©2005-2025 Mark A. Foote
The trick is never to mount the ox in the first place, per the Ch’an master Foyan; he said there were only two diseases at his monastery, searching for an ox while riding an ox and being mounted on an ox unable to dismount. He asked, isn’t it better never to mount in the first place?
I would say the meaning is that where we are is sufficient ...
Houdini knew something about being a coffin-case; could be useful, but not at Harvard, I think.
So how’s this for an instruction of zazen: let the length of the inhalation or exhalation engender the activity in the sartorious and gluteous muscles that rotates the pelvis and extends the hips, and through the extension of the hips let the inhalation ...
The energy from the ground up, I look for that sometimes when I’m dancing. When I’m sitting, I sometimes look to feel like my whole body might clear (the ground) on inhalation, and like my body as a whole might cleave (at a point) on exhalation. I came up with this as a feeling-explanation of these two sayings:
“Miraculous ...