting", as it were. I find that the stage of concentration that lends itself to practice in the moment is dependent on the tendency toward the free placement of attention. As I wrote in my last post: When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration. Shunryu Suzuki said: To enjoy our life– complicated life, difficult life– without ignoring it, and without being caught by it. Without suffer from it. That is actually what will happen to us after you practice zazen. (“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco) I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my “complicated, difficult” daily life, I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom. ("To Enjoy Our Life")
  11. More Unpopular Opinions

    Let's get SO unpopular! As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized. (SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159)
  12. Haiku Chain

    Moved in solitude rocks on the Mojave floor nice trick to match that
  13. The Idiots Way

    Let the mind be present without an abode. (from the Diamond Sutra, translation by Venerable Master Hsing Yun from “The Rabbit’s Horn: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra”, Buddha’s Light Publishing p 60)
  14. More Unpopular Opinions

    I, for one, was most unhappy with my mind by my early teens. That's how I came to accept "Focus on body first and let your thoughts take care of themselves" (cited above by Apech as a part of an unpopular opinion). At seventeen, I learned how to sit zazen from the diagrams at the back of "Three Pillars of Zen". That was reminiscent of the way I initially learned judo, out of a Bruce Tegner book. When I actually started in at a judo dojo, the principal instructor called his instructing assistants over to witness me demonstrating what I had learned. Years later I found out they were highly amused, although they didn't show it at the time (fortunately. I owe them all a great debt!). My posture will never be exemplary, I'm reconciled to that. And much of what I've learned about internal arts has come out of books, still. But I agree, there's a love of life, a happiness in living that's natural, a happiness the denial of which is downright unhealthy. What I found through the seemingly unnatural practice of sitting on the floor with my legs crossed is that the body can place the mind, out of necessity. And understanding that such placement is a natural thing in the rhythm of consciousness, I have mostly reconciled with that same mind that left me so dismayed as a teenager--my mind knows what to do, about one thing. Unnatural to sit a posture that's been around since the Egyptians (you knew I'd get around to it, Apech), or... simply unpopular. You decide... From the tomb of Ptah-Hotep, 24th century B.C.E.
  15. More Unpopular Opinions

    lord love a duck... sorry for the dupe.