Month: April 2017

My only success in these matters has come as a result of the study of Western science, yet I will be the first to confess that what matters most to me is the relinquishment of habitual activity, conscious or unconscious, in the movement of breath.

With the accent on relaxation, freeing the direction of mind, and the experience of cessation, I do experience what Dogen’s teacher Rujing described as breath entering and reaching the dan-tien, breath exiting the dan-tien. Sometimes. What keeps it alive for me is this notion that Olaf Blanke has put forward, that our sense of self, especially the self that is associated with our sense of location, is a result of the coordnation of the vestibular and proprioceptive senses, along with the senses of vision and of gravity. Distinguishing these senses contributes to their coordination, as far as I can tell, and the lower dan-tien is really an experience of that sense of location in the surrender of activity in the movement of breath, behind (and usually below) the navel.

What’s it about. The three sets of abdominal muscles have ligamentous attachments to the rectus muscle, and these attachments are of equal length at a point a couple of inches below the navel.

Looking to be so relaxed, that the only activity in the body is activity generated by the ligaments themselves in response to stretch, and the movement of breath.

Two means of support for the lower spine, one in the fascia immediately behind the sacrum, where the mass of the extensors (as they contract in alternation) presses rearward against the lumbodorsal facial sheet, and the other from pressure generated by the abdominals in the “fluid ball” of the abdomen, also pressing rearward against the lumbodorsal fascial sheet but now behind the lower spine:

The two means of support are autonomically coordinated in the natural movement of breath.

The sense of self-location can occur at the lower dan-tien, a function of the individual senses Blanke described, as part of the autonomic coordination of displacement of the fascia behind the sacrum and lower spine in support of the movement of breath. The ilio-lumbar, ilio-sacral and abdominal ligaments generate activity in response to the weight of the body, the activity serves to align the spine to provide ease at appropriate nerve exits, the nerve exits allow feeling below the skin and throughout the body to guide support in the movement of breath.

I have details in a PDF, here (and a subsequent response more particular to reverse breathing, here).

This morning it occurs to me that I wasn’t very clear, about reverse breathing.

I believe it’s based on this:

 

In a bent-knee posture, the spine is supported by the horizontal ilio-lumbar ligaments in exhalation, and by the vertical ilio-lumbar ligaments in inhalation. When support is realized relative to the direction of breath, the abdomen moves slightly outward on exhalation, and slightly inward on inhalation, yet only relaxation of activity and feeling of the whole body with no part left out is involved.

Lately I focus a lot on turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind–stretch in the ilio-tibial bands and action in the sartorius, gluteous, and tensor muscles carries into the abdominals to sustain pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen, and stretch in the lumbodorsal fascia behind the sacrum. Here’s a practice Gautama the Shakyan described for the cultivation of psychic powers:

So (one) abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (one 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, (one) cultivates (one’s) mind to brilliancy.

(Samyutta-Nikaya, Volume V, 263; Pali Text Society translation volume V, pg 235)

No further explanation was offered for “before as behind, behind as before”, yet I would say it’s exactly “turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind” (which is Yuanwu’s description, from “The Blue Cliff Record” case 17). With regard to “above as below, below as above”, Gautama described mindfulness of each part of the body and of the internal organs, from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head and from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, just as is (I tend toward “soles to crown” on inhalation, and “crown to soles” on exhalation–in the dentist’s chair, I found myself holding my teeth with my feet, and my feet with my teeth, not exactly “as is”). “As by day, so by night: as by night, so by day” referred to observing the sign of the concentration.

There’s a happiness in the relinquishment of volition in inhalation and exhalation.