A Natural Mindfulness

Transcription

1 A Natural Mindfulness Mark A. Foote 2016 Mark A. Foote all rights reserved

2 Contents Preface 4 Waking Up and Falling Asleep 5 Post: I tried your practice last night - humbleone, from Tao Bums 6 Post: Feedback from humbleone 7 Comment 8 Post: The Turning Phrase of Zen 9 Fuxi s Poem 11 Post: About the Anatomy in Fuxi s Poem 22 D. L. Bartilink, "No Special Effort", and the "Best of Ways" 23 Post: Limbering Up 28 Dogen's "Genjo Koan" 30 Post: How so? 34 Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha's "Pleasant Way of Living" 36 Post: An Image in the Place of an Image 51 Simultaneity of Things 53 Post: Conversation with Apech 55 Post: The Secret of the Golden Flower 58 Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind 63 Post: Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind 66 Post: The Case of the Suffocating Woman 71 Post: Twenty-second Case: Hsueh Feng's Turtle-Nosed Snake 74 Post: A Natural Mindfulness 80 Illustrations (a) 81 Illustrations (b) 82 Illustrations (c) 83 Illustrations (d) 84 Illustrations (e) 85 Illustrations (f) 86 Illustrations (g) 87 Illustrations (h) 88 Illustrations (j) 89 Illustrations (k) 90 Illustrations (l) 91 Illustrations (m) 92 Illustrations (n) 93 Illustrations (o) 94 Illustrations (p) 95 Illustrations (q) 96

3 Illustrations (r) 97 3

4 Preface A Natural Mindfulness consists of a series of my writings from the last few years, all of which have appeared on my website, zenmudra.com. The title is drawn from a post I made on Zazen Notes (the website blog); that post appears as the concluding piece. My writing is largely dependent on an analysis I made of the first four Sutta volumes of the Pali Canon, titled Making Sense of the Pali Sutta: the Wheel of the Sayings. I would recommend anyone who is not familiar with the teachings recorded in the Pali Canon review that analysis before reading this work, to better understand the context of the approach I have taken here. My thanks to the authors and individuals who provided the information and the inspiration that allowed me to write A Natural Mindfulness. Mark Foote August 10,

5 Waking Up and Falling Asleep I have a practice that I d like to offer, something that I believe is already part of the general repertoire of this community, even though the details I will provide here are new. The practice I have in mind is a practice that everybody is already familiar with, even if they don t think of it as a practice. What I m referring to is waking up in the morning, or falling asleep at night; if you ve ever had a hard time waking up or falling asleep, then you know that there can indeed be a practice! In my experience, the practice is the same, whether I am waking up or falling asleep: when I realize my physical sense of location in space, and realize it as it occurs from one moment to the next, then I wake up or fall asleep as appropriate. This practice is useful, when I wake up in the middle of the night and need to go back to sleep, or when I want to feel more physically alive in the morning. This practice is also useful when I want to feel my connection to everything around me, because my sense of place registers the contact of my awareness with each thing, as contact occurs. Just before I fall asleep, my awareness can move very readily, and my sense of where I am tends to move with it. This is also true when I am waking up, although it can be harder to recognize (I tend to live through my eyes in the daytime, and associate my sense of place with them). When my awareness shifts readily, I realize that my ability to feel my location in space is made possible in part by the freedom of my awareness to move. I sometimes overlook my location in space because I attach to what I m feeling, or I m averse to it, or I ignore it. The result is that I lose the freedom of my awareness to shift and move, and I have difficulty relaxing or staying alert. When I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, then my awareness remains free, and I can relax and keep my wits about me. To me, a lot of what this community is about is living life from exactly where we are. When we really live from where we are, we discover that everything and everyone around us is a part of where we are, and that our actions truly belong to where we are. This kind of action is the only really selfless action I know. There s really nothing special about having a sense of place, and yet I find my peace of mind depends on my sense of place most of all. That is why I would like to recommend the practice of waking up and falling asleep to everyone. 5

6 Post: I tried your practice last night - humbleone, from Tao Bums (Feb ) Hi Mark, so I tried your practice last night. My ideal sleep time should be from 10PM-6AM I woke up at 4:30 AM, after a quick drink of water. returned to bed and tried your practice. I hope I did it correctly, I was somewhat surprized that my mind moved around quite a bit. not fast, but in slow motion the awareness would shift, from left cheek to right side of torso etc. The end result was a light sleep state, but I was glued to the bed and then woke up exactly at 6AM, feeling refreshed like I had a complete 8 hours of sleep. If I am able to gain control over my sleep that would be very significant step for me indeed. Could you please provide some feedback if I did it correctly? All the best, humbleone 6

7 Post: Feedback from humbleone (Mar ) so after a week of your Waking Up and Falling Asleep, I am pleased to say it works for me EVERYTIME without fail. Nights of insomnia, tossing and turning, hopefully are behind me. This has made me much more productive during the wakeful hours. These are quite significant results Mark, I would urge you to get others to try out your practice and report back. frankly speaking, the waking up part I don t have much of an issue with. however i did try the waking up portion of your practice and it seems to work fine for me. The real challenge for me is to practice it during the day. As you mentioned there is something special about the early morning hours, the state of mind/body after a few hours of sleep that makes this practice very conducive to working. -humbleone (Mar ) I wanted to follow-up with you and find out if you had any luck spreading the word about your practice? I have taken it a bit further, experimenting with it during the day. same practice, find the location of the consiousness. It pulls me into the present. the feeling last 2-3 seconds, but it is something that I have never experienced before. being really present, here and now. the mental projection into the future stops, the past stops. I am just here and now. no future plans or worries. no goals, no dreams that are waiting to be fullfilled. time stops. no where to go. I am just here and now. I think you are on to something, with broad applications. - humbleone 7

8 Comment (Mar ) Thanks so much for the feedback. Yes, I do care that more people are able to experience the same thing that you and I have experienced, I do think that there's a well-being in that experience that is of benefit, even if only in brief interludes. Here's a passage from "Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu" that might interest you: "The essential thing in studying the Way is to make the roots deep and the stem strong. Be aware of where you really are, twenty-four hours a day. You must be most attentive. When nothing at all gets on your mind, it all merges harmoniously, without hindrance-- the whole thing is empty and still, and there is no more doubt or hesitation in anything you do. This is called the fundamental matter appearing ready-made." ("Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu", translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, pg 53) When I read teachings like this, I always keep in mind that the words were spoken for the benefit of the speaker, and when they cease to be a teaching for the teacher they cease to communicate. Yuanwu has beautiful letters, and he usually starts out strong, and closes with something remarkable, and in between is his personal journey. Here he recites things he already is certain on, at the start of a letter. The Clearys titled this letter "It doesn't come from outside"; toward the close of the letter, he says this: "This is why the founder of Zen pointed directly to the human mind. This is why "The Diamond Sutra" taught the importance of human beings detaching from forms. When a strong man moves his arm, he does not depend on someone else's strength-- that's what it's like to be detached from forms." (Ibid) Here he is attempting to point toward action out of the place of occurrence of consciousness, choiceless action with no future and no past. In my opinion he is successful, if you already know what he's talking about, to some extent. I have confidence that his words are alive, yet his conclusion in the letter (which I won't quote) leads me to think he knew when he had said as much as he could say, and he left off with that and went about his life. He didn't have to make sense to anyone else. He knew he was talking to himself, and if he was very lucky, to everyone else. My opinion. Hopefully this interests you. 8

9 (Jul ) Post: The Turning Phrase of Zen A teacher of neigong said: "For the neigong we do, brain activity approaches zero and yes, we can do that almost instantly and I have proven this in a sleep lab, but natural awareness increases." (Ya Mu, on The Dao Bums web forum) Milton Erickson also described an increase of awareness in trance: 'I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intonations and inflections of my patients' speech. And to enable me to hear better, see better.'" (Wikipedia, "Milton Erickson") Both statements assert that the senses are heightened with the induction of a trance. One of Erickson's approaches to trance induction bears remarkable resemblance to one of the methods of teaching employed by the Zen masters. Erickson sometimes used a "confusion" technique to allow for the induction of trance: 'Confusion might be created by ambiguous words, complex or endless sentences, pattern interruption or a myriad of other techniques to incite transderivational searches." (Ibid) Transderivational searches are described on Wikipedia as: "...search(es) for a possible meaning or possible match as part of communication, and without which an incoming communication cannot be made any sense of whatsoever." 9

10 The "turning phrase" of a Zen teacher is the result of a spontaneous pivot in the teacher's frame of reference, perhaps in response to a question or a situation; the phrase or word that expresses the pivot can invoke a transderivational search in the listener, and allow for the induction of trance. Induction with the confusion technique is sudden, as with Milton Erickson's famous "handshake induction": 'Among Erickson's best-known innovations is the hypnotic handshake induction, which is a type of confusion technique....this induction works because shaking hands is one of the actions learned and operated as a single "chunk" of behavior; tying shoelaces is another classic example. If the behavior is diverted or frozen midway, the person literally has no mental space for this - he is stopped in the middle of unconsciously executing a behavior that hasn't got a "middle". The mind responds by suspending itself in trance until either something happens to give a new direction, or it "snaps out".' (Wikipedia, "Milton Erickson") With the "turning phrase", the Zen master leaves any listener "stopped in the middle", which allows the induction of trance and a heightened awareness of the function of the senses that provide the experience of self. That the senses are involved in the experience of self is the conclusion of scientists Olaf Blanke and Christine Mohr. In their research, they have found that the tactil-proprioceptive-kinesthetic, visual, and vestibular senses are crucial: these senses appear to give rise not just to sensations connected with the physical body, but to an actual feeling of the existence of a self. I would say that allowance for the induction of trance opens a gateway to awareness in the particular senses that Blanke and Mohr have identified. 10

11 Fuxi s Poem The sixth-century Buddhist monk Fuxi wrote: The empty hand grasps the hoe handle Walking along, I ride the ox The ox crosses the wooden bridge The bridge is flowing, the water is still ( Zen s Chinese Heritage, translation by Andy Ferguson) The phenomena that Fuxi described in his poem are all phenomena of trance; that is to say, they require the induction of a state in which volition in activity is surrendered, to a greater or lesser extent, before they can be observed. On Trance The psychotherapist Milton Erickson held that trance is an everyday occurrence for everyone. Getting lost in a train of thought, or absorbed in an athletic endeavor, he described as examples of trance (1). In his practice, Erickson regularly invited his clients to enter into trance, out of regard for the benefit of the client. That a client entered into trance in response to such an invitation, Erickson viewed as a result of the unconscious decision of the client, quite outside of Erikson s control. Erickson was famous for what came to be called "the confusion technique" in the induction of hypnosis, and in particular for his "handshake induction". By subtly interrupting someone in the middle of the expected course of an habitual activity, like shaking hands, Erickson enabled them to enter a state of trance. For Erickson, the confusion technique could also be applied through engaging the patient s mind with a sentence whose meaning could not be found through the normal interpretation of the words and syntax (engaging the patient s mind in a transderivational search (2)). Mention of the induction of trance, which was explicitly recognized and described in the teachings of Gautama the Buddha (3) and was obliquely referenced in the remarks of Bodhidharma, the first Zen teacher in China (entering "the Way" in Denkoroku (4)), is largely absent in the Chinese and Japanese literature of Zen. At the same time, instances of sentences whose meaning cannot be found through the normal interpretation of the words and whose utterance may therefore enable the induction of trance in the listener are ubiquitous in the literature. The induction of trance serves to heighten the experience of the senses (a fact that Erickson noted), and thereby to allow a person under the right circumstances to discover activity in the senses that underlie the experience of self. Neuroscientists Olaf Blanke and Christine Mohr hypothesized that the tactile/proprioceptive/kinesthetic and vestibular senses in 11

12 combination with the ocular sense are principally responsible for what is regarded as the experience of self. Particularly important to their conclusion was the observation that persons who experience themselves as being simultaneously in two places at once (a particular kind of out-of-body experience) appear to have a dysfunction in one or another of these senses (5). For those who are already familiar with Gautama the Buddha s teaching regarding the lack of any actual abiding self, the conclusion that the experience of self is a function of activity in the senses should come as no surprise. Gautama s most widely acknowledged sermons concern mindfulness and the eight-fold path. Less widely appreciated is Gautama s teaching that knowing and seeing experience of the senses "as it really is" can develop and bring to fruition, not only mindfulness and the elements of the eight-fold path, but each of the factors of enlightenment as well (6). The tight connection between the sense of vision and the sense of location in three-dimensional space is demonstrated by the common feeling that awareness is located in the head, somewhere behind the eyes. If the sense of location in space is exercised through the distinction of motion in each of the three planes, that is to say through the distinction of the motions of pitch, roll, and yaw, the connection between the sense of vision and the sense of location may relax sufficiently to allow the location of awareness to shift somewhat from behind the eyes. If the eyes are closed, the location of awareness may even seem to shift spontaneously from one location in the body to another, as may sometimes be observed in the moments just before sleep. Blanke and Mohr proposed that the sense of self is a normal function of the vestibular, proprioceptive (7), and visual senses. The "Blue Cliff Record", a collection of the sayings of various Zen masters that was assembled in 12th century China, contains a saying that points to these three senses in particular: "To unfurl the red flag of victory over your head, whirl the twin swords behind your ears if not for a discriminating eye and a familiar hand, how could anyone be able to succeed?" ("The Blue Cliff Record", translation by T. and J.C. Cleary, case 37 pg 274) "Whirl the twin swords behind your ears" is an admonition to exercise the vestibular organs, which cut motion in space into motion in the three planes. "The discriminating eye" is a reference to the distinction of the role the eyes play in the experience of spatial location from the role the eyes play in otherwise perceiving objects of vision. The "familiar hand" is a recognition of the ongoing role of proprioception in the experience of location. The significance of the phrase "the red flag of victory" and what it means to "succeed" in such a context will become more apparent in the examination of Fuxi s poem. The empty hand grasps the hoe handle 12

13 The "handle" Fuxi referred to is the sacrum, a set of five vertebrae that move as a unit at the bottom of the spine. He implied that extension of the spine (the "hoe") depends on activity at the sacrum, yet the activity takes place through relaxation rather than conscious exertion ("the empty hand"). Relaxed extension from the tailbone through the sacrum to the head-top is a part of the practice of T ai-chi. T ai-chi master Cheng Man-Ch ing advises that to begin T ai-chi, an individual should relax the entire body, first from the shoulders to the fingertips, then from the hips to the balls of the feet, and lastly from the tailbone to the top of the head. The aim, he says, is to throw every bone and muscle of the entire body wide open (8). Support for the bottom-most vertebrae of the spine in relaxed extension is partly a function of the ilio-lumbar ligaments; these are the ligaments that stretch horizontally from the pelvis to the lowest lumbar vertebrae, and vertically from the pelvis to the second-lowest lumbar vertebrae (a). Support in the ilio-lumbar ligaments in conjunction with placement and movement in the arms, legs, and upper body is familiar to everyone as the support engaged in swinging on a swing in a public playground. The fascia associated with the quadratus lumborum muscles (on the sides of the torso between the bottom-most ribs and the rim of the pelvis (b)) and with the ilio-tibial bands (between the rim of the pelvis and the lower legs (c)) can stretch and resile much like the ropes of a swing as support from the ilio-lumbar ligaments is realized. The placement and weight of the arms and hands can provide for stretch and resile in the fascia behind the lower spine as well, through reciprocal activity in the latissimus dorsi muscles that connect the humerus bone of the upper arm to the fascia of the lower back (d). With a natural stretch and resile of fascia around the lower back in the movement of inhalation and exhalation, the alignment of vertebrae in the lower spine finds support, and the flexors and extensors of the spine can relax to their natural length. The ligaments and fascia of the body can generate nerve messages to cause muscles to contract, without any conscious involvement (9). A normal upright posture is actually the result of a back and forth between the stretch of ligaments (or fascia) on one side of the body and the stretch of ligaments on the other side: as the ligaments on one side stretch to their limit, they generate nerve impulses to contract muscles that will relieve their stretch, but the contraction of these muscles stretches ligaments on the other side of the body. The back-and-forth contraction and relaxation is referred to as reciprocal activity. In an upright posture, the constant, involuntary reciprocation of the psoas and extensor muscles (erector spinae) tends to rock the pelvis, to tip and tilt the pelvis where the psoas major ligaments slide across bursa on the pubic symphysis (e). Relaxed extension gives a length to the psoas that allows the rock of the pelvis to stretch the ligaments between the sacrum and pelvis. In turn, the resile of the ligaments and fascia that hold the sacrum and pelvis together can impart movement that supports relaxed extension. Reciprocal activity generated by the stretch of the ilio-lumber and ilio-sacral ligaments that 13

14 enters into the location of awareness grasps the hoe handle, yet Fuxi places the emphasis on the experience of relaxation in the resile of the same ligaments with the words the empty hand. Walking along, I ride the ox In addition to the ilio-sacral ligaments that hold the sacrum to the pelvis, there are two other major sets of ligaments between the sacrum and the pelvis: these are the sacro-spinous ligaments that connect the sacrum and the sit-bones on either side, and the sacro-tuberous ligaments that connect the sacrum and the lower front corners of the pelvis on either side (f). Because the psoas major s ligaments attach to the hip bones, reciprocal activity between the two sides of the psoas generates a roll and sway in the pelvis that stretches the sacrospinous, sacro-tuberous, and ilio-femoral (hip) ligaments as well as ilio-sacral ligaments. In turn, relaxation in the resile of these ligaments can sustain the roll and sway in support of a relaxed extension. The obturators connect from the inside and outside of the pelvis to the rear of the hips, and when they reciprocate in response to stretch in the sacro-spinous ligaments and in the fascia of the hip joints, they tend to open the joint between the pelvis and the hips and tilt the front of the pelvis downward (g). Flexibility side-to-side at the hip joints stretches the sacrospinous ligaments and the ilio-tibial fascial bands, and initiates reciprocal activity in the quadricep and ham string muscles. The quadricep muscles have fascial connections with the ilio-tibial bands just above the knee, and activity in the quadriceps can add stretch to the ilio-tibial bands through these connections (h). Stretch in the ilio-tibial bands can also initiate reciprocal activity in the sartorius muscles (from the lower leg to the wings of the pelvis along the inside of each leg) to rotate the pelvis slightly around the vertical axis of the spine (j). The tensor and gluteous muscles connect from the ilio-tibial bands to the pelvis, and the gluteous muscles also connect to the rear of the sacrum and to the fascia behind the sacrum and the lower back. Stretch in the ilio-tibial bands and rotation of the hammocked pelvis by the sartorius muscles can initiate reciprocal activity in the tensor and gluteous muscles, and as these muscles reciprocate, the gluteous muscles can rotate the sacrum and stretch the fascia of the lower back on the diagonals (this is the same fascia that the latissimus dorsi muscles stretch on the diagonals from above). The piriformis muscles connect from the leg bones near the hips to the front of the sacrum on either side, and reciprocate with the gluteous muscles in the rotation of the sacrum. The action of these muscles stretches fascia between the pelvis and the sacrum on the diagonal axis of the sacrum, along with the sacro-tuberous ligaments. Reciprocal activity in the pelvis and legs that stretches the ilio-tibial, ilio-femoral, and iliosacral ligaments can be generated as the placement and weight of the legs enters into the location of awareness, and this is the walking along of the second line of Fuxi s poem; the 14

15 reciprocal activity generated by the stretch of these ligaments constitutes the ox, and relaxation in the resile of these ligaments makes for a ride. The ox crosses the wooden bridge A relaxed upright posture depends on reciprocation between the psoas muscles, along the front of the lower spine, and the extensor muscles, which run upwards from the tailbone to the bones of the skull in three sets. Behind the sacrum, the extensors are enclosed by the bone of the sacrum on three sides; if the fascia behind the sacrum is stretched by activity in the gluteous muscles, the press of the mass of the left and right extensors in contraction against the fascia behind the sacrum can add to the stretch of the fascia of the lower back (k)(10). Reciprocal activity in the tensor and gluteous muscles carries up into activity of the transversus abdominis muscles that stretch the fascia of the lower back side to side (o). Stretch across the fascia of the lower back from side to side, in addition to stretch from the latissimus dorsi muscles (on the corners from above) and the gluteous muscles (on the corners from below), serves to support relaxed alignment of the vertebrae of the lower spine, especially at the waist (p). A full description of the relaxation involved in the practice of Tai-Chi is given by Cheng Man-Ching as follows: In the first phase the sinews are relaxed from the shoulder to the wrist. Finally we are able to relax the sinews all the way to the fingertips. The second phase, from the groin to the heel, proceeds in the same manner. One must not use strength, but completely relax from the groin to the knees to the heels. The third phase is from the wei-lu point (base of the tailbone) to the crown of the head Thus we speak of softening the waist, so that it can bend in any direction, as if there were no bones at all. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, by Cheng Man-Ch ing, translated by Douglas Wile, pgs 53-54) Studies in the 1950 s demonstrated that when weight is lifted, the rectus muscles remain uncontracted while activity in the other abdominals generates pressure in the fluid ball of the abdominal cavity. Pressure in the fluid ball of the abdominal cavity can be sustained through activity in the transversus abdominis muscles together with activity in the muscles of the pelvic floor (11). Pressure in the abdominal cavity does not, however, impede the movement of breath: The positon of the lungs outside the fluid ball is an obvious advantage. Breathing can go on even when the abdomen is used as a support and cannot be relaxed. 15

16 ( Role of abdominal pressure in relieving pressure on lumbar intervertebral discs, D.L. Bartilink, Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 39 B number 4 November 1957) Pressure generated in the fluid ball of the abdomen can also displace the lumbar-dorsal fascia (the sheet of fascia behind the lower spine) slightly to the rear, which suspends and supports the vertebrae of the spine much as the upward displacement of the main cables of a suspension bridge (by the towers) suspends and supports the elements of the roadway below (m)(12). Pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen depends in part on reciprocal activity in the muscles of the pelvic floor. Relaxed extension of the spine can stretch the ligaments and fascia of the pelvic floor from the pubic bones to the tailbone, and generate reciprocal activity that aligns the tailbone and sacrum with the lower spine (l). As the reciprocal activity in the pelvic floor aligns the tailbone and sacrum, the push of the extensors behind the sacrum orients stretch in the lumbar-dorsal fascia and guides the alignment of the spine by the abdominal and thoracic muscles (n). With an alignment of the spine and pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen, the lumbar-dorsal fascial sheet displaces, and the stretch and reciprocal activity of relaxed extension can reach to the crown of the head. The activity that creates pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen and allows the displacement of the fascia of the lower back has a familiar feeling, yet the feeling is different in inhalation and in exhalation: Miraculous power and marvelous activity Drawing water and chopping wood. (Pangyun, a lay Zen practitioner, eight century C.E.) Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there. (The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah Abd Al Masih, pg 43 log. 77) Proprioception of particular fascia or particular muscles that enters into the location of awareness may be accompanied a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, or by a sensation that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Relaxation and distinction of the senses as sensation enters into the location of awareness allows the bones of the body to fall into place, and the fascia of the lower back to displace. Stretch and resile in the ligaments of the pelvis and pelvic floor that enters into the location of awareness with equanimity is the the ox in the third line of Fuxi s poem; the relaxation of reciprocal activity that enters into the location of awareness crosses the wooden bridge. The bridge is flowing, the water is still 16

17 Support for the lower spine generated through the displacement of the lower back fascia allows for a spacing of vertebrae that permits ease at the nerve exits between vertebrae, and so allows for feeling from the networks of these nerves in the body to enter into the location of awareness. Feeling around the surface of the abdomen and chest in particular can inform the activity of the transversus abdominus and transversus thoracic muscles in the development of abdominal pressure and the alignment of lower back fascia. Ta i-chi master Cheng Man-Ching described a pattern of experience in the circulation of an energy he referred to as ch i that culminated in a manifestation in the skin and hair: With this method of circulating the ch i, it overflows into the sinews, reaches the bone marrow, fills the diaphragm, and manifests in the skin and hair. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ch ing translation by Douglas Wile, page 17) The stages Cheng outlined could be said to be particular emphases in the proprioception that enters into the location of awareness: first, with regard to stretch and resile in the ligaments ( it overflows into the sinews ); second, with regard to weight and placement ( reaches the bone marrow ); third, with regard to the movement of the diaphragm with pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen ( fills the diaphragm ); and fourth, with regard to an ability to feel around the surface of the skin ( manifests in the skin and hair ). The literal meaning of the word ch i is breath. Cheng described how, once the entire body is relaxed, a further relaxation of the chest will allow the ch i to sink to the tan-t ien (a point below and behind the navel)(13). Relaxation of the chest depends on a relinquishment of volitive activity affecting the movement of inhalation and exhalation; given such a relinquishment, the location of awareness may indeed shift to the lower abdomen and in- include proprioception there and elsewhere in the body, much as Cheng described. Cheng mentioned keeping the mind in the vicinity of the ch i at the tan-t ien: When the beginner starts to learn T ai Chi Ch uan, he should secure his mind and ch i in the tan-t ien. Do not forget this, but also do not coerce it After a long time, the ch i naturally passes through the coccyx, spreads along the backbone, and travels up through the occipital region to the top of the head. Then it descends to the tan-t ien. you cannot force it! It must be completely natural. 17

18 ( Cheng Tzu s Thirteen Treatises on T ai Chi Ch uan, Cheng Man Ch ing, translation by Benjamin Pang, Jeng Lo, and Martin Inn, pg 41) Cheng described how ch i spreads along the backbone and travels up through the occiput region to the top of the head, a description that recalls the phrase to unfurl the red flag of victory over your head from the Blue Cliff Record. Twelfth-century Zen teacher and Blue Cliff Record compiler Yuanwu mentioned the crown of the head in a letter to one of his students: You should realize that on the crown of the heads of enlightened adepts there is a wondrous way of changing the bones and transforming your existence. ( Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu, translated by Cleary & Cleary, 1st ed pg 83) Dr. John Upledger, a leading proponent of cranial-sacral osteopathy, pointed to the nerves between bones at the crown of the head as the source of the rhythm of change in the volume of cranial-sacral fluid (the fluid that surrounds the brain, the spinal cord, and the nerves inside the lower spine and sacrum). According to Upledger, the volume of the cranial-sacral fluid increases and decreases in a natural cycle that occurs about 10 times a minute (11) The cranial-sacral fluid is contained inside a thick tissue envelope known as the dura mater, and the changes in fluid volume change the pressure in the envelope. Any change in pressure in a closed fluid system is instantaneously transmitted everywhere throughout the system (per the laws of hydraulics), and the rhythm of change in the volume of the cranial-sacral fluid instantaneously becomes a rhythm of flexion, extension, and rotation throughout the body as the dura mater (and its connections to the bones) is affected. Most Western anatomists believe that the sutures between the bones of the skull are completely fused together by very early childhood, but the Italian anatomists of the early 1900 s described the situation differently. Based on his own research, Upledger concluded that the Italian anatomists were right, and that the bones of the skull are capable of independent movement relative to one another in adults (11). If Upledger is correct, action in the extensors may contribute to the movement of bones in the skull and affect the cranial-sacral rhythm; the cranial sacral rhythm, in turn, may contribute to the motion of the spine and sacrum and the stretch of ligaments, and through the stretch of ligaments to reciprocal activity in the extensors. Dr. Upledger claimed that the addition of 5 grams of pressure (roughly the weight of a nickel) to a place where the cranial-sacral rhythm was moving well could sometimes free places that were not moving well, by means of the distribution of pressure throughout the body by the cranial-sacral system. The relaxed distinction of sense can cause the placement and weight of any given part of the body to generate activity of posture and carriage. As the proprioception of the part enters into the location of awareness, the impact on the equilibrium of the body registers in 18

19 the stretch and resile of the fascia and ligaments, and the fascia and ligaments generate activity. Equally, the relaxed distinction of sense can cause an ability to feel with regard to the diaphragm or the surface of the body to generate activity of posture and carriage. Cheng Man-Ch ing described a lightness and a freedom of movement in the practice of T ai- Chi, such that: the addition of a feather will be felt for its weight, and a fly cannot alight on (the body) without setting it in motion. ( Cheng Man-Ch ing s T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ch ing, Juliana T. Cheng, North Atlantic Books pg 14) The relinquishment of volitive activity in relaxation is familiar to everyone as a part of falling asleep; such a relinquishment of volitive activity can also take place as a part of waking up. With a relinquishment of volitive activity in waking up, an ability to feel can enter into the location of awareness such that the weight of a fly generates activity of posture and carriage. One of the difficulties many people have in falling asleep is the notion that they must somehow turn off the activity of their senses in order to do so; although sensory overload can definitely serve to keep a person awake (at least for awhile), calm acceptance of the activity of the senses is actually a necessary part of falling asleep. The sharpening of the senses that occurs with a relinquishment of volition is a part of falling asleep and waking up (a bout of insomnia may be required to see that this is so in falling asleep). The increased distinction of individual sense, including the sense of mind, frees the location of awareness to shift and move as proprioception enters in while yet remaining one-pointed. Fuxi referred to a freedom of the location of awareness to move in the fourth line of his poem, with the phrase the bridge is flowing ; the cessation of any conscious direction of the activity of the body at such time, he metaphorized by the water is still. Post Word The sense of vision can be experienced separately from the sense of location and from the sense of placement and weight in the parts of the body; given such an experience, the relinquishment of volition can allow the sense of location to shift as proprioception occurs, and anything that enters into the sense of location can be realized as activity of posture and carriage: "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point." ("Genjo Koan" by Eihei Dogen, translation by by Aitken and Tanahashi) 19

20 A relinquishment of volition cannot be made to happen, any more than falling asleep or waking up can be made to happen. Shunryu Suzuki once admonished a student for thinking that they were the source of the activity of zazen (seated Zen meditation): "Don't ever think that you can sit zazen! That's a big mistake! Zazen sits zazen!" (Shunryu Suzuki (15)) The seated practice of Soto Zen is often referred to as "shikantaza", a Japanese word that Zen teacher Kobun Chino Otogawa said meant "sitting just for the sake of sitting". He spoke about what sitting shikantaza meant to him: " Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don't take the sitting posture!" (lecture by Kobun Chino Otogawa (16)) Kobun cautioned that "people who are moving around outside" are a part of the practice of zazen. The notion that the things that enter into the practice of zazen are not limited by walls can be startling, yet Gautama s descriptions of the further meditative states would indicate that the boundary for the things that enter into practice stretches well beyond what is considered the normal range of the senses (17). Zen in China and Japan abandoned the meditative states that Gautama taught, yet the seeming madness of the teachers of Zen had its method. Although Fuxi s poem predates the arrival of Zen in China, already the use of a metaphor for experience that can invoke a transderivational search in the listener is present. The style of instruction exemplified by Fuxi s poem became the standard in Zen teaching, and is still very much alive today. References: see 4 "Transmission of the Light", translation by Thomas Cleary, #30 Huike pg Blanke and Mohr, Out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, and autoscopic hallucination of neurological origin: Implications for neurocognitive mechanisms of corporeal awareness and self consciousness 6 Majjhima-Nikaya III , Pali Text Society volume 3 pg "Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan", by Cheng Man-Ch ing, translated 20

21 by Douglas Wile, pgs "Applied Kinesiology: A Training Manual and Reference Book of Basic Principles and practices", Robert Frost, pg 22; concerning proprioceptors, "All measure the tensions acting upon body parts (through posture, motion, and acceleration) and produce correcting effects upon the function of the muscles." Reference to the proprioceptors in the ligaments, joints, and skin. "Fascial Manipulation Practical Part", by Luigi and Carla Stecco, pg 16: "The receptors of the deep fascia are all proprioceptors that are capable of acting as nociceptors whenever they are stretched beyond their normal physiological limit." 10 Mechanical Disorders of the Low Back" by H. F. Farfan (B. S.C., M. D., C.M., F.R.C.S. (C)), published by Lea & Febiger, 1973, pg "Role of abdominal pressure in relieving pressure on lumbar intervertebral discs", D.L. Bartilink, "Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery" 39 B number 4 November 1957; see also 12 "A mathematical model of the lumbar spine using an optimized system to control muscles and ligaments", S. Gracovetsky, H.F. Farfan, C.B. Lamay, Orthop. Clin. North Am. 8(1): , "T ai-chi Ch uan", by Cheng Man-Ch ing, North Atlantic Books, pg Project/interviews/hartman b&l.html (Lou and Blanche Hartman, interview by David Chadwick) 16 "Shikantaza", 17 Gautama the Buddha spoke of four initial meditative states, in the fourth of which the exercise of volition in the body with respect to habitual activity of inhalation and exhalation ceases. Gautama also described several further meditative states, and he offered a description of what he said was "the heart s release" connected with these states: "[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 sympathetic joy equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence." (MN I 38, Pali Text Society volume I pg 48) Gautama described the first of the further meditative states as "the excellence" of the heart s release through compassion, the second as "the excellence" of the heart s release through sympathetic joy, and the third as "the excellence" of the heart s release through equanimity (the "excellence" of the heart s release through friendliness he described as "the beautiful") (SN V , Pali Text Society SN volume V pg ). 21

22 Post: About the Anatomy in Fuxi s Poem (Oct ) The feedback I've received on my treatment of Fuxi's poem is generally positive, although many have questioned my inclusion of so many particulars of anatomy. The anatomy is an aid to me in relaxation. For me, the feeling is a lot like standing out where the waves break in at the beach, and sorting out the direction and strength of the flow of each wave in order to keep my feet. In sitting, it's my own breath that is the tide in my toes, and understanding the anatomy helps me settle into the sand (as it were). I have now added illustrations, and I hope that they will help in the visualization of the descriptions. I'm aware that Fuxi's poem works on many levels, and I've had many discussions with friends about people like the modern-day Indian teacher Nisargadatta, who said: "My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears." (that's from The key in that short description for me would be the words "the sense 'I am'"; Nisargadatta is referring to a sense. "It may look too simple, too crude": when I say I attend to the relaxed distinction of the senses, waking up or falling asleep, you might think it's a cup of tea- and you would be right. 22

23 D. L. Bartilink, "No Special Effort", and the "Best of Ways" D. L. Bartilink took measurements of the pressure generated in the abdomens of weightlifters as they lifted weights. From his measurements, he concluded that the abdominal muscles generate pressure in the "fluid ball" of the abdomen (as he termed it) in proportion to the amount of weight that is lifted. He surmised that pressure generated in the abdomen supports the lower spine, especially when the curve of the lower spine is flattened (as it is when weight is first lifted) (1). Bartilink theorized that animals (as well as humans) make use of pressure in the "fluid ball": "Animals undoubtedly make an extensive use of the protection of their spines by the tensed somatic cavity, and probably also use it as a support upon which muscles of posture find a hold..." (1) Through measurements of electrical activity, Bartilink found that the muscles that induce pressure in weight-lifting are the transverse and oblique abdominals, along with the muscles of the pelvic floor; the diaphragm and rectus are not involved. The diaphragm, he stated, can move freely even with pressure in the abdomen from the other muscle groups. This, he speculated, might be an evolutionary step: "Breathing can go on even when the abdomen is used as a support and cannot be relaxed. This means that the range of flight of an animal having the lungs outside the fluid ball is greater than that of an animal who has its lungs in the single body cavity, which can just make a spurt and then has to stop to breathe. Could it be that it is for this reason that the mammals have developed a diaphragm?" (1) The abdomen can be made to provide support without the use of the abdominal muscles if the breath is held and pressure is applied by the diaphragm, but as Bartilink noted, to use the diaphragm in such a manner may defeat the purpose of having one. Moshe Feldenkrais observed that people often hold their breath when they get up out of a chair. He saw the restriction of the movement of breath as a failure to realize physical equilibrium as the basis for movement; he explained how the movement of standing follows from a state of equilibrium and a shift in the center of gravity: " good upright posture is that from which a minimum muscular effort will move the body with equal ease in any desired direction. This means that in the upright position there must be no muscular effort deriving from voluntary control, regardless of whether this effort is known and deliberate or concealed from the consciousness by habit. 23

24 When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all." (2) To help his students learn how to stand without holding their breath, Feldenkrais taught three simple exercises that could be done while seated on a chair: first, he said, lean the upper body forward and backward; second, tip the upper body from side to side; and third, with the torso, neck and head held in a straight line, circle the top of the head around the base of the tailbone. The exercises that Feldenkrais provided engage the vestibular organs through movement of the body. The vestibular organs detect motion in the three spatial planes, and provide the sense of equilibrium. Important to their function are the otoliths, structures inside the vestibular organs that respond to gravity and movement. To perceive a center of gravity one more sense must be brought into play, and that is proprioception, the sense of the relative positions of the parts of the body (initiated by proprioceptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints). My experience is that if awareness of the senses comes forward, and in particular if awareness of the vestibular, otolithic, and proprioceptive senses comes forward, then activity to generate or sustain pressure in the "fluid ball" of the abdomen takes place automatically as the long or short of inhalation or exhalation is comprehended. The practice that Gautama the Buddha described as the "the best of ways" (3) opens with these particulars: "Mindful [one] breathes in. Mindful [one] breathes out. Whether [one] is breathing in a long (breath), breathing out a long (breath), breathing in a short (breath), breathing out a short (breath), one comprehends 'I am breathing in a long (breath), I am breathing out a long (breath), I am breathing in a short (breath), I am breathing out a short (breath).'" (4) In my experience, the relaxed comprehension of the long and short of inhalation and exhalation is only possible when there is support for the spine from pressure in the "fluid ball" of the abdomen. The pressure in the "fluid ball", meanwhile, is generated through activity initiated by the "old nervous system", as a reflex response to the location of my awareness. I identify my self with the location of my awareness, and for me as for most people, the location of that awareness is singular. There are people who experience themselves as being in two locations at once during a particular kind of out-of-body experience, but this is rare (5). When I sense where I am, I can experience the motions that Feldenkrais pointed out as a part of my sense of where I am, and I can likewise experience the weight and placement of the muscles, ligaments, and joints of the body as a part of where I am. 24

25 Here's the way Eihei-Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, put it: "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point." (6) Dogen emphasized the sense of place, and how the experience of the sense of place ("practice occurs") is simultaneously the embodiment of the sense of place ("actualizing the fundamental point"). The trick is to allow for movement in where I am, even when I'm not moving. It's a trick because my eyes can reset my sense of location in space, and I become accustomed to feeling the location of my awareness as fixed with respect to my eyes. I think I learned to disassociate where I am from what I see by sitting in the dark, and by continuing to practice through the experience of actually falling asleep. I look to my faculties for the sense of where I am. The 12th century Chinese Zen teacher Yuanwu emphasized the role of the faculties in one of his letters, as follows: "It is just a matter of the person concerned having faculties that are bold and sharp then it wouldn't be considered difficult even to transcend the cosmic buddha Vairocana or go beyond all the generations of ancestral teachers. This is the real gate of great liberation." (7) This is not different from the teachings of Gautama the Buddha (8). The flattening of the lower back in a seated posture, especially in the half or full lotus posture, can precipitate the experience of the vestibular, otolithic, and proprioceptive senses as awareness takes place, out of a need for support for the lower back in inhalation or exhalation. What Gautama referred to as the comprehension of the long and short in inhalation and exhalation is only natural in such circumstances, to engage the reflex activity of "the old nervous system" appropriately. Here is the full description of Gautama's "best of ways": "Mindful [one] breathes in. Mindful [one] breathes out. Whether [one] is breathing in a long (breath), breathing out a long (breath), breathing in a short (breath), breathing out a short (breath), one comprehends 'I am breathing in a long (breath), I am breathing out a long (breath), I am breathing in a short (breath), I am breathing out a short (breath).' Thus [one] trains [oneself] thinking, 'I will breathe in experiencing the whole body; I will breathe out experiencing the whole body.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking ' I will breathe in tranquillizing the activity of body; I will breathe out tranquillizing the activity of body.' 25

26 [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in breathe out experiencing zest experiencing ease experiencing the activity of thought tranquillising the activity of thought.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in breathe out experiencing thought rejoicing in thought concentrating thought freeing thought.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in breathe out beholding impermanence beholding detachment beholding stopping (of "voluntary control concealed from the consciousness by habit") beholding casting away (of "latent conceits that 'I am the doer, mine is the doer' in regard to this consciousness-informed body")'. (4) (parentheticals added, from Feldenkrais and from MN III Pali Text Society III pg 68; "zest" and "ease" from SN V Pali Text Society V pg , in place of "rapture" and "joy" (9)) Gautama stated that before he was enlightened, the way of living in which he generally spent his time was this "best of ways", which he referred to as the "intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing". He also stated that it was the way in which he generally spent his time in the rainy season, and that it was the Tathagatha's way of life (Tathagatha meaning "thus-gone", or enlightened one) (10). As far as how Gautama entered into concentration, he gave this description: "...making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (11) Apparently he returned to making self-surrender the object of his thought after he lectured, and found self-surrender to be characteristic of his state of mind: "And I at the close of (instructional discourse), steady, calm, make one-pointed and concentrate my mind subjectively in that first characteristic of concentration in which I ever constantly abide." (12) Dogen's Soto school is especially associated with a teaching that the activity of zazen (literally, "seated Zen") requires no special effort. The science provided by D. L. Bartilink and the description provided by Moshe Feldenkrais make possible an explanation of why that is: the senses come forward naturally out of necessity, and with the experience of the particulars of sense, activity to pressurize the "fluid ball" of the abdomen takes place automatically in support of the spine. The activity of zazen is really "reflex movement (that originates) in the old nervous system", and no special effort is required. That the elements of Gautama's "intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" were his way of life in the rainy season speaks to their practice in connection with the seated posture he advocated (cross-legged, on the roots of trees). Particularly in such a pose, 26

27 the comprehension of the long and short of inhalation and exhalation can enter into the sense of place, and be embodied as the posture. References: 1) D.L. Bartilink, "The Role of Abdominal Pressure in Relieving the Pressure on the Lumbar Intervertebral Discs", 1957; 2) "Awareness Through Movement", Moshe Feldenkrais, pg 76, 78. 3) Sanyutta Nikaya V, , Pali Text Society volume 5 pg ) MN III 82-83, Pali Text Society III pg ) Olaf Blanke and Christine Mohr, "Out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, and autoscopic hallucination of neurological origin Implications for neurocognitive mechanisms of corporeal awareness and self consciousness"; heautoscopy and autoscopic hallucination of neurological origin.pdf. 6) "Genjo Koan" by Dogen, trans. by Aitken and Tanahashi. 7) 'Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu', trans. Cleary & Cleary, pg 79. 8) "Discourse Pertaining to the Great Sixfold (Sense-)Field", Mahasajayatanikasutta, MN III , Pali Text Society III pg (see 9) SN V , Pali Text Society V pg ) SN V , ; Pali Text Society V pg 280, ) SN V 200, Pali Text Society V ) MN I 249, Pali Text Society I pg

28 Post: Limbering Up (Mar ) "Of late, I spend a few minutes when I first sit down doing what you suggest, letting attention go to the area of my sacrum and its movement vis-avis the ilia. I also rock back and forward, sideways, and observe the rotation that naturally occurs. Then I think of the basic Alexander Technique instruction, "Let my neck be free." etc. Once I've adjusted and settled in this way, I put my hands in the mudra, and start my zazen. I also use double mats below the cushion at home, or even bed pillows. Since I started limbering up in this way, I can sit comfortably in half-lotus for two rounds of 40 minutes, with kinhin between. Not just bearably, actually in comfort. I didn't even know that was a possibility." ("Shinchan Ohara", Brad Warner's "Hardcore Zen" comment section, March 4th) The part about "let my neck be free", that's interesting to me. In my write about Fuxi's poem, I put forward Bartilink's findings about "pressure in the fluid ball of the abdominal cavity" and support for the lower spine, including his observation that activity in the muscles of the pelvic floor and in the transverse muscles of the abdomen and chest is responsible for the "pressure in the fluid ball". Sometimes I find that the activity in the transverse muscles carries up into the neck and head as well, so maybe there's also support for flexion and extension in the neck when there's "pressure in the fluid ball". The feeling in my hands and feet reminds me of Gautama's analogy for setting up mindfulness of the long and short of breath: '...it is like a clever turner or a clever turner's apprentice who, making a long (turn), comprehends "I am making a long (turn)", or when making a short (turn) comprehends, "I am making a short (turn)".' (MN I 56, Pali Text Society vol. I pg 72) For me it's like working a potter's wheel with my feet while molding a lump of clay with my hands. It's similar to Gautama's "soap ball" analogy in his description of the feeling of the first meditative state: 28

29 "...as a skilled bath-attendant or (bath-attendant) apprentice, having sprinkled bathpowder into a bronze vessel, might knead it while repeatedly sprinkling it with water until the ball of lather had taken up moisture, was drenched with moisture, suffused with moisture inside and out but without any oozing. Even so does (a person) saturate, permeate, suffuse this very body with the rapture and joy that are born of aloofness; there is no part of (the) whole body that is not suffused with the rapture and joy born of aloofness." (MN III 92-93, PTS pg ) I have seen "rapture" and "joy" translated elsewhere as "absorption" and "ease"; what I myself experience is an "absorption and ease" that amounts to a fluidity of weight, so that as consciousness arises from a part, the saturation of the sense of gravity throughout the body increases. Sometimes transverse muscles at the level of a particular vertebrae are a part of my breathing, and maybe I'm more aware of my neck and head when they are. I can't really say that I'm familiar with Alexander Technique instructions ("let my neck be free", etc.), but I do try to relax the thing that enters into where I am. 29

30 Dogen's "Genjo Koan" Dogen offered the following statement in "Genjo Koan": "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point." (1) The statement appears in a pair of paragraphs concerning practice and enlightenment. Here are the two paragraphs in full: "A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once. Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. You can go further. There is practice-enlightenment which encompasses limited and unlimited life. Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now." (1) I find it instructive to compare this translation with another; here's a 1975 translation by Paul Jaffe: "When fish swim in the water, no matter how much they swim the water does not come to an end. When birds fly in the sky, no matter how much they fly, the sky does not come to an end. However, though fish and birds have never been apart from the water and the air, when the need is great the function is great; when the need is small the function is small. Likewise, it is not that at every moment they are not acting fully, not that they do not turn and move freely everywhere, but if a bird leaves the air, immediately it dies; if a fish leaves the water, immediately it dies. We should realize that because of water there is life. We should realize that because of air there is life. Because there are birds there is life; because there are fish there is life. Life is the bird and life is the fish. Besides this we could proceed further. It is just the same with practice and enlightenment and the lives of people. So, if there were a bird or fish that wanted to go through the sky or the water only after thoroughly investigating its limits, he would not attain his way nor find his 30

31 place in the water or in the sky. If one attains this place, these daily activities manifest absolute reality. If one attains this Way, these daily activities are manifest absolute reality. This Way, this place, is neither large nor small, neither self nor other, has neither existed previously nor is just now manifesting, and thus it is just as it is." (2) I like the phrase "it is not that at every moment they are not acting fully, not that they do not turn and move freely everywhere"; Gudo Nishijima goes so far as to translate this as "each one realizes its limitations at every moment and each one somersaults [in complete freedom] at every place" (3). In D. L. Bartilink, "No Special Effort", and the "Best of Ways", I wrote about somersaulting in place: "The trick is to allow for movement in where I am, even when I'm not moving." The place where I am can "turn and move freely everywhere", and the place where I am can also remain stationary; when the place where I am is free to move yet remains stationary, the rest of me may "somersault [in complete freedom]" around the place where I am. Cheng Man-Ch'ing spoke of a saying from the classic literature of Tai-Chi, "the millstone turns, but the mind does not turn": " the turning of the millstone is a metaphor for the turning of the waist. The mind not turning is the central equalibrium resulting from the sinking of ch'i to the tant'ien. 'The millstone turns but the mind does not turn' is an oral teaching within a family transmission. It is similar to two expressions in the T'ai-chi ch'uan classics which compare the waist to an axle or a banner. This is especially noteworthy. After learning this concept my art made rapid progress." (4) The statement in "Genjo Koan" about finding your place is followed by a parallel statement about finding your way: "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point " (1) While I sometimes separate out and bring forward certain senses in the experience of place, and at those moments my ability to find where I am appears in fact to depend on the exercise, there is in the wake of such moments an awareness of where I am as contact in any sense takes place. This I believe is why Dogen moves from "when you find your place" to "when you find your way", in the statements I have quoted above. I am reminded of an account of Layman Pang and his family that Yuanwu offered: 31

32 "Layman Pang was with his whole family sitting around the fire. Layman Pang suddenly said, 'Difficult, difficult ten bushels of oil hemp spread out on a tree.' Mrs. Pang said, 'Easy, easy on the tips of the hundred grasses, the meaning of Zen.' Their daughter Lingzhao said, 'Not difficult, not easy eating when hungry, sleeping when tired'." (5) Yuanwu commented on the story: "Usually when I relate this story to people, most of them prefer Lingzhao's remark for saving energy, and dislike what Old Man Pang and Old Lady Pang said about difficult and easy. This is nothing but 'making interpretations by following the words'. People who think like this are far from getting to the root of the fundamental design." (5) I find the descriptions given by Old Man Pang and Old Lady Pang a lot like my experience with "when you find your place where you are" and "when you find your way at this moment". Further along in the "Genjo Koan", Dogen wrote: "Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent." (1) Unlike his statements regarding "when you find your place" and "when you find your way", Dogen's statement about the inconceivable did not mention practice; rather, he said that the inconceivable is actualized immediately. Dogen closed his "Genjo Koan" with the story of Zen Master Baoche: 'Mayu, Zen master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?" "Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Mayu replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere." "What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. Mayu just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.' (1) The wind that reaches everywhere actualizes the inconceivable immediately, without any practice occurring, in Mayu's fanning. "Eating when hungry" and "sleeping when tired", for Lingzhao, are similar actualizations. In "D. L. Bartilink (etc.)", I wrote that Gautama's "comprehension" of the long or short of inhalation or exhalation can occur as practice when I find my place where I am. Dogen's teacher Rujing had these words to say about the long or short of breath: "Breath enters and reaches the tanden, and yet there is no place from which it 32

33 comes. Therefore it is neither long nor short. Breath emerges from the tanden, and yet there is nowhere it goes. Therefore it is neither short nor long." (6) While on the first reading Rujing would appear to contradict Gautama, I would suggest that the difference in their teachings is like that between the statement of Old Man Pang or Old Lady Pang and the statement of Lingzhao. When "there is no place (the wind) does not reach", the breath enters the tanden (tan-t'ien), yet the place from which it comes may not be apparent; when "there is no place (the wind) does not reach", the breath emerges from the tanden, yet the place to which it goes may not be apparent. The wind that reaches everywhere actualized the inconceivable immediately, in Rujing's breath. References: 1) "Genjo Koan", Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi. Revised at San Francisco Zen Center, and later at Berkeley Zen Center; published (2000) in Tanahashi, Enlightenment Unfolds (Boston: Shambhala), Earlier version in Tanahashi 1985 (Moon in a Dewdrop), 69-73, also Tanahashi and Schneider 1994 (Essential Zen) 2) "Genjo Koan", Dogen; tr. Paul Jaffe (1996), in Yasutani, Flowers Fall (Boston: Shambhala), ) "Genjo Koan", Dogen; tr. Gudo Wafu Nishijima, from Understanding the Shobogenzo, Windbell Publications ) "Master Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on T'ai Chi Ch'uan", by Cheng Man-ching, trans. Douglas Wile, pg 67 5) "Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu", trans. Cleary & Cleary, pg 41 6) "Eihei Koroku", Dogen, vol. 5, #390, trans. Okumura 33

34 Post: How so? (Jul ) I wrote: Sometimes that activity of support for the fluid ball feels like this: The empty hand grasps the hoe-handle Walking along, I ride the ox The ox crosses the wooden bridge The bridge is flowing, the water is still A friend of mine asked me, How so? ; I wrote the following in a late-night response: Bartilink says there s pressure in what he termed the fluid ball of the abdomen, even in just standing around. More so if you are lifting weight (he put something in the abdomen, surgically, to measure it). I m contending that normal resting activity supports pressure in the fluid ball, and the fluid ball supports the spine and the posture in general. So the activity when nothing seems to be doing anything, but I m upright, supports the fluid ball; something must be doing something. How to get a feeling for the fluid ball of the abdomen, in relation to the activity of posture; maybe start with the arms and the hands, imagine someone sitting down to balance a house of cards warming up by shaking it out. Down to the sacrum and an empty hand grasps the hoe handle, roughly. If you sit cross-legged, then about 25 minutes in, maybe, look for support for the fluid ball from the left and right calves in alternation, it s mostly a placement and weight thing that affects the stretch in the ilio-tibial bands but there s a fascial connector from the quads to stretch the bands above the knees so the hams and the quads are involved and it feels like breathing through the legs; walking along, riding the ox. At about 30 minutes in or 35, the stretch across behind the sacrum with the legs and the gluts and the tensor fascias involved allows the left and right of the PC to support the fluid ball, everything is wound up in the balance, the ox crosses the wooden bridge. The cessation of habitual activity in the movement of breath, the freedom of the location of awareness to shift around, like the rest really can t be done, but that doesn t mean it doesn t happen. The bridge is flowing, the water is still, the fluid ball has support from all over. If the freedom of the location of awareness to shift around responds to the comprehension of the long or short of inhalation or exhalation in support of the fluid ball, everything but the comprehension of breath is background; one aspect of the sixteen in Gau- 34

35 tama s way of life. I got to hear a recording of one of Kobun Chino Otogawa s lectures over the weekend. He said:... mind sits, as body sits, as breathing sits. We don t know which comes first. Any of those can come first. Usually mind sits first... To me, the mind that sits is the heart-mind, and my heart-mind feels at home when my vestibular sense comes into play right where I am; that to me is the mind sitting. The body sits as proprioception comes into play, and the placement and weight of the body with no part left out supports pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen. The breath sits as the natural comprehension of the long or short of inhalation or exhalation comes into play, rendering the distinction of sense and the relaxation of activity autonomic. True enough, that any of these can come first, or second. In the same lecture, Kobun gave an explanation of enlightenment unlike any I ve heard: One might talk about, discuss about, what does it mean to be enlightened. It is something to do with going back to, going back to what you actually are. It s not like what you become. That s an idea. It s not some day, or somewhere from this place, from what you are. And sitting in meditation, being who you are, is something to do with this facing to your own true figure. Not made up or taught or wished to be. 35

36 Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha's "Pleasant Way of Living" Here's an excerpt from "Two Shores of Zen", by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler: "Shikantaza not here," he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. "Not here," he continued, pointing to his heart. "Only point here!" He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara. I have spent the last several years in an American Zen temple that by our standards is strict and intense, but my training, I am finding, seems moot here. I have labored for years to open out my meditation which is, after all "just sitting" away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza. That it makes no sense makes it no less inspiring; it is his presence, not his words, that I believe. "No grasping only point here." He rested his fist on his belly. I had nothing to say.... "Here," he said, pointing to his chin and thrusting it out to show me that doing so made his back slump in bad Zen posture. He looked up at me with wide, soft brown eyes, and a kind smile that exposed his crooked teeth. In a warm, encouraging voice, like a boy addressing his puppy, he pointed to his back and said, "Like this no good. Keep try!" My posture is quite good; I've been told so by peers and teachers alike in the U.S... (1) The "hara" (or "tanden") was also mentioned by Dogen's teacher, Rujing: "Breath enters and reaches the tanden, and yet there is no place from which it comes. Therefore it is neither long nor short. Breath emerges from the tanden, and yet there is nowhere it goes. Therefore it is neither short nor long." (2) Rujing mentions the tanden, but the focus of his statement is really the rejection of the comprehension of the long or short in inhalation or exhalation. Rujing appears to be taking issue with the second component of the "setting up of mindfulness" in the teaching of Gautama the Buddha: 36

37 "Whether [one] is breathing in a long (breath), breathing out a long (breath), breathing in a short (breath), breathing out a short (breath), one comprehends 'I am breathing in a long (breath), I am breathing out a long (breath), I am breathing in a short (breath), I am breathing out a short (breath).'" (3) At the same time, Rujing doesn't abandon the distinction of inhalation and exhalation nor some particulars in the movement of each: he says that inhalation "enters", then "reaches" the tanden ("yet there is no place from which it comes"); likewise, he says that exhalation "emerges" from the tanden ("yet there is nowhere it goes"). To comprehend "enters" as distinct from "reaches" and to comprehend "emerges" may amount to a comprehension of inhalation or exhalation very similar to that offered by "long" or "short". The comprehension of the long or short of inhalation or exhalation was only one element in Gautama's "setting up of mindfulness"; here is a particular version of the "setting up of mindfulness" that Gautama declared to be his own way of living, and that he called "the concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing": "Mindful [one] breathes in. Mindful [one] breathes out. Whether [one] is breathing in a long (breath), breathing out a long (breath), breathing in a short (breath), breathing out a short (breath), one comprehends 'I am breathing in a long (breath), I am breathing out a long (breath), I am breathing in a short (breath), I am breathing out a short (breath).' Thus [one] trains [oneself] thinking, 'I will breathe in experiencing the whole body; I will breathe out experiencing the whole body.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking ' I will breathe in tranquillizing the activity of body; I will breathe out tranquillizing the activity of body.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in... breathe out experiencing zest... experiencing ease... experiencing the activity of thought... tranquillising the activity of thought.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in... breathe out experiencing thought... rejoicing in thought... concentrating thought... freeing thought.' [One] trains [oneself], thinking: 'I will breathe in... breathe out beholding impermanence... beholding detachment... beholding stopping (of "voluntary control... concealed from the consciousness by habit")... beholding casting away (of "latent conceits that 'I am the doer, mine is the doer' in regard to this consciousness-informed body")'." 37

38 (Ibid; parentheticals added: "voluntary control... concealed from the consciousness by habit" borrowed from Feldenkrais's "Awareness and Movement", "latent conceits that 'I am the doer, mine is the doer' in regard to this consciousness-informed body" from MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society III pg 68; "zest" and "ease" from SN V Pali Text Society, in place of "rapture" and "joy") With regard to "the concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing", Gautama said: "... if cultivated and made much of, (the concentration) is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too." (4) The notion that Gautama would describe a concentration connected with inhalation and exhalation as "something perfect in itself" may seem incongruous to those who associate Gautama's teaching primarily with the attainment of enlightenment. However, Gautama offered the phrase "perfect in itself" in a sermon where he addressed the suicide of many of his monks; the monks had taken to heart his praise for meditation on the "unlovely" aspects of the body (a practice designed to lessen the meditator's attachment to the material), and as a consequence scores of them a day had "taken the knife" (while Gautama was away). In his exposition of the "concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing", Gautama appears to abandon the kind of "means to an end" approach represented by the meditation on the "unlovely", providing instead a way of living "perfect in itself". Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler understood his teacher's instruction to be that a focus of attention on the hara is the means by which shikantaza is realized. This is confusing to Rutschman-Byler because the branch of Zen that became Dogen's Soto school in Japan continues to honor the abandonment of the "means to an end" approach, in favor of "just sitting". Rather than a focus of attention on the hara, the T'ai Chi teacher Cheng Man Ching spoke of "maintaining" the mind at the tan-t'ien (tanden): "The T'ai-chi ch'uan classics say that the mind and the ch'i must both be maintained in the tan-t'ien." (5) The Tai-chi classics also offer the "Song of Substance and Function", a poem, the last two lines of which read: "...the mind must stay in the place it should be." (6) 38

39 The emphasis on the experience of place is echoed in the writing of Dogen, in the first essay in his "Shobogenzo" collection: "When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point." (7) Could the place where you are be in the tanden, some of the time? Recent research in neuroscience sheds some light on the senses involved in the feeling of place associated with the self: "Bodily self-consciousness (BSC) is commonly thought to involve self-identification (the experience of owning 'my' body), self-location (the experience of where 'I' am in space), and first-person perspective (the experience from where 'I' perceive the world).... BSC stems from the integration of visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular signals." (8) Left out in the list of senses above is the sense of gravity, but neuroscientist Olaf Blanke mentions the otolithic organs (the organs that detect gravity) in his work on bodily self-consciousness. (9) Both Blanke and Dogen point to the capacity of the eyes to influence a person's perception, using essentially the same example: Dogen speaks of how a person in a boat might mistakenly perceive the shore to be moving (7), while Blanke describes how a person in a stationary train might perceive that train to be moving if another train passes by going in the opposite direction (10). Dogen goes on to say that if a person keeps their eyes closely on the boat, they can perceive that it's the boat that moves. Keeping one's eyes on the boat means paying attention to the location of awareness itself, rather than to the location of an object in awareness. Distinguishing the influence of the eyes from the influence of the other senses can allow the movement of the boat to register, and similarly separating the influence of the eyes from the influence of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception can allow the feeling of location associated with awareness to register. Although many people identify Gautama's teaching with the "setting up of mindfulness", he also taught that seeing and knowing the phenomena of sense as it really is brings the (eight-fold) path and the (seven) factors of enlightenment "to development and fulfillment" (11). In his lectures, Gautama often followed the "setting up of mindfulness" with an account of the concentrative (or meditative) states. There is a strong correlation between the descrip- 39

40 tion Gautama gave for the feeling associated with the initial concentrative state and the description of the tanden: "...(one) steeps and drenches and suffuses this body with a zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease....as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so (one) steeps, drenches, fills and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease." (12) Gautama's soap-ball analogy for the feeling of the first concentrative state differs from descriptions of the tanden in that the soap-ball moves, but at the same time, there is a strong similarity in the notion of a singularity that collects. The emphasis in the teachings of Gautama on the concentrative states is as much on the things that will cease as on the induction of the states themselves. Gautama declared that volitive activity (willful or habitual activity) ceases gradually as successive states of concentration unfold: the volitive activity of speech, he said, ceases with the induction of the first of the initial (or "material") states; the volitive activity associated with inhalation and exhalation ceases in the fourth of the initial states; and the volitive activity of perception and sensation (activity of mind) ceases in the last of the further (or "immaterial") states (13) In one of his lectures, Gautama listed additional cessations associated with the initial concentrative states, as follows: in the first, discomfort ceases; in the second, unhappiness; in the third, ease apart from equanimity; and in the fourth, happiness apart from a purified equanimity (14). The ceasing of discomfort in the first concentrative state is connected with stretch in the fascia and ligaments of the body and reciprocal, involuntary activity in the associated muscles; discomfort ceases as reciprocation becomes established and activity can be relaxed. Gautama described the induction of states of concentration, first through "the direction of mind" and then through "the non-direction of mind": "As (one) abides in body contemplating body, either some bodily object arises, or bodily discomfort or drowsiness of mind scatters (one's) thoughts abroad to externals. Thereupon... (one's) attention should be directed to some pleasurable object of thought. As (one) thus directs it to some pleasurable object of thought, delight springs up in (one's being). In (one), thus delighted, arises zest. Full of zest (one's) body is calmed down. With body so calmed (one) experiences ease. The mind of one at ease is concentrated. (One) thus reflects: The aim on which I set my mind I have attained. Come, let me withdraw my mind [from pleasurable object of thought]. So 40

41 (one) withdraws (one's) mind therefrom, and neither starts nor carries on thoughtprocess. Thus (one) is fully conscious: I am without thought initial or sustained. I am inwardly mindful. I am at ease. (Gautama repeats the above for As (one) contemplates feelings in feelings...,... mind in mind...,... mind-states in mind-states, either some mental object arises, or... ) Such is the practice for the direction of mind. And what... is the practice for the non-direction of mind? (First,) by not directing (one's) mind to externals, (one) is fully aware: My mind is not directed to externals. Then (one) is fully aware: My mind is not concentrated either on what is before or on what is behind, but it is set free, it is undirected. Then (one) is fully aware: In body contemplating body I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease. And (one) does the same with regard to feelings... to mind... and mind-states. Thus (one) is fully aware: In mind-states contemplating mind-states I abide, ardent, composed and mindful. I am at ease. This is the practice for the non-direction of mind." (15) From the above, freeing thought in Gautama s concentration on in-breathing and outbreathing apparently refers to not directing the mind to externals and the subsequent awarenesses. The distinction of the senses I find to be particularly important to the cessation of my own mental unhappiness, perhaps in part because the experience of consciousness from somewhere other than the mind is required; here is Gautama s description of the second meditative state: "... a (person)... suppressing applied and sustained thought... enters and abides in the second musing; (such a one) likewise steeps this body with zest and ease... 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..." (16) D. L. Bartilink described how pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen could provide support to the lower spine. Pressure in the fluid ball can be generated autonomically in the movement of breath, as a consequence of the experience of self-location on the balance and activity of the body. To the extent that the necessity for pressure in the fluid ball of the 41

42 abdomen engenders the experience of the senses involved in self-location, to that extent some feeling for a posture supported by the distinction of the senses is gained as the pressure is sustained. I believe it is this feeling for the posture that Gautama identified as like a pool filled with cold water. The cross-legged posture of seated meditation and the bent-knee postures of standing martial arts like T'ai Chi seem particularly to necessitate experience of equalibrioception, graviception, and proprioception, when they are held for any length of time. The third meditative state is charaterized by the cessation of "ease apart from equanimity". In my experience, there comes a moment in sustaining any posture when the stretch of ligaments and fascia exceeds my level of comfort, but acuity in the distinction of the senses (and some real-time appreciation of kinesthesiology) allows an equanimity that still permits a kind of ease. Here's Gautama's description of the feeling of the third meditative state: "Again, (a person), free from the fervour of zest,...enters and abides in the third musing; (such a one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one single particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease.... just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water lilies, the plants are born in water, grow up water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one's) body in zestless ease..." (17) The notion of "tip to root" that Gautama puts forward here, I find similar to Rujing's "enters" and "reaches" in connection with the tanden. If the stretch of ligaments generates the activity of the posture, the resile of ligaments generates the placement. In the third meditative state, the equanimous experience of stretch and resile can result in a "falling into place" or a "falling upright", given support from the fluid ball of the abdomen. The activity that sustains pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen is reciprocal activity engendered by fascia and ligaments throughout the body, including the fascia and ligaments of paired agonist/antagonist muscles like the tensor fascia latae and gluteous in the pelvic region, the left and right transverse muscles of the abdomen and chest, and the left and right muscles of the neck (like the sternocleidomastoid muscles) that rotate the head left and right (and lower the chin, in the case of the sternocleidomastoid). Activity in the tensor fascia latae and gluteous muscles can stretch fascia behind the sacrum; likewise, activity in the transverse muscles can stretch fascia along the rear of the spine, and activity in the muscles that rotate the head can stretch fascia behind the neck and head. The resile of such fascia and the relaxation of muscles helps to place the tailbone, the sacrum, the bones along the spine, the jaw, and the bones of the skull relative to one another. The fascial sheet behind the sacrum in particular is subject to an additional stretch as the 42

43 contraction of the extensors behind the sacrum causes the mass of the muscles to press rearward against the fascial sheet there (18). The stretch behind the sacrum can initiate full displacement of the lumbodorsal fascial sheet (behind the lower spine) by pressure from the "fluid ball" of the abdomen (given an appropriate spinal alignment); simultaneously, the stretch of the fascia behind the sacrum can, through activity generated in the gluteous and tensor fascia latae mucles, engender stretch in the ligaments of the abdominal muscles and thereby generate activity in these muscles. Pressure in the "fluid ball" is, for the most part, the result of activity in the abdominals (largely the transverse abdominals) and in the muscles of the pelvic floor (including the muscles from the pubic bones to the tailbone); with regard to the abdominals, the only place where the ligaments of the three abdominal muscle groups are of equal length in their connections to the rectus is at a point approximately two inches below the navel-- roughly, in front of the tanden. Cheng Man-Ching offered the following, curious advice: "...First we isolate the most vital portion of the sexual energy and the mind's fire, and heat them together with the ch'i in the tan-t'ien. Then we stir it up and set it in motion, causing the sexual energy to be converted into heat which passes through the wei-lu (tailbone) up the spine, reaching the crown of the head and spreading out to the four limbs." (19) Similarly, in "The Gospel of Thomas", Jesus is reported to have said:...when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female (not) be female, when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, (and) an image in the place of an image, then shall you enter [the Kingdom]. (20) It happens that the stretch and resile of ligaments in the lower abdomen (paralleling the stretch and resile of the fascia behind the sacrum) can sometimes focus at or immediately above the pubic region. Gracovetsky, Farfan, and Lamay proposed a mechanism of posture whereby, with the right alignment of the spine and the right flatness of the lumbar curve, the lumbodorsal fascial sheet could be displaced (they did not say by what means); such a displacement, they calculated, would increase the load-bearing role of the fascia of the lower back, and decrease the load on the annuluses of the spine (21). Perhaps in a bent-leg posture, there comes a moment when the initiation of such support through the displacement of the fascia of the lower back is necessary, and the distinction of the senses allows pressure in the fluid ball to complete what the extensors behind the sacrum initiate. The effort in the third meditative state as the body comes into alignment and the lower- 43

44 back fascia is displaced could be the source of the advice many teachers give regarding the efficacy of some particular point of posture. Cheng offered an additional instruction that turns out to be very similar to that of Rutschman-Byler's teacher: "When practicing the form, one should cause the yu-chen point at the base of the skull to stand out, then the spirit and ch'i will effortlessly meet at the top of the head." (22) Tucking the chin in, as Rutschman-Byler's teacher advised, has the effect of causing the "yu-chen" (Jade Pillow) to stand out. The emphasis on the chin is also echoed in the teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, founding teacher of the San Francisco Zen Center: "And pull your chin in. This is a very important point. If you sit in this way (head tilted up) you will never gain strength in your posture." (23) Cheng Man-ching provided some additional postural advice, with two quotes from the T'ai Chi classics that he connected: '"...When the sacrum is straight, the shen (spirit) goes through the top of the head" and then you "suspend the strength to the top of the head".' (24) The advice given in such instructions can vary: for example, Gautama did not mention the top of the head; he spoke instead of sensation over the entire surface of the head, or of sensation over the entire surface of the body (including the head). The cessation of "ease apart from equanimity" that marks the third meditative state points to a strenuousness of the posture. Involuntary reciprocal activity in the muscles associated with the major ligaments of the body, such as those that connect the sacrum to the pelvis and the pelvis to the hips, only comes about because the ligaments and fascia are stretched to a point where they themselves generate the impulses necessary to contract the muscles for their resile. The induction of reciprocal, ongoing involuntary activity in the major muscle groups requires stretch that remains on the border of the generation of such impulses in the associated ligaments and fascia. Because of the need for resile that is felt at the level of stretch necessary to the third meditative state, ease does not exist apart from equanimity. The posture of a standing weight-lifter demonstrates the tucked-in chin recommended by Rutschman-Byler's teacher, yet the weight-lifter's chin tuck is (presumably) not initiated consciously, but rather brought about unconsciously as the generation of pressure to induce and sustain a displacement of fascia becomes necessary. D. L. Bartilink's measurements demonstrated that the greater the weight being lifted, the greater is the pressure generated in the abdomen of the weight lifter, and yet he found that there is pressure in the 44

45 "fluid ball" even in a relaxed, standing posture. Bartilink pointed to the separation of the action of the diaphragm from the action of the abdominal muscles, suggesting that the separation might be an advantage that mammals had gained over reptiles through evolution. The third element of Gautama's way of living was as follows: "Thus [one] trains [oneself] thinking, 'I will breathe in experiencing the whole body; I will breathe out experiencing the whole body.'" In a footnote, the translator clarifies that the body referred to here is "the breath-body". The experience of the whole body of a natural breath while breathing in or out requires that the activity of the diaphragm not be impinged upon by the pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen, or by the activity that generates and sustains that pressure. The T'ai Chi teacher Cheng Man-Ching wrote: "In general, what the ancients called, 'straightening the chest and sitting precariously,' has to do with the work of self-cultivation....holding the spine erect is like stringing pearls on top of each other, without letting them lean or incline. However, if one is tense and stiff, or unnaturally affected, then this too is an error." (25) "Sitting precariously" emphasizes the role of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception in the alignment of the spine. Cheng mentioned that the ch'i must be allowed to overflow the tan-t'ien and pass through the tailbone without the use of force (in fact, he goes so far as to advise his students to seek out a teacher, to avoid any harm that they might do themselves in this regard). I would say Cheng is advising that the displacement of the lumbodorsal fascial sheet must be achieved only by reciprocal activity generated by the stretch of ligaments, and will occur as a matter of course in a bent-knee posture through the experience of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception, provided the movement of the diaphragm is free (as is necessary to experience "the whole (breath-)body", inhaling and exhaling). In order for the movement of the diaphragm to be free, the activity generated by ligaments and fascia throughout the body must be relaxed. Gautama's "way of living" includes such an emphasis on relaxation, as the fourth element: [One] trains [oneself], thinking ' I will breathe in tranquillizing the activity of body; I will breathe out tranquillizing the activity of body.' When habitual activity affecting inhalation or exhalation ceases in the induction of the fourth meditative state, the stretch and activity necessary to sustain pressure in the fluid 45

46 ball occurs automatically with the comprehension of the long or short and the experience of the whole (breath-)body in inhalation or exhalation. The feeling is much like the reflex Moshe Feldenkrais described in getting up out of a chair: "When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all." (26) In the fourth meditative state, activity to pressurize the abdomen from the soles of the feet to the top of the head and from the top of the head to the soles of the feet "will not be felt as an effort at all". Gautama's characterization of the feeling of the fourth meditative state was as follows: "... (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 (one) might sit with (one's) head swathed in a clean cloth so that not a portion of it was not in contact with that clean cloth; even so (one) sits suffusing (one's) body with purity..." (27) Elsewhere in the Pali Canon, the description of the fourth state reads "Just...as if a (person) were sitting so wrapt from head to foot in a clean white robe, that there were no spot in his entire frame not in contact with the clean white robe" (28). With the phrase "swathed in a clean cloth", Gautama abandoned the interiors he described in his analogies for the first three meditative states. The exterior he now provided is similar to the feeling conveyed by the last part of a description from the classics of T'ai Chi: "With this method of circulating the ch'i (T'ai Chi), it overflows into the sinews, reaches the bone marrow, fills the diaphragm, and manifests in the skin and hair." (29) Gautama stipulated that in the induction of the fourth meditative state, "one comes to be sitting down", or that a person is "seated", yet the sensation described appears to be the same as in the excerpt above, and T'ai Chi is a standing, moving form. Sensation at the surface of the skin is connected with the nerve exits between specific vertebrae of the sacrum and spine; for example, the nerves that exit the spine at the lowest vertebrae of the chest allow for feeling along a narrow band of skin running transversely around the lower abdomen, below the navel. Doctors can and do test for the specific loca- 46

47 tion of a nerve impingement in the spine by running a pin along sections of skin and then comparing any lack of feeling with a dermatone chart, a chart that reflects the areas of the skin that correspond with specific vertebral exits (r). That the fourth meditative state is characterized by sensation at the surface of the skin all over the body (and particularly the head) points to an open alignment of the vertebrae of the neck and spine, supported by the displacement of fascia; that the ch'i is expected to spread to the four limbs (after reaching the headtop) points similarly to a heightened sensation in the dermatones along the arms and legs, and an open alignment of vertebrae in the neck, lower back, and sacrum. Cheng offers a description of how sensitivity at the surface of the skin can translate into involuntary activity in T'ai Chi: "...the addition of a feather will be felt for its weight, and... a fly cannot alight on (the body) without setting it in motion." (30) The theory of the osteopath John Upledger regarding the cranial-sacral system emphasizes movement in the bones of the head and the importance of the rhythm of change in the cranial-sacral fluid pressure; the nerves that control the cranial-sacral fluid pressure lie between the parietal sutures at the crown of the head, and perhaps this is the basis for sayings such as the following by Yuanwu: "You should realize that on the crown of the heads of the buddhas and enlightened adepts there is a wondrous way of 'changing the bones' and transforming your existence." (31) Habitual activity connected with inhalation and exhalation ceases in the fourth meditative state, yet according to Gautama, happiness apart from equanimity also ceases. Gautama catagorizes the equanimity of the fourth meditative state as equanimity connected with multiformity (32); at some point only an acuity in the distinction of sense allows of happiness, yet at such a point there is no experience of sense that does not permit of happiness. As Dogen wrote in Genjo Koan : "When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point."(7) On several occasions, Gautama spoke of the first four meditative states as four of five limbs of concentration, with the fifth limb being the survey sign : "Again, the survey-sign is rightly grasped by a (person), rightly held by the attention, 47

48 rightly reflected upon, rightly penetrated by insight.... just as someone might survey another, standing might survey another sitting, or sitting might survey another lying down; even so the survey-sign is rightly grasped by a person, rightly held by the attention, rightly reflected upon, rightly penetrated by insight." (33) Gautama described the fourth concentrative state with its cessation of habitual activity in inhalation or exhalation as particularly connected with a seated posture, yet his description of the concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing as his way of living and his characterization of concentration as consisting of five limbs implies that the cessations of the fourth meditative state were regularly accessible to him in the course of his day, seated or not. Gautama also spoke about what he termed the "immaterial" meditative states, the first three of which were induced through the suffusion of the "whole world everywhere" with a particular "mind" or state of mind: [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... sympathetic joy... equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence." (34) "The excellence of the heart's release" through the mind of compassion, said Gautama, constituted the first of the immaterial concentrative states; "the excellence of the heart's release" through the mind of sympathetic joy, the second; and "the excellence of the heart's release" through the mind of equanimity, the third. (35) Left out was any correspondence for the excellence of the heart's release through the mind of friendliness, the first of the four "minds" described in the passage above. I can say that I find my action at times to be particularly prone to initiation from what lies outside the boundaries of my senses, as though Cheng's fly were alighting on me invisibly, and for me the suffusion of the entire world with a mind of "friendliness" opens the door to such action. The Zen teacher Kobun Chino Otogawa spoke of the involvement of things unseen in sitting shikantaza: "Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things....when you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don't take the sitting posture!" (36) 48

49 I believe it is the invisible fly that Dogen referred to when he wrote: "Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent." (7) Gautama's description of the first and third concentrative states in some ways resembles the descriptions of the tanden (or tan-t'ien), while his description of the second and fourth concentrative states suggests something somewhat different. I would say that concentrative experience tends to follow from the distinction of the senses in a bent-legged posture, and the experience of the mind at the tanden is one such concentrative experience; as essential as such an experience might be when a bent-knee posture is held for any length of time, the rhythm of things in a natural way of living must also include experience that returns a person to just breathing in or out, and therein lies "something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too." References: 1 pg "Eihei Koroku", Dogen, vol. 5, #390, trans. Okumura 3 MN III 82-83, Pali Text Society III pg SN V , Pali Text Society SN V pg Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg "Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan", Cheng Man Ch'ing, trans. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo & Martin Inn, pg "Genjo Koan", Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi. Revised at San Francisco Zen Center, and later at Berkeley Zen Center; published (2000) in Tanahashi, Enlightenment Unfolds (Boston: Shambhala), Earlier version in Tanahashi 1985 (Moon in a Dewdrop), 69-73, also Tanahashi and Schneider 1994 (Essential Zen); see also 8 "Visual consciousness and bodily self-consciousness", Nathan Faivre, Roy Salomon, and Olaf Blanke: 9 "Neuroscience of Self-Consciousness and Subjectivity", Olaf Blanke: 10 "Rotating Chair Experiment in Neurobiology", Olaf Blanke: 11 MN III , Pali Text Society Vol. III pg AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg See AN III 415, Pali Text Society III pg 294, SN IV 145 PTS IV pg 85, and SN IV 217, Pali 49

50 Text Society IV pg SN V 215, Pali Text Society V pg SN V , Pali Text Society SN V pg AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg Ibid 18 Mechanical Disorders of the Low Back by H. F. Farfan (B. S.C., M. D., C.M., F.R.C.S. (C)), published by Lea & Febiger, 1973, pg Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg The Gospel According to Thomas", coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah 'Abd Al Masih, pg log. 22, 1959 E. J. Brill 21 A mathematical model of the lumbar spine using an optimized system to control muscles and ligaments, S. Gracovetsky, H.F. Farfan, C.B. Lamay, Orthop. Clin. North Am. 8(1): Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg Shunryu Suzuki Lecture, August Los Altos 24 Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Cheng Man Ch'ing, trans. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo & Martin Inn, pg Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg Awareness Through Movement", Moshe Feldenkrais, pg AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg DN I 76, PTS Vol I pg 86; see also MN III 92-93, PTS pg Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 17; for a further exploration of this saying, see Fuxi's Poem 30 "Cheng Man-Ch'ing's T'ai-Chi Ch'uan", Cheng Man-Ch'ing, Juliana T. Cheng, North Atlantic Books pg "Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu", translated by Cleary & Cleary, 1st ed pg MN III 220, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg MN I 38, Pali Text Society volume I pg SN V , Pali Text Society volume V pg "Aspects of Sitting Meditation", "Shikantaza"; Kobun Chino Otogawa; 50

51 Post: An Image in the Place of an Image (Feb ) The other day, I felt moved to write as follows: In my experience, there is no way around ascertaining one s own necessity. As in, what do I really need, to live. It s possible for me to discover my necessity, in one movement of breath: You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality. ( Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu, translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84) Died the great death is letting go of any voluntary activity of body and mind. At some point, I find that holding still (as it were) cuts off the breath, that is ascertaining my own necessity. Coming back to life is coming back to my senses (including equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception). When I come back to my senses, the location of my awareness can move even if the rest of me is still, that is open as empty space ; the rest of me can move when the location of my awareness is still ( the millstone turns but the mind does not ), that is feet walking on the ground of reality. I can breathe. In my experience, there is no way around ascertaining one s own necessity, most immediately in the movement of breath. Yuanwu s feet walking on the ground of reality reminded me today of Jesus s teaching, as recorded in the Gospel of Thomas:...when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, (and) an image in the place of an image, then shall you enter [the Kingdom]. (The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guil- 51

52 laumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah Abd Al Masih, pg log. 22, copyright 1959 E. J. Brill) In my recent Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha s Pleasant Way of Living, I said: To the extent that the necessity for pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen engenders experience of equalibrioception, graviception, and proprioception, to that extent some feeling for the posture supported by the distinction of the senses is gained as the pressure is sustained. The feeling for the posture supported by the distinction of the senses allows me to make an eye in the place of an eye, a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot. This morning I asked myself, does feeling for the posture supported by the distinction of the senses allow me to make an image in the place of an image? If I take the word image to mean the location of my awareness, the question becomes: does feeling for the posture supported by the distinction of the senses allow me to locate my awareness in the place of the location of my awareness? Let me say that I don t know whether or not the word underlying the translation image has the meaning I am giving it, yet the meaning that I m giving it is the one that has significance to me. The writing of mine I quote from above largely concerns the emphasis some Zen teachers place on the role of the tanden, or hara in the experience of shikantaza. My own experience with the tanden would indicate to me that I am indeed making an image in the place of an image, when my awareness collects in my lower abdomen. The way the feeling for posture overflows from the tanden to the tailbone and becomes support to the surface of the skin seems to me also a function of an image in the place of an image. 52

53 Simultaneity of Things In The Natural Way to Draw, Kimon Nicolaides offered three exercises for the would-be artist; they were: contour drawing, drawing with the pencil continuously on the paper, looking only at the subject/object; gesture drawing, where the pencil moves freely (and copiously) to capture the gesture and the weight of the subject/object; drawing from memory. In Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha s Pleasant Way of Living, I walked through Gautama s description of the feeling of each of the initial concentrative states. In the description he gave, there s an alternation between the experience of some central object (the soapball, the plants born in water ), and the experience of a surface of some kind (the pool with a spring, the cloth... wrapt from head to foot"). In addition to the four initial states of concentration that alternate between these two modalities, Gautama described something he termed the "survey sign", an overview of marks, characteristics, or signs that can be recalled from memory to attend to a concentration. The neuroscientist Olaf Blanke noted that particular combinations of disabilities in the senses associated with the feeling of self can give rise to different kinds of out-of-body experience, which makes it plausible to me that particular coordinations of these same senses might give rise to the different modalities of concentration Gautama described. In several of my recent writings, I talk about how involuntary activity in the body sustains pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen ( fluid ball, from D. L. Bartilink); I believe, based on my own experience, that support for posture from that pressure can be realized at any point in the body, as an autonomic response in the movement of breath. The sense of balance is closely tied to the activity that generates and sustains pressure in the fluid ball, and the senses of touch and weight are closely allied with the support provided by the fluid ball. For me, the distinction of the senses in concentration really has three particulars, very similar to the particulars outlined by Nicolaides: experience of the location of awareness in the three planes, regardless of the object in awareness; 53

54 experience of the parts of the body and of weight, with no part left out; recall of patterns in the distinction of the senses (including the mind). It s possible to experience support from the fluid ball exactly as a sensation or perception that sustains the fluid ball takes place. In fact, I would say such a simultaneity is a normal part of everyday life, and underlies any induction of concentration. The simultaneity feeds on itself when the circumstances are appropriate, and exercises in the distinction of the senses and the recall of signs are really only intended to allow an openness to such a simultaneity. 54

55 (May ) Post: Conversation with Apech Apech: I was trying to remember about some research on the pulse in the cerebral fluid which I think you know about. Do you remember this? MF: that s John Upledger explaining cranial-sacral osteopathy in laymen s terms. Apech: I have of late been having interesting sensations at the top of my head which feel like pulsing and give the image of an underwater creature like a jelly fish. I was thinking about that cerebral pulse thing and wondering if my practice was having some affect on my head skull. It s really helpful to read that article again. MF: You probably know that the medicos would panic to hear you say that you have a pulsing at the top of your head. Apech: I wasn t seeing the pulse as a problem - in fact its mildly pleasant - so I ll keep away from the medics! MF: I would think based on my own experience that the sensation at the top of your head is happening in conjunction with the regular cessation of habitual activity in the movement of breath, and that same cessation will bring the mind to one place or another over time to round out the involuntary activity connected with the sensation. Apech: I m not quite sure what you mean by the cessation of the habitual activity in the movement of the breath - can you explain that a little? MF: A lot of the time, the things we do by intention with our bodies dictate the movement of breath. However, we are equally dependent on relaxation that allows the movement of breath to dictate the activity of the body, in whatever posture we find ourselves. Gautama described the cessation of habitual activity as gradual, occurring first with respect to speech, then with regard to inhalation and exhalation, and finally with regard to perception and sensation. He described successive states of concentration, wherein he said these cessations occur. The most useful description to me went something like this: First state, dis-ease ceases. I settle into the stretch of whatever posture I m in, and the activity of the posture or carriage follows automatically. Second state, unhappiness ceases. Oddly, the exercise of the senses whose coordination produces the sense of self seems for me to result in a cessation of unhappiness. 55

56 Olaf Blanke is a Swiss neuro-biologist studying out-of-body experience, and his hypothesis is that it s the vestibular organs (sense of equalibrium), otolithic organs (sense of gravity), proprioceptors (sense of placement and motion in the muscles, joints, and ligament), and eyes that coordinate to provide the sense of self. According to his hypothesis, when these organs don t coordinate properly, some kind of out-of-body experience takes place. I think the cessation of unhappiness I experience corresponds with the role of these senses in sustaining pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen and the ability of the fluid ball to support the posture or carriage of the body in the movement of breath. Third state, ease apart from equanimity ceases. I wrote the following about this: The cessation of ease apart from equanimity that marks the third meditative state points to a strenuousness of the posture. Involuntary reciprocal activity in the muscles associated with the major ligaments of the body, such as those that connect the sacrum to the pelvis and the pelvis to the hips, only comes about because the ligaments and fascia are stretched to a point where they themselves generate the impulses necessary to contract the muscles for their resile. The induction of reciprocal, ongoing involuntary activity in the major muscle groups requires stretch that remains on the border of the generation of such impulses in the associated ligaments and fascia. Because of the need for resile that is felt at the level of stretch necessary to the third meditative state, ease does not exist apart from equanimity. Fourth state, happiness apart from equanimity ceases, and habitual activity in inhalation and exhalation ceases. I wrote this: As to the cessation of happiness apart from a purified equanimity: I can say that for me, at some point only an acuity in the distinction of sense allows of happiness, yet at such a point there is no experience of sense that does not permit of happiness. Here s the latest post in my blog, which really summarizes my approach to states of concentration: In the Pali teachings, there s a distinction between consciousness and the mind: consciousness is said to arise from contact between a sense organ and sense object, while the mind is simply considered to be one of the sense organs. Consciousness, said Gautama, is followed by impact and then by feeling, with regard to each of the six senses. The senses fundamental to the experience of self were not a part of the vocabulary of Gautama s day, except for the eyes. Sometimes I think that is why he made such 56

57 a distinction between the mind and consciousness, and why dependent causation begins with ignorance: the senses most involved in the experience of the lack of any abiding self in the activity of breath (and in the activity of perception and sensation) were not known to him by name. Nevertheless, the descriptions he gave of the feelings associated with the initial states of concentration correspond exactly with these senses; for example, with regard to the first of the initial states:...(one) steeps and drenches and suffuses this body with a zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease....as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so (one) steeps, drenches, fills and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. Emphasis here is on equalibrioception (the bath-ball ), and a combination of proprioception and graviception (... steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses... so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded... ). In the experience of these senses, feelings similar to those Gautama described can be found, but it s the familiarity with these senses rather than any particular modality of feeling that allows for the cessation of habitual activity in connection with breath. How s that. (Apech: thanks.) 57

58 Post: The Secret of the Golden Flower (Sep ) I'd like to try to describe what I see in the lines of the illustration from "The Secret of the Golden Flower" (a Chinese meditation manual now dated somewhere between 1668 and 1692): The lines up the leg parallel the ilio-tibial tract, a fascial band which stretches from the lower leg to the pelvis, and to which the tensor and gluteous muscles attach. The tensor and gluteous muscles are a part of two focuses for stretch and resile in the fascia of the lower body, one lying just below the navel and the other just behind the sacrum and lower spine. 58

59 Below the navel, the ligaments that attach the three sets of abdominal muscles to the rectus are of equal length at a point approximately two inches below the navel: 59

60 Behind the sacrum and lower spine, the latissimus dorsi, transversus abdominus, and gluteous muscles all attach to the lumbodorsal fascial sheet: 60

61 Stretch and resile generated by the mass of the extensor muscles (as they contract and relax behind the sacrum) can initiate and sustain the displacement of the lumbodorsal fascial sheet, as can pressure generated in the fluid ball of the abdomen: 61

62 Support provided by the displacement of the lower back fascia allows for an alignment of the spine that fosters ease in the nerve exits between vertebrae. Ease in the nerve exits between specific vertebrae corresponds with an ability to feel at the surface of the skin in particular areas: In my experience, the ability to feel to the crown of the head and into the lower abdomen (as pictured in the Golden Flower illustration) is actually a function of the relinquishment of activity, particularly with regard to the movement of breath. Rujing advised that inhalation enters and reaches the tanden, and yet there is no place from which it comes... breath emerges from the tanden, and yet there is nowhere it goes. For me, the two-part enters and reaches describes an autonomic coordination of the displacements behind the sacrum and lower back in inhalation, given sufficient feeling throughout the body; feeling throughout the body, in turn, depends on the inclusion of all the senses, and even what lies outside the range of the senses, in the relinquishment of activity in the movement of breath. 62

63 Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind There's a passage in the 'Blue Cliff Record' where the Chinese Zen master Yuanwu is discussing a koan, and he adds a little something from his own experience. The koan is case 17, and goes as follows: 'A monk asked Hsiang Lin, "What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?" Hsiang Lin said, "Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome."' (Yuanwu, 'Blue Cliff Record', Shambala publications pg 110) At the close of his commentary on the koan, Yuanwu said this: 'Answering the monk who asked, "What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?", Hsiang Lin said, "Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome." If you understand this way, you are "turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind." (Ibid, pg 114) Yuanwu repeated his response and elaborated in the eighteenth case of the "Blue Cliff Record", where he commented on the verse of another master: "Your whole body is an eye. You fall into sevens and eights. Two by two, three by three, walking the old road, turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind." (Ibid, pg 121) Yuanwu's remarks concern phenomena that is observed as habitual activity ceases, in particular as unconscious habitual activity in inhalation or exhalation ceases. To enter a state where the only activity in sitting upright is the autonomic activity of inhalation or exhalation is to remain awake while essentially falling asleep, or to remain essentially asleep while waking up; just as in sleep, the activity of the mind no longer generates activity in the body, yet the activity of the posture still takes place. Kobun Chino Otogawa described an odd thing that can happen when habitual activity in the movement of breath ceases: "You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around." (Kobun said this in a lecture he gave at S. F. Zen Center that I attended, in the 1980's) 63

64 Just as some people can walk in their sleep, some people can continue in a state where the activity of the mind no longer generates activity in the body even as their body gets up and walks around. I'd like to take Yuanwu's commentary line by line: "Your whole body is an eye" the eye can reset what is described in the literature of neuroscience as the "self-location". Consciousness generated by the proprioceptors in the muscles, joints, and ligaments can also influence the "self-location", especially in connection with the experience of weight. The whole body is an eye, not because we use it to see forms, but because consciousness generated by the parts of the body influences the "self-location" just like the eyes. "You fall into sevens and eights" the "seven" that matters in seated meditation are the six ligamentous connections of the sacrum to the pelvis along with the fascia behind the extensor muscles at the sacrum (f & k). The "eight" would be the seven plus the place where the ligaments of the abdominal muscles are of equal lengths in their attachments to the rectus, about two inches below the navel (o). As with the "empty hand" in the first line of Fuxi's poem ("the empty hand grasps the hoe-handle"), a person can only "fall" into sevens and eights. "Two by two " the arrangement of muscles and ligaments/fascia in the body is largely in pairs, so that the stretch of the ligaments and the activity of muscle groups on one side of the body is offset by the stretch of ligaments and the activity of muscle groups on the opposite side of the body. "Three by three " in some cases the agonist/antagonist pairs of muscles act to stretch a band of fascia, or a sheet of fascia. This is the case for reciprocation between the hamstring and quadratus muscles, especially because the contraction of the quadratus muscles can add tension to the ilio-tibial tract through a fascial connection above the knee (h). "Walking the old road" the explanation here is the same as the explanation of the second line of Fuxi's poem, "walking along, I ride the ox", especially with regard to the tensor fascia latae and gluteous muscles: "The tensor and gluteous muscles connect from the ilio-tibial bands to the pelvis (h), and the gluteous muscles also connect to the rear of the sacrum and to the fascia behind the sacrum and the lower back (p). Stretch in the ilio-tibial bands and rotation of the pelvis by the sartorius muscles (j) can initiate reciprocal activity in the tensor and gluteous muscles " (from my essay, Fuxi's Poem ) "Turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind" stretch in the ilio-tibial bands sets off reciprocal innervation of the sartorious muscles, and consequently 64

65 reciprocal activity in the tensor and gluteous muscles. The result is a subtle "turning to the left, turning to the right" in an upright posture, and a stretch in both the ligaments that connect the abdominals to the rectus and in the fascia behind the sacrum and lower back. "Following up behind" is literally to follow the stretch and resile from behind the sacrum upward behind the spine. Some knowledge of anatomy and kinesthesiology can be helpful in relaxing the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation. That is perhaps why Yuanwu saw fit to temper Hsiang Lin's reply that "sitting for a long time becomes toilsome" with a sentence about "turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind". There's another aspect to "following up behind". I've talked about the two elements in Gautama's "way of living" that particularly pertain to the comprehension and experience of breath, about Rujing's characterization of the breath as "entering and reaching" or "emerging" from the tanden, and about Dogen's "actualization of the fundamental point" through "finding the place where you are" and "finding your way at this moment". There's a similarity in these descriptions that speaks to the two physiological mechanisms of support for the spine that I have found in the literature of medical research: Stretch and resile in the lumbardorsal fascia behind the sacrum Gautama's "comprehending" the long and short of inhalation and exhalation, Rujing's "reaching" the tanden, and Dogen's "finding the place where you are" facilitate stretch and resile behind the sacrum by engaging a sense of one-pointed equalibrium (and thereby, the pivots of the sacrum). Stretch and resile in the lumbodorsal fascia behind the lower spine Gautama's "experiencing the whole (breath-)body", Rujing's "entering" and "emerging" from the tanden, and Dogen's "finding your way at this moment" facilitate stretch and resile behind the lower spine by engaging the (multi-sensory) surroundings of one-pointed equilibrium (and thereby, the surface pressure of the "fluid ball" of the abdomen). The seamless coordination of the two mechanisms in posture (q) is autonomic in the natural movement of breath. The first part of the koan of the eighteenth case in the 'Blue Cliff Record' is this: "Emperor Su Tsung asked National Teacher Hui Chung, "After you die, what will you need?" The National Teacher said, "Build a seamless monument to me." The Emperor said, "Please tell me, Master, what the monument would look like." The National Teacher was silent for a long time; then he asked, "Do you understand?" 65

66 Post: Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind (Dec ) There's a koan in the "Blue Cliff Record" (case 17) that goes like this: 'A monk asked Hsiang Lin, "What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?" Hsiang Lin said, "Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome."' (Yuanwu, 'Blue Cliff Record', Shambala publications pg 110) In a commentary on the koan, the 12th century Chinese abbot Yuanwu wrote: 'If you understand this way, you are "turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind."' I go into some of the details of Yuanwu's commentary in the previous essay. I would like now to add one more pair of teachings to the paired teachings of Gautama, Rujing, and Dogen that I mentioned in my explanation of Yuanwu's commentary. T'ai Chi master Cheng Man Ch'ing wrote: "When the beginner starts to learn T'ai Chi Ch'uan, he should secure his mind and ch'i in the tan-t'ien. Do not forget this, but also do not coerce it... After a long time, the ch'i naturally passes through the coccyx, spreads along the backbone, and travels up through the occipital region to the top of the head. Then it descends to the tant'ien.... you cannot force it! It must be completely natural." ("Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan", Cheng Man Ch'ing, translation by Benjamin Pang, Jeng Lo, and Martin Inn, pg 41) In Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha's Pleasant Way of Living, I described the kinesthesiology that underlies Cheng's description: 66

67 "It happens that the stretch and resile of ligaments in the lower abdomen (paralleling the stretch and resile of the fascia behind the sacrum) can sometimes focus at or immediately above the pubic region. Perhaps in a bent-leg posture, there comes a moment when the initiation of...support through the displacement of the fascia of the lower back is necessary, and the distinction of the senses allows pressure in the fluid ball to complete what the extensors behind the sacrum initiate." Cheng mentioned the coccyx (the tailbone). Ease in the nerve exits between the coccyx and the bottom-most vertebrae of the sacrum provides an ability to feel on the surface of the skin, not below or behind the coccyx, but behind the center of the sacrum. There, the muscle-mass of the left and right extensors as they contract in alternation affects the stretch of the lower-back fascia (just below the skin), and can serve to initiate the displacement of the fascial sheet behind the lower spine. That it is the push of the mass of the extensors behind the sacrum that adds critical stretch to the lower back fascia, rather than the pull, is the source of statements such as Fuxi's "the empty hand grasps the hoe-handle". Cheng also recounted the following saying from the classics of Tai Chi: "rooted in the feet sprouts in the legs mastered by the waist functions through the fingers" (T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Cheng Man-Ching, North Atlantic Books pg 14-15) Here there is no mention of either the tailbone or the top of the head. The ability to feel place and weight in the feet becomes a reciprocal innervation in the legs, a reciprocal innervation that is focused through the waist and "functions" in the fingers. The activity that Yuanwu described as "turning to the left, turning to the right", I have ascribed to action in the sartorius, gluteous, and tensor muscles, in response to stretch in the ilio-tibial bands. The action in the gluteous muscles in particular is crucial to the stretch and resile of the fascia behind the sacrum, setting up the subtle role of the alternating mass of the left and right extensors in the displacement of the fascia behind the sacrum. At the same time, the action in the satorius and tensor muscles translates into stretch and resile in the attachments of the abdominals, and that stretch and resile generates activity in the abdominals that serves to pressurize the "fluid ball" of the abdomen. Pressure in the "fluid ball" in turn controls the displacement of fascia behind the lower spine. The activity in the abdominals can engender stretch and resile in the fascial connections of the latissimus dorsi muscles, both in the fascia behind the lower back and at the bones of the upper arms. Through the latissimus dorsi, the angle of the arms to the body, of the upper arm to the lower arm, and of the hands to one another can enter into the stretch and resile of the ligaments of the abdominals, at the same time stretch and resile is occasioned 67

68 in these same ligaments by the reciprocal activity of the tensor and gluteous muscles from below. What is "mastered in the waist" functions through the fingers, and that function through the fingers is a part of the mastery in the waist. Yuanwu described the feeling of the reciprocal innervation in the legs as "walking the old road". Fuxi described it as "walking along, I ride the ox", accentuating the way reciprocal innervation in the legs both originates with and contributes to stretch and resile in the iliosacral ligaments. Fuxi's "the ox crosses the wooden bridge" analogizes the experience of stretch and resile in the ilio-sacral ligaments accompanied by reciprocal innervation in the muscles along the centerline of the pelvic basin. The involuntary alternation in the contraction and relaxation of the muscles between the pubic bones and the tailbone can help to align the tailbone and sacrum, and facilitate reciprocal innervation in both the piriformis muscles and in the left and right extensors behind the sacrum. Ease in the nerve exits between the bottom-most vertebrae of the chest and the top-most vertebrae of the lower spine informs the ability to feel along an unusual pair of bands of skin. Ease in these nerve exits provides feeling on the surface of the skin from near the two vertebrae behind the spine, diagonally down the sides of the abdomen to the groin below the genitals, and along the inside of the groin and upper thighs to below and behind the tailbone. The ability to feel in this area guides the alignment of the lower spine and chest, so that the displacement of fascia behind the sacrum can become the displacement of fascia behind the entire lower back. My writing titled The Mudra of Zen included a description of the correspondence between the placement of the arms and hands and a one-pointedness of self-location, a one-pointedness with an associated flow in the ability to feel. In light of D. L. Bartilink's research, I would perhaps modify that description now, as follows: "The placement of the fingers near the centerline of the abdomen provides a sense of the ligaments of the internal oblique muscles, the muscles that run diagonally from the pelvis upward to the rectus; if the little fingers leave the abdomen, awareness of the forward and backward motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can restore the little fingers to the abdomen. Similarly, the placement of the little fingers provides a sense of the ligaments of the transverse muscles, the muscles that run horizontally from the abdomen around the sides to the fascia behind the lower spine; if the elbows lose their angle from the body, awareness of the side-to-side motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can restore the angle. Likewise, the placement of the little fingers against the abdomen provides a sense of the ligaments of the external oblique muscles, the muscles that run from the rectus diagonally upward to the ribcage; if the shoulders lose their roundedness, awareness of the turn left, turn right wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can help restore the round to the shoulders." D. L. Bartilink measured activity in the abdominal muscles of weight-lifters, and deter- 68

69 mined that activity in the rectus muscles was not part of the activity that pressurized the "fluid ball" in support of the spine; that's the basis for the change in my instructions. That a "forward and backward motion wherever consciousness takes place" could inform and be informed by "a sense of the ligaments of the internal oblique muscles, running diagonally from the pelvis upward to the rectus" may seem odd, yet when a distinction between inhalation and exhalation is made as the forward and backward motion is observed, the stretch and resile of the ligaments of the internal obliques becomes evident. The support of the ilio-lumbar ligaments to the bottom-most lumbar vertebrae as the spine extends (the accent in exhalation) and to the second-lowest vertebrae as the spine flexes (the accent in inhalation) is influenced by the reciprocal innervation of the sides of the psoas, so that the weight of the spine passes to the sacrum and to the left and right ilio-sacral joint fascias smoothly. The stretch and resile of the fascia of the ilio-sacral joints on the left and right initiates stretch and resile in the other ilio-sacral ligaments, and in the fascia and ligaments of the pelvis and legs on the left and right. That stretch and resile returns to the abdomen through the "turning to the left, turning to the right" reciprocation of the sartorius, gluteous, and tensor muscles, and to the ligaments of the internal obliques. Bartilink pointed out that in mammals, the activity of the abdominals that generates pressure in the "fluid ball" to support the spine can occur without impinging on the activity of the diaphragm. Gautama's paired instructions bring awareness to such a separation, initiating mindfulness of the activity of the diaphragm (through intuition of the long or short of inhalation or exhalation), and subsequently mindfulness of the activity of the body apart from the diaphragm (through the experience of the "whole (breath-)body" in inhalation or exhalation). Yuanwu wrote, "you fall into sevens and eights". Counter-intuitively, the reciprocation of the sartorius and tensor muscles in "turning to the left, turning to the right" carries upward into the abdominals through the experience of gravity, and makes possible "following up behind" as the displacement of fascia behind the sacrum facilitates the displacement of fascia behind the lower spine. "Mastered at the waist" could be said to be a reference to the incorporation of the sense of gravity in the experience of the senses, particularly in conjunction with the ability to feel, and to the influence of gravity in the experience of self-location as a source of activity in the movement of breath. The elements of Gautama's "way of living" are said to unfold in the course of either an inhalation or an exhalation, with "beholding cessation" and "beholding relinquishment" the final two elements. The incorporation of the experience of the senses that allows self-location as a source of activity is the engine of the cessation of habitual activity with respect to inhalation and exhalation. The witness of such a cessation, along with the witness of a relinquishment of the identification of self with activity of the body, can return the mind first to inhalation and exhalation and then to a selfless examination of phenomena that occur as a part of inhalation and exhalation. 69

70 "...making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (SN V 200, Pali Text Society SN volume V pg 176) 70

71 (May ) Post: The Case of the Suffocating Woman I m reading Embracing Mind, a collection of some of the talks Kobun Chino Otogawa offered at retreats (sesshins) between 1974 and Kobun offers some interesting comments about seated meditation, among them: It s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it. ( Embracing Mind, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48) I came across an article a few days ago by the psychiatrist Scott Alexander, entitled The Case of the Suffocating Woman. Here s the way Dr. Alexander described his case: A 20-something year old woman comes into the emergency room complaining that she can t breathe. The emergency doctors note that she s breathing perfectly normally. She says okay, fine, she s breathing normally now, but she s certain she s about to suffocate. She s having constant panic attacks, gasping for breath, feels like she can t get any air into her lungs, been awake 96 hours straight because she s afraid she ll stop breathing in her sleep. She accepts voluntary admission to the psychiatric unit with a diagnosis of panic disorder. ( The Case of the Suffocating Woman, posted on Slate Star Codex April 5, 2017 by Scott Alexander; Dr. Alexander did a little checking online, and discovered some research by a man named Klein: Klein theorized that the brain has a suffocation alarm, which does some pretty complicated calculations to determine whether you re suffocating or not. Its inputs are anything from blood CO2 level to very high-level cognitions like noticing that you re in space and your spacesuit just ruptured. If, after considering all of this, and taking into account confounding factors like whether you re exercising or voluntarily holding your breath, it decides that you re suffocating, it activates your body s natural suffocation response. And the body s natural suffocation response seems a lot like panic attacks. Increased heart rate? Check. Gasping for breath? Check. Feeling of impending doom? Check. Choking? Check. Chest pain? Check. Faintness? Check. Down on the comment thread, someone named Liz added the following remarks: 71

72 My husband is a spear fisherman and he can hold his breath underwater for almost four minutes. He was trained to do so in a manner similar to how they train Navy Seals. They are able to do relaxation techniques and override their body s impulse to panic. I m not sure if everyone can accomplish this or if they are outliers. But one important point that I think fits into the topic here. They have to be wary of something called shallow water blackout. They will hold their breath without the panic response literally until they pass out underwater, and drown (even if they are only sitting on the bottom of a pool with a foot or two of water above them). (liz, April 5, 2017 at 10:41 am) In one of his letters, the twelfth-century Chinese Zen teacher Yuanwu wrote:... Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality. ( Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu, translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84) To my mind, Yuanwu is describing something similar to the Navy Seal training: the abandonment of activity in connection with the movement of breath, through continued relaxation even in the midst of suffocation panic. On the other side of that panic, an acuity of the senses necessary to the movement of breath comes forward (including the senses connected with self-location-- it is as open as empty space ), an acuity that lends weight to the stretch and activity of the body ( you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality ). Sitting allows for the total cessation of habitual activity in the movement of breath. The open secret of such experience has to do with suffering, as Kobun explained: When we ask what it is which senses this suffering, we have to understand that the one who is breathing in and out, in and out, doesn t suffer. But it does sense suffering. ( Embracing Mind, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48) Kobun was right that no one is going to believe that the one who is breathing in and out, in and out, doesn t suffer until they experience it for themselves, and that the meaning of zazen practice derives from such experience. Nevertheless, The Case of the Suffocating Woman sheds light on exactly where the difficulty is in having such experience, and that is in the relaxation of specific activity of the body that comes to mind right through the panic of sensing that the breath is cut off, so that the ability to feel throughout the body with no part left out remains present. The direction of mind can suddenly accede to the gravity of the self-location in the particular inhalation or exhalation, and the foreground of bodily activity and the background of autonomic respiration can change places in a kind of Gestalt. 72

73 To me, Kobun embodied the one who...doesn t suffer in his actions. Kobun died in Switzerland, when he went into a shallow landscape pool after his five-yearold daughter, Maya, who had somehow fallen in and was drowning. I spoke to the guy who owned the property with the pool, and he shook his head in disbelief that Kobun had actually drowned, because the pool was only about three feet deep. Kobun once ended a talk by saying, You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around. It s my belief that it was in fact zazen that went into the pool after Maya, and that it was the one who does not suffer (but nevertheless senses suffering) that remained under the surface by her side. 73

74 Post: Twenty-second Case: Hsueh Feng's Turtle- Nosed Snake (Sep ) Twenty-second Case: Hsueh Feng s Turtle-Nosed Snake Hsueh Feng taught the assembly saying, On South Mountain there s a turtle-nosed snake. All of you people must take a good look. Ch ang Ch ing said, In the hall today there certainly are people who are losing their bodies and their lives. A monk related this to Hsuan Sha. Hsuan Sha said, It takes Elder Brother Leng (Ch ang Ch ing) to be like this. Nevertheless, I am not this way. The monk asked, What about you, Teacher? Hsuan Sha said, Why make use of South Mountain? Yun Men took his staff and threw it down in front of Hsueh Feng, making a gesture of fright. (The Blue Cliff Record, trans. Cleary Cleary, pg 144) Ch ang Ch ing s In the hall today there certainly are people who are losing their bodies and their lives implies that some people in the hall might gain their bodies and their lives, were they to heed Hsueh Feng s advice. Hsuan Sha takes issue, not with the turtle-nosed snake, but with locating the snake on South Mountain. Yuanwu comments: When Hsueh Feng speaks this way, On South Mountain there s a turtle-nosed snake, tell me, where is it? (Ibid, pg 149) Yun Men throws his staff down in front of Hsueh Feng and pretends to be frightened. People do tend to be frightened of snakes, but to be frightened of Hsueh Feng s turtle-nose snake is to be frightened of one s own self. Yuanwu offers some words from his teacher: My late teacher Wu Tsu said, With this turtle-nosed snake, you must have the ability not to get your hands or legs bitten. Hold him tight by the back of the neck with one quick grab. Then you can join hands and walk along with me. 74

75 (Ibid, pg 151) Where a snake can be said to have something perhaps resembling a nose, a turtle has essentially the holes in its skull with a thin covering. Awareness of the movement of breath where the breath passes through the skull can accentuate the role of the joint between the skull and the neck in the extension and flexion of the spine, under the right circumstances. In my post Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind, I wrote: The support of the ilio-lumbar ligaments to the bottom-most lumbar vertebrae as the spine extends (the accent in exhalation) and to the second-lowest vertebrae as the spine flexes (the accent in inhalation) is influenced by the reciprocal innervation of the sides of the psoas, so that the weight of the spine passes to the sacrum and to the left and right ilio-sacral joint fascias smoothly. The stretch and resile of the fascia of the ilio-sacral joints on the left and right initiates stretch and resile in the other ilio-sacral ligaments, and in the fascia and ligaments of the pelvis and legs on the left and right. (Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind, Zazen Notes, Dec. 11, 2016) In Fuxi s Poem, I offered a summary of how stretch in the fascia and ligaments of the pelvis and legs returns activity to the pelvis: The obturators connect from the inside and outside of the pelvis to the rear of the hips, and when they reciprocate in response to stretch in the sacro-spinous ligaments and in the fascia of the hip joints, they tend to open the joints between the pelvis and the hips and tilt the front of the pelvis downward. Flexibility side-to-side at the hip joints stretches the sacro-spinous ligaments and the ilio-tibial fascial bands, and initiates reciprocal activity in the quadricep and hamstring muscles. The quadricep muscles have fascial connections with the ilio-tibial bands just above the knee, and activity in the quadriceps can add stretch to the ilio-tibial bands through these connections. Stretch in the ilio-tibial bands can also initiate reciprocal activity in the sartorius muscles (from the lower leg to the wings of the pelvis along the inside of each leg) to rotate the pelvis slightly around the vertical axis of the spine. (Fuxi s Poem) The Tai-chi teacher Cheng Man-Ch ing offers a Chinese saying that describes the feeling in the legs as activity related to flexion and extension and the movement of breath takes place: The sage breathes from his heels. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 55) 75

76 Again in the post Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind, I wrote: The activity that Yuanwu described as turning to the left, turning to the right, I have ascribed to action in the sartorius, gluteous, and tensor muscles (tensor fascia latae), in response to stretch in the ilio-tibial bands. The action in the gluteous muscles in particular is crucial to the stretch and resile of the fascia behind the sacrum, setting up the subtle role of the alternating mass of the left and right extensors in the displacement of the fascia behind the sacrum. At the same time, the action in the sartorius and tensor muscles translates into stretch and resile in the attachments of the abdominals, and that stretch and resile generates activity in the abdominals that serves to pressurize the fluid ball of the abdomen. Pressure in the fluid ball in turn controls the displacement of fascia behind the lower spine. ( Turning to the Left, Turning to the Right, Following Up Behind, Zazen Notes, Dec. 11, 2016) The stretch added to the fascia behind the sacrum by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract depends in part on the angle of the tailbone and sacrum relative to the spine. As the sacrotuberous ligaments stretch and resile with the rotation of the pelvis, activity is generated in the muscles of the pelvic floor that can tuck the tailbone and rotate the sacrum slightly. A pivot of the sacrum angles the mass of the extensors into the lumbodorsal fascia (behind the sacrum and the lower back) slightly lower than otherwise, and in turn the lower rearward press on the fascia changes the angle required for the relaxed carriage of weight between the neck and skull. The stretch and resile of the sacrotuberous ligaments and the consequent reciprocal activity in the left and right muscles of the pelvic floor is described by Fuxi as the ox crosses the wooden bridge (see Fuxi s Poem ). Here s Cheng Man-Ching s description: After a long time, the ch i naturally passes through the coccyx, spreads along the backbone, and travels up through the occipital region to the top of the head. Then it descends to the tan-t ien....you cannot force it! It must be completely natural. ( Cheng Tzu s Thirteen Treatises on T ai Chi Ch uan, Cheng Man Ch ing, translation by Benjamin Pang, Jeng Lo, and Martin Inn, pg 41) The extensors are in three sets, from the sacrum to the rib cage, behind the rib cage, and behind the neck to the sides and rear of the skull. Just as the reciprocal activity of the gluteous and tensor muscles stretches the fascia behind the sacrum and amplifies the effect of the mass of the extensors as they contract in alternation, so too stretch behind the neck and skull may amplify the effect of the mass of the extensors pressing rearward on the fascia there. Wu Tsu s direction to hold (the snake) tight by the back of the neck with one quick grab is for me a description of the feeling at the back of the neck when the ox crosses the wooden bridge. 76

77 The classics of Tai Chi point out: When (our thoughts) are on the ch i, then it is blocked. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 12) Although I have made a study of the kinesthesiology of the body, the kinesthesiology really only serves to help me relax. Gautama spoke of thought applied to the experience of the whole body of an inhalation or the whole body of an exhalation; in such an experience, activity in the body that responds to relaxation to allow a feeling of ease can emerge. As I have described, the experience of the three motions (forward and back, side to side, left and right) at the location of awareness tends not only to physically shift awareness (as the influence of the eyes is attenuated), but also to bring forward activity that responds to relaxation. The discrimination of the influence of the eyes on the location of awareness and the experience of the location of awareness as separate from the proprioceptive consciousness of the activity of the body can condition a responsiveness of the body to relaxation, and an ease. Gautama outlined the cultivation of equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception through an analogy, using the image of a ball collected from soap powder sprinkled inside a basin and moistened with water:...(one) steeps and drenches and suffuses this body with a zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease....as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so (one) steeps, drenches, fills and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19) The emphasis is on three of the four senses that neurobiologists Blanke and Mohr identified as coordinating to provide the feeling of self: equalibrioception ( the bath-ball ), proprioception ( so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded... ), and graviception ( steeps, drenches, fills and suffuses). In the analogies Gautama used for his three subsequent meditative states, he pointed to an alternation between states centered around equalibrioception with proprioception and graviception, and states centered around proprioception and graviception only. Equalibrioception accompanied by proprioception and graviception (the bath-ball) becomes proprioception and graviception (a spring-fed pool with no visible source), then three senses again (lotuses that never break the surface of the water), and finally proprioception and graviception connected with the surface of the skin (as a cloth... wrapt from head to foot ). 77

78 As Cheng Man-Ching wrote: The one word, relax, is the most difficult to achieve. All the rest follows naturally. When we are able to relax completely, this is sinking. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T ai-chi Ch uan, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 66) There can be a panic that comes in feeling the necessity of the whole body of an inhalation or of the whole body of an exhalation without finding relaxation, without finding ease (see The Case of the Suffocating Woman, Zazen Notes, May 2, 2017). A surrender of habits of mind sufficient to experience activity in those senses necessary for the movement of breath is required, as Yuanwu points out: You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death*: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality. ( Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu, translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84) I wrote previously about what happens for me after the breath is cut off : Coming back to life is coming back to my senses (including equalibrioception, proprioception, and graviception). When I come back to my senses, the location of my awareness can move even if the rest of me is still, that is open as empty space ; the rest of me can move when the location of my awareness is still ( the millstone turns but the mind does not ), that is feet walking on the ground of reality. I can breathe. (An Image in the Place of an Image, Zazen Notes, Feb. 6, 2016) At the same time, because contact in the necessary senses is a part of the natural movement of breath, Dogen can say that sustained effort need not be applied: 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? (Dogen, Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen, Koroku Fukan zazen gi, from Dogen s Manuals of Zen Meditation by Carl Bielefeldt, pg 175, ed. 1988) The passage from the third of Gautama s initial states, a state marked by the cessation of 78

79 ease apart from equanimity, to the fourth of his initial states, marked by the cessation of happiness apart from equanimity, is made in part by the abandonment of ease. The abandonment of ease comes in spite of the suffocation response, with a relaxation or sinking that allows the movement of breath to become the source of the action of the body, as though the action were a part of the autonomic activity of breath. The experience of the whole body of an inhalation or an exhalation, of relaxation of the activity of the body (in inhalation or exhalation), and of a feeling of ease (in inhalation or exhalation) are the third, fourth, and sixth parts of Gautama s way of living (see Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha s Pleasant Way of Living for more about Gautama s way of living). * People who have died the great death are all free of the Buddha-Dharma, free from its principles and its abstruseness, free from gain and loss, right and wrong, merit and demerit; they have reached here and rest in this way. (Yuanwu, from Critical Sermons of the Zen Tradition: Hismatsu s Talks on Linji, pg 155) 79

80 (Mar ) Post: A Natural Mindfulness The classics of T ai-chi offer the following advice: We should keep our thoughts on the spirit and not on the ch'i. When they are on the ch'i, then it is blocked. If there is ch'i, then there is no strength; without ch'i then essential hardness is achieved. ( Master Cheng s Thirteen Chapters on T'ai-Chi Chuan, translated by Douglas Wile, pg 12) The English word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath. To me, the advice from the classics above says that our thoughts must include what lies beyond the senses as well as what lies within them, and the literal meaning of the word spirit points to the central role that breath plays in perceptions and sensations of such a nature. The phrase if there is ch'i, then there is no strength refers to the effortlessness of posture that can be realized in the natural movement of breath, an effortlessness that is based on the simultaneity of equalibrioception (that sustains the posture) and proprioception/graviception (that supports it). The phrase without ch'i then essential hardness is achieved refers to the effort involved in posture when some aspect of posture is not supported; the body will develop strength as necessary to compensate for the lack of support. I'm never happier than when simple mindfulness of just breathing in or breathing out occurs in me. That I find a natural mindfulness of breathing in or breathing out in the distinction of the senses and the recollection of the signs that constituted Gautama's way of living, gives me hope that his way of living is indeed a thing perfect in itself. 80

81 Illustrations (a) Return to Fuxi s Poem 81

82 Illustrations (b) Return to Fuxi s Poem 82

83 Illustrations (c) Return to Fuxi s Poem 83

84 Illustrations (d) Return to Fuxi s Poem 84

85 Illustrations (e) Return to Fuxi s Poem 85

86 Illustrations (f) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 86

87 Illustrations (g) Return to Fuxi s Poem 87

88 Illustrations (h) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 88

89 Illustrations (j) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 89

90 Illustrations (k) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 90

91 Illustrations (l) Return to Fuxi s Poem 91

92 Illustrations (m) Return to Fuxi s Poem 92

93 Illustrations (n) Return to Fuxi s Poem 93

94 Illustrations (o) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 94

95 Illustrations (p) Return to Fuxi s Poem Return to Turning to the Left... 95

96 Illustrations (q) Return to Turning to the Left... 96

97 Illustrations (r) Return to Shikantaza... From Wikipedia, Dermatomes : after Keegan, J. J., and Garrett, F. D. (modified) 97