Month: November 2018

If we are to find action on a basis other than judgement and the exercise of volition, we have to find a way to extend the mind of compassion beyond the limits of the senses, to think good thoughts toward people on the other side of the wall–then what is beyond the limits of the senses comes into play in the balance of force and counterforce at the location of awareness.

Just as with the fingers on a ouija board planchette, it’s important that the touch of force and counterforce at the location of awareness be light, that movement be invited, and that goodwill be extended. Then it’s possible for action to take place without the exercise of volition.

There is another aspect of the action that takes place in such a manner–as I wrote to a friend last night:

I know for a fact that what lies beyond the boundaries of the senses can generate action in my breath and in my body, and maybe I don’t know why I act but somehow the action generally turns out to be in accord with events as they unfold.

I respect that there is an ability to act blind (as it were), in accordance with what is best for all and for the future, and that compassion must be exercised in order for that ability to truly manifest.

Miraculous power and marvelous activity:
Drawing water and chopping wood.

(Pangyun, a lay Zen practitioner, eight century C.E.)

Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there;
lift up the stone and you will find Me there.

(The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, pg 43 log. 77, copyright 1959 E. J. Brill)

My take on the above passages from a few years back, amended:

The breath in emphasizes flexion in the body, as does the action of lifting an object; the breath out emphasizes extension in the body, as does the action of wielding an axe to split a piece of wood.

The weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of inhalation, as though lifting an object; the weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of exhalation, as though cleaving a block of wood.

Much of my writing has been about laying hold of one-pointedness of mind, as a consequence of “making self-surrender the object of thought” (as Gautama phrased it). The kind of one-pointedness of mind I’m describing is the kind that koun Franz wrote about recently:

I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head.

(No Struggle (Zazen Yojinki, Part 6), by Koun Franz, from Koun’s “Nyoho Zen” site)

How that becomes the weight of the whole body bearing at a point, I hope I have described in my “Four Points of Aikido”:

… I realize that for me the exercise becomes in part the distinction of the direction of turn that I’m feeling at the location of awareness, and that distinction allows the appropriate counter from everything that surrounds the place of awareness.

(Zazen Notes, Four Points of Aikido, Aug. 7, 2018)

If the weight of the entire body bears at a single point in the movement of a whole inhalation, that’s a miraculous power of the entire universe, as far as I’m concerned; if the weight of the entire body can bear at a single point in the movement of a whole exhalation, that’s a marvelous activity.