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Month: November 2019

Posted on November 30, 2019March 1, 2021

“Does anyone else out there struggle with a good seated position?” (“American Zen” Facebook group)

Clear Lake reeds, KonoctiDoes anyone else out there struggle with a good seated position? The position that I end up in is basically one leg on top of the other. I’ve seen this called quarter lotus, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m worried this will put a lot of pressure on my knees and mess everything up. Any thoughts?

If you focus on the stretch and ...  read more


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  • Transition

  • Like an Eagle Sleeping in its Nest

  • Dual, Non-Dual–Comments on “The Dao Bums”

  • Action in the Absence of Choice

  • About Enlightenment

  • On the Meditative States

  • From the Great Book of the Decease

  • One Thing and Another

  • Meditation Manuals

  • I’m Ok with Bowing

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  • Letter to the Author of “The Dark Side of Dharma” (Anna Lutkajtis)

  • For a Friend

  • Shunryu Suzuki’s “Whole-Body Zazen”

  • At the Berkeley Zendo

  • The Early Record

  • “About”, “Disclaimer”

  • What Remains

  • Moving from the Source

  • Nothing but Happiness

  • “Does anyone else out there struggle with a good seated position?” (“American Zen” Facebook group)

  • Free and Clear Function

  • The Interval of Practice

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  • Letting the Mind Move

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  • Response to Comment on “What is So Special About the Lotus?” (The Dao Bums)

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  • Zen (and Mindfulness), Part Two–from “Dao Bums” (edited)

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  • Hearing the Sutra: the Lankavatara

  • Belief is a Part of Practice

  • Shikantaza

  • No Latent Conceits

  • Mind Like a Wall

  • What I’m Saying

  • Discrete as Opposed to Infinite Reality

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  • Self as a Function of the Senses

  • “Non-Thinking” (comment on Nyoho Zen)

  • The State of Mind Where Here is Moving (Reply on Brad’s Blog)

  • “Why Can’t the Tail Pass Too?”

  • Letting Go in Action: the Practice of Zazen

  • Skill and the Taking of Vows

  • The Measure of the Hall

  • “Good morning- where am I?”

  • “Something Other Than”

  • From the Temples in Egypt

  • Walking on the Ground of Reality

  • The Link Between the Waking and the Sleeping States

  • Crossing the Line

  • Does Practice Deepen In Retreat? (Comment on Brad Warner’s Blog)

  • The Necessity Is There

  • Proprioception, From Latin Proprius, Meaning “One’s Own”, “Individual”

  • Stretch at the Sacrum

  • The Heart of the Practice

  • The Real Zen (Comment on Brad Warner’s “Hardcore Zen” blog)

  • From My Own Experience

  • Mind and Bones and Breath

  • The Place the Zen Teacher’s Action Comes From

  • Shift or Flow?

  • “Written on a Match Box, It Would Be?”

  • The Focus of Attention on Where I Am, Excluding Nothing

  • Exhalation to Inhalation

  • How Seeing Things as They Really Are is Zazen Sitting Zazen

  • Suffering and the Five Groups

  • Being Absorbed in Cleaning the Desk

  • Feeling to the Surface of the Skin

  • Buddha Nature and Weird Conversations (comment on hardcore zen)

  • Consciousness Taking Place Without Motor Ability

  • Coming Back to Location

  • A Turning Point For Me

  • The Practice of Zazen in Words

  • The Working Ingredient of the Precepts

  • The Basis of All Actions

  • Riding the Ox Home

  • Houdini Developed an Ability to Feel

  • The Cranial-Sacral Rhythm and the Location of Consciousness (comment on Tao Bums)

  • What We Truly Believe (comment on “Hardcore Zen”)

  • Necessity that Places the Mind Just So

  • “A Lamp Onto Oneself”

  • Why the Lotus

  • How psychics receive their visions

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  • “Could you explain a bit more”, from Tao Bums

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  • “If You Can, Please Give an Example”- from Tao Bums

  • Referred Sensation (comment on Hardcore Zen)

  • A Morning Reflection

  • The Left Knee

  • Comment on Gudo Nishijima Video (Carapeto)

  • Visual Thinking

  • Sitting the lotus- from the full lotus thread on Tao Bums

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  • A bowl with a dusting of soap powder- comment on Brad Warner’s “Hardcore Zen”

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  • Storing Ch’i in the Tan-T’ien (Response to Drew Hempel, from The Tao Bums)

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  • response to “The Full Lotus”, “sex energy”, on Tao Bums

  • How I sit the lotus (from “Tao Bums”)

  • On the full lotus, from “Tao Bums”

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  • How continuity enters practice- (a letter to a friend, rethought)

  • Why the cross-legged posture?

  • Comment on Brad Warner’s blog entry, “Sitting In Chairs Is Not Zazen”

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  • from a letter to a friend

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  • email to Adam Tebbe, editor of Sweeping Zen

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  • On the effectiveness of mudras (response on Tao Bums)

  • what we’re debating here

  • Waking Up and Falling Asleep

  • On the Egyptian ‘akh’

  • from a letter to a friend

  • 2nd Life, The Online Sangha, and zazen

  • the cessation that the Gautamid described

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  • consciousness conditioned by ignorance, attachment, or aversion

  • hypnosis + ‘the most important thing’

  • from Hardcore Zen comments

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  • comment, Warner’s “Hardcore Zen”

  • The End of Suffering, from Brad Warner’s site

  • “attunement”- comment on double-binds, from Tao Bums

  • zazen (animation)

  • Have you ever really practiced non-thinking?

  • The Lancet of Seated Meditation (Zazenshin)

  • in Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “make the inner like the outer” (Tao Bums)

  • from a Tao Bums discussion of moving objects with the mind

  • words from Shunryu Suzuki

  • the long and the short of inhalation and exhalation (from Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen blog)

  • Has anyone come anywhere close to ‘the end of all suffering’ even after decades of practice?

  • THE END OF SUFFERING IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU (from Brad Warner s Hardcore Zen blog)

  • Connecting the upper thighs and the perineum (from Tao Bums)

  • what I needed to learn myself was how to let it all fall together (from Tao Bums)

  • is enlightenment obtained with the body, or the mind (from Tao Bums)

  • How important is it to have one’s back completely (as much as possible) straight during meditation? How important are these postures anyway? (from Tao Bums)

  • can someone recommend some stretching program to get closer to full lotus? (from Tao Bums)

  • straighten the clothes and sit precariously

  • …about full lotus (part 2)

  • …about full lotus

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