Month: February 2010

Hey to Brad & all,

As you know, Dogen opens “Fukan zazen gi” by wondering why, if the whole being is far beyond defilement, anyone could believe in a method to polish it.

I think you’ve left that out of your discussion, and that’s the hardest part of Buddhism to comprehend, which is why it was Dogen s question on the way to China and the first thing he sought to address when he got back. That is, if the end of suffering is accessible to all and a part of daily life, then why a practice like zazen?

I wrote toward this question in my “unauthorized and incomplete guide to zazen”, and the answer I found was that our postural activity comes largely out of the stretch of fascia and ligaments, yet the activity out of stretch doesn’t begin until the stretch is almost uncomfortable. So if we are averse to the painful (or attached to the pleasant, or ignorant), consciousness no longer takes place spontaneously, no longer occurs where it needs to occur in order for the activity of the body to balance naturally, and we experience a separation from ourselves and everyone else that is suffering. A key point being that everyone can and does witness activity out of the impact of consciousness on stretch, and everyone can and does experience the ability to feel generated by impact, but only those who seek an end to suffering realize the significance of the experience.

yers truly, Mark

The process (connecting the upper thighs and the perineum) is difficult to describe, because the fundamental is the occurrence of consciousness, and how the occurrence of consciousness resounds in the stretch of the fascia. The lion is totally relaxed, and enters into motion totally relaxed, because the action comes out of feeling generated by the impact of consciousness on stretch. The lion does not intentionally stretch, yet the presence of stretch is evident in the relaxed, tenacious movement of the lion.

The top of the thighs and the perineum, myself I look for the stretch from the sacrum to the sit-bones to generate activity in the obturators, which rocks the pelvis side to side on the hip bones. The obturators run under the pelvis, and can lift the pelvis off the hips slightly as they contract. I look for stretch in the sacro-tuberous ligaments running diagonally from the sacrum to the lower front of the pelvis, and activity in the piriformis from the upper legs to the sacrum as a result. There is also activity in the PC as a result of this, and likewise as a result of the pivot of the sacrum on the wings of the pelvis. Fundamentally the place of occurrence of consciousness and the stretch occasioned by the place of occurrence develop feeling.

I confess my mind is not in the tan-tien that much. I do practice a lot with sensing the coordination of the motion of the sacrum in the muscles of the abdomen where my little fingers touch, doing the mudra of soto zen; side to side, diagonally from the thighs, and up from the pelvis, both little fingers on the lower abdomen.