Month: January 2012

There are parallels to “visual thinking”, attending to information coming to awareness before any discrimination of intent, in disciplines other than psychic healing. Dogen the Japanese Soto teacher emphasized “non-thinking” as the pivot of zazen, for instance (in Fukanzazengi).

I myself am coming to the conclusion that the ability to sit zazen depends on the hypnogogic state (between waking and sleeping, as it were). My effort in “waking up and falling asleep”, as I’m referring to the induction of the hypnogogic state, is simply to be where I am as I am where I am. In effect, there may be a reciprocity between the state of mind and the ability to feel, that opens the necessary ability to feel and the necessary state of mind to channel the future into a sense of location in three dimensions in the present, a sense of location from which action appropriate to the future can take place. Might be a sense of location in mind, or in the head anyway, some of the time.

On sitting the lotus, here are some instructions I find very useful, every day almost:

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.

(“Zen’s Chinese Heritage”, Andy Ferguson, pg 2, copyright 2002 Andrew Ferguson)

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.

(Sanyutta-Nikaya, text V 263, Pali Text Society volume 5 pg 235, copyright Pali Text Society)

In my understanding the hoe handle is the sacrum. The empty hand works as Gautama described it, “as in front, so behind: as behind, so in front”; if I am conscious of activity in the lower abdominals, I look for consciousness of activity at the sacrum. The Gautamid described the feeling of the first meditative state as like gathering soap powder that been sprinkled around the inside of a cauldron into a ball, until the ball doesn’t ooze; if I look to the state of mind I have waking up or falling asleep, and I am conscious in front as behind, behind as in front, then I can allow consciousness to fall where it may and observe activity initiated by the stretch of ligaments. I have to be waking up or falling asleep to observe activity initiated by the stretch of ligaments without startling myself and interrupting the reciprocity and balance of the action, and I have to accept what I feel into my sense of location, but this is no big deal; the effort is being where I am as I am where I am, to wake up or fall asleep.

I usually stretch my legs, first one and then the other, before I sit. I grab my toes or as close as I can get, and wait until I have the feeling to touch my head to my knee or whatever feels satisfactory. This usually requires specifically waiting for feeling for motion at the sacrum; the sacrum in my experience is constantly rotating forward and backward, and on other pivots as well. Yet, as behind, so before.

I remember Blanche Hartman from S.F. Zen Center talking about one day when she was on her way to a day of mindfulness and she buttoned her shirt backwards or something. I do revere some of the teachers I met from Japan, whom I thought had a certain grace and poise, and sometimes I think I should be concerned to practice hard and be more like them; in the end, though, I think Blanche has the right approach, to laugh at herself and be what she is.

I would say that I have a compass, and that compass comes out when I feel like I’m starting to walk in circles, and I use that compass to sight the next landmark in the direction I want to go before I put it away. The compass is the cessation of volition, in speech, in inhalation and exhalation, and in perception and sensation, and the landmark is the combination of disparate elements at the instant of cessation. The landmark is always right where I am, every contact of sense including the sixth sense enters into where I am even before I know it, and the ability to feel that arises with each contact informs where I am. When I am waking up and falling asleep, I can witness the action that arises out of where I am as I am where I am. That action is wu wei.

The practice I have is really so many disparate elements, and it comes to me out of necessity, although sometimes I’m the very one that is driving me to that experience of necessity. My conclusion is that I can’t help being attracted to the feeling that belongs to my own well-being, and likewise I can’t help being averse to the feeling that belongs to my own illness. Some would say they have a choice, but my conclusion is that I do not.