The forms we use to train the body in Zen – how to sit, stand, and so on – can be described in general like this: the energetic currents of the body are gathered with the breath at the tanden and in the lower portion of the body, the sacrum drops, the spine extends upward, and the eyes are used broadly and with sharpness. There are ...
Action That Arises in the Breath
In my last post, I wrote about action that arises in the breath and in the body, rather than through judgment and the exercise of will. I mentioned that such action can be peculiarly timely, although the timeliness may only emerge after the fact.
Such action happens when the foreground of bodily activity and the background of autonomic respiration ...
From Letters to Friends
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 ...