Month: April 2010

I think he did mean “make”, but in this sense: contact between a sense organ and a sense object results in consciousness, the occurrence of consciousness affects balance and impacts the fascial stretch in existence as consciousness takes place, the stretch of fascia generates activity that opens feeling; to make the inner like the outer is to experience feeling generated through the impact of consciousness when the object of sense is within, just as we experience feeling generated through the impact of consciousness when the object of sense is outside. To make a hand in the place of a hand is to realize feeling in the hand as consciousness of the hand impacts the stretch in existence at the moment.

That our consciousness of the inner affects our awareness of the outer, and vice-versa, has to do with the station of consciousness, as the Gautamid described it. If we ignore stretch proximal to painful overextension, we lose the action generated involuntarily out of stretch; our fear of losing our balance, losing our control of our balance, is important to notice. My fear, my anxiety, important right now for me to notice. Calm helps me accept that the involuntary activity that my consciousness generates as it moves is the heart of the matter, as far as opening feeling, and I can’t help moving toward more ability to feel. My breath will take me there, my spine will take me there, my consciousness is there without trying. We lose the stretch when we sleep, to some extent, can’t be helped I suppose.

ruminations from cow pastures in northern california, on a beautiful spring night!

My experience is that there is only one object worth moving through mind, and that is the body. That might sound laughable, but I’m not talking about moving the body through the exercise of will by the mind. I am talking about the occurrence of consciousness causing action in the body solely by virtue of consciousness taking place.

“Sometimes zazen gets up and walks around”, Kobun Chino Otogawa said; “The windy element” moves the body, Buddhaghosa wrote; “to one who knows thus, sees thus, there are no illusions that mine is the doer with respect to this consciousness-informed body”, the Gautamid said.

“An 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”- from Fuxi, 5th century C.E.

“the bridge is flowing, the water is still”- here is a wonderful explanation of this line from a Shunryu Suzuki lecture (edited by Bill Redican):

“You may say that your mind is practicing zazen and ignore your body, the practice of your body. Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving.”

Suzuki also said, “only zazen can sit zazen”. Now I would say, the body practicing zazen in imperturbability while the mind is moving is zazen that sits zazen, and at such time the action of the body apart from the movement of mind is still. As Kobun said, the action of the body with the movement of mind can sometimes get up and walk. If you want to see it for yourself, then I think you have to arrive at a necessity of breath that depends on the free occurrence of consciousness, on the impact of that consciousness in the stretch already in existence, and on the feeling that is opened through activity out of impact. To arrive at our own necessity, we must witness how aversion to pain, attraction to pleasure, or ignorance of the sensation which is neither can condition the occurrence of consciousness.

I am not saying to do anything.