Month: March 2012

I have a friend who passes along information on how psychics receive their visions (as it were). They teach being open to seeing before words, before making sense.

Dualism just means the mind is here, and the object of mind there. What if the mind moves, and the object of mind has a part in the placement? And the things that enter the mind before words, before sense, have a part in the placement?

If I close my eyes, my mind doesn’t seem to be in quite the same place as when my eyes are open. If I look to follow that sense of place from one instant to the next, I fall asleep or wake up as appropriate. This is also the practice of zazen, to me. Can it be taught this way?

Andy said…

Hey guys,

I stumbled over this blog and have one simple question.

What is this Zen-Stuff for?

Mark said…

@Andy- “what is this Zen-stuff for?”, it’s for those moments when you have nothing to do.

How are you at doing nothing?

If you find yourself doing nothing, then you know what Zen is about.

My opinion.

Andy said…

@Mark Foote: Well actually I spend quite a lot of time hanging around doing nothin. So if that’s Zen I know it quite well!

Mark said…

Yes, you already have practiced zazen, doing nothing.

When you sit, the thing that corrects your posture is your ability to feel referred sensation throughout your body, and the sense of place you have connected with that. That’s why it’s doing nothing; you don’t get to correct your posture either.

And you’ve already done it, even to the point of absorption, when you’re not doing nothing anymore. Am I right? Where is that, right before absorption?- nowhere doing nothing, and somehow everyone else is there.

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.

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

(from Waking Up and Falling Asleep)

-humbleone

I think I mentioned that I sit in the mornings, and I practice along the lines of “Waking Up and Falling Asleep” when I can. This morning when I really came into my body, so that I felt like I was able to totally relax in my posture like falling asleep, then it occurred to me that everything was there with me. There is a sense of the surface of the body supporting weight; at least, that’s what it feels like to me.

I’d like to take credit for finding the feeling that seemed to complete my ability to fall asleep in my posture, but I have to say that I think the inspiration came out of the location I found myself in at that moment. There’s some kind of reciprocity between waking up and falling asleep that takes everything into account, to occur; I am sure you will find this is so, at the appropriate moment.