
{"id":2672,"date":"2026-06-28T10:34:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T17:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=2672"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:19:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T19:19:38","slug":"something-perfect-in-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=2672","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSomething Perfect in Itself\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260618-680x-Lucerne-Harbor-Park-late-sunset-1_DSC03306.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2473 alignright\" style=\"padding: 0px 0px 40px 30px;\" src=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260618-180x-Lucerne-Harbor-Park-late-sunset-1_DSC03306.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"136\" \/><\/a>On a website devoted to discussions of the early Buddhist texts, I found a passage and a comment:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">B\u0101huna, the Realized One has escaped from ten things, so that he lives unattached, liberated, his mind free of limits. What ten? Form \u2026 feeling \u2026 perception \u2026 choices \u2026 <strong>consciousness<\/strong>\u00a0\u2026 rebirth \u2026 old age \u2026 death \u2026 suffering \u2026 defilements \u2026 Suppose there was a blue water lily, or a pink or white lotus. Though it sprouted and grew in the water, it would rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to it. In the same way, the Realized One has escaped from ten things, so that he lives unattached, liberated,\u00a0<strong>his mind free of limits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">(AN 10.81, tr. Bhikkyu Sujato; emphasis added by \u201ctravlingwonderer\u201d)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">For me, a mind free of limits yet without consciousness makes no sense.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(\u201ctravlingwonderer\u201d, discourse.suttacentral.net)<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s an earlier translation of the same passage:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The Wayfarer dwells free, detached, and released from physical body, feeling, perception, mental factors and <u>(persisting) consciousness<\/u>\u2026 from rebirth, decay and death\u2026 from the passions, Bahuna, the Wayfarer is free, detached and released, and dwells with a mind whose barriers are broken down.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(AN 10.81, tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol V p 103; emphasis added)<\/p>\n<p>The nature of \u201c(persisting) consciousness\u201d is described in another of Gautama\u2019s lectures:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">That which we will\u2026, and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied:\u2013this becomes an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness. Consciousness being stationed and growing, rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the future, and here from birth, decay-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair come to pass. Such is the uprising of this mass of ill.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 12.38; tr. PTS vol II p 45)<\/p>\n<p>Gautama frequently abbreviated \u201cthis mass of ill\u201d as \u201cthe five aggregates subject to clinging\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death\u00a0is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish are suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; <u>in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.<\/u><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(AN 3.61; tr. Bhikkyu Bodhi; PTS vol I p 160; emphasis added; see also SN 56.13)<\/p>\n<p>In the first translation of the opening passage, the five aggregates were given as \u201cform, feeling, perception, choices, consciousness\u2026&#8221;. The Pali word \u201cr\u016bpa\u201d was rendered as \u201cform\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In the second translation, \u201cr\u016bpa\u201d was rendered as \u201cphysical body\u201d. Gautama defined the word as follows:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">It\u2019s deformed; that\u2019s why it\u2019s called \u2018form\u2019. Deformed by what? Deformed by cold, heat, hunger, and thirst, and deformed by the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and reptiles. It\u2019s deformed; that\u2019s why it\u2019s called \u2018form\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.79, tr. Bhikkyu Sujato; PTS vol III pp 72-73)<\/p>\n<p>In the first translation\u00a0of the opening passage, the Pali word for the fourth aggregate, \u201csa\u1e45kh\u0101ra\u201d, was rendered as \u201cchoices\u201d (Bhikkyu Sujato, 2018). In the second translation, the word was rendered as \u201cmental factors\u201d (Woodward, 1930).<\/p>\n<p>The Pali Text Society\u2019s Pali-English dictionary describes \u201csa\u1e45kh\u0101ra\u201d as \u201cone of the most difficult terms in Buddhist metaphysics\u201d. Additional translations of the word include \u201cthe activities\u201d (Woodward, 1925), \u201cthe habitual tendencies\u201d (I. B. Horner, 1957), and \u201cvolitional formations\u201d (Bhikkyu Bodhi, 2012).<\/p>\n<p>The five aggregates were the subject of the second sermon of Gautama\u2019s ministry:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Body (\u201cr\u016bpa\u201d)\u2026 is not the Self. If body\u2026 were the Self, then body would not be involved in sickness, and one could say of body: &#8216;Thus let my body be. Thus let my body not be.&#8217; But\u2026 inasmuch as body is not the Self, that is why body is involved in sickness, and one cannot say of body: &#8216;Thus let my body be. Thus let my body not be.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(repeated for feeling, perception, the activities, and consciousness.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 Therefore\u2026 every body whatever, be it past, future or present, be it inward or outward, gross or subtle, low or high, far or near,&#8211;every body should be thus regarded, as it really is, by right insight: &#8216;This is not mine. This I am not. This is not the Self of me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(repeated for feeling, perception, the activities, and consciousness.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.59; tr. PTS vol III pp 59-60; second sermon, Vinaya Kd 1.6, Mv.I.6.38; parenthetical added)<\/p>\n<p>The aggregates of the past and future were frequently considered alongside the aggregates of the present:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Body\u2026 is an ill, both in the past and in the future, not to speak of the present. So seeing\u2026 the well-taught (noble) disciple cares not for a body that is past, is not in love with a body to be, and for the present body seeks to be repelled by it, seeks dispassion for it, seeks the ceasing of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(repeated for feeling\u2026 perception\u2026 activities\u2026 consciousness)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.10, tr. PTS vol III p 19; \u201cnoble\u201d substituted for \u201cAriyan\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Gautama continued his second sermon:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Seeing thus\u2026 the instructed noble disciple experiences revulsion towards form, revulsion towards feeling, revulsion towards perception, revulsion towards volitional formations, revulsion towards consciousness. Experiencing revulsion, (the disciple) becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion\u00a0his mind\u00a0is liberated. When it is liberated there comes the knowledge: \u201cIt\u2019s liberated.\u201d (The disciple) understands: \u201cDestroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more for this state of being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.59 tr. Bhikkyu Sujato, PTS vol III pp 59-60)<\/p>\n<p>Gautama delivered his second sermon to the five ascetics who had once been his companions. Having spent years dedicated to self-mortification, the five ascetics were perhaps particularly suited to an experience of revulsion with regard to each of the aggregates.<\/p>\n<p>All five of the ascetics were reported to have attained liberation upon hearing Gautama\u2019s second sermon (ibid, Vinaya Kd 1.6).<\/p>\n<p>Many years after that sermon, when the order of monks was well established, there was an occasion where Gautama praised \u201cthe meditation on the unlovely (aspects of the body)\u201d to a group of monks. The \u201cmeditation on the unlovely\u201d can be expected to generate revulsion toward the body, much like that which led Gautama to dispassion and to liberation.<\/p>\n<p>After he praised \u201cthe meditation on the unlovely\u201d, Gautama went on a half-month solitary retreat. When he returned, he discovered that scores of monks a day had committed suicide, as a result of having meditated on \u201cthe unlovely\u201d (SN 54.9, Vin. III.68\u201371).<\/p>\n<p>Gautama\u2019s attendant recommended to him that he provide his monks with \u201canother means of gnosis\u201d, some means other than \u201cthe meditation on the unlovely\u201d to arrive at what Gautama described as \u201cperfect wisdom\u201d (SN 54.9, \u201cgnosis\u201d tr. PTS).<\/p>\n<p>Gautama gathered the monks together, and taught them \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d. About that mindfulness, he said:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 if cultivated and made much of, (the mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing) is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 54.9, tr. Pali Text Society SN V p 285; parenthetical paraphrases original)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d consisted of sixteen thoughts directed and sustained, each thought accompanied by an awareness of inhalation or exhalation (see <a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/appendix-from-the-early-record-anm\/\">Appendix\u2014From the Early Record<\/a>). Gautama described the last four of the sixteen thoughts as a particular mindfulness of the state of mind:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in.\u00a0Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in.\u00a0Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in.\u00a0Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 54.1, tr. PTS vol V p 275-276)<\/p>\n<p>The mindfulness of state of mind in \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d was likely a mindfulness of mental states related to the aggregates.\u00a0Gautama declared that each of the five aggregates is impermanent, and that each of them ceases:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Body\u2026 is impermanent, conditioned, arisen\u00a0because of (something). It is a vanishing thing, a decaying thing, a fading-out thing, a ceasing thing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Feeling\u2026 perception\u2026 the activities\u2026 consciousness is impermanent, conditioned, arisen\u00a0because of (something). It is a vanishing thing, a decaying thing, a fading-out thing, a ceasing thing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">By such ceasing is there said to be &#8216;ceasing.&#8217; By the ceasing of these there is said to be &#8216;ceasing.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.21, tr. PTS vol III pp 23-24)<\/p>\n<p>Gautama also advised \u201cbeing detached from\u201d and \u201crenouncing\u201d each of the aggregates:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 by thoroughly knowing, by understanding, by being detached from, by renouncing body, one is fit for the destruction of suffering.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">By thoroughly knowing, by understanding, by being detached from, by renouncing feeling \u2026 perception \u2026 the activities \u2026 consciousness, one is fit for the destruction of suffering.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 22.24, tr. PTS vol III p 26)<\/p>\n<p>However, for Gautama, seeing each of the aggregates \u201cas it really is\u201d had a particular consequence:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Whatever\u2026 is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as \u2018This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self\u2019, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling\u2026 perception\u2026 the habitual tendencies\u2026 whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present\u2026 (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as \u2018This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self\u2019, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that \u201cI am the doer, mine is the doer\u201d in regard to this consciousness-informed body.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(MN 109; tr. PTS vol III p 68; reprint 1977; parentheticals paraphrase original)<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, the loss of \u201clatent conceits that \u2018I am the doer, mine is the doer\u2019\u201d results from the witness of action in the \u201cconsciousness-informed body\u201d that takes place without any intention to act, without the exercise of will or deliberation.<\/p>\n<p>Gautama\u2019s \u201cfourth concentration\u201d is a moment-to-moment conscious experience of reflex movement of the body in inhalation and exhalation, movement that results from the place of occurrence of consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>The consciousness associated with the self is generally experienced as fixed at a location somewhere near the eyes. Modern neuroscience has found a way to artificially cause that consciousness to come unstationed:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Self-location\u2014the sense of where I am in space\u2014provides an experiential anchor for one&#8217;s interaction with the environment. \u2026 many researchers have defined self-location solely in terms of\u00a0body-location\u2014the subjective feeling of where my body is. Although this view is useful, there is an issue regarding whether it can fully accommodate the role of\u00a0\u201cfirst-person perspective\u201d-location\u2014the sense of where my first-person perspective is located in space.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 under experimental manipulations, one&#8217;s sense of \u201cfirst person perspective\u201d-location could be separated from where one&#8217;s eyes are physically located in space.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 Based on our findings, we suggest that, instead of defining self-location only in terms of body-location, <u>the sense of self-location can be better characterized as the subjective experience of\u00a0<em>where I am<\/em>\u00a0in space<\/u> that results from the interaction between body-location and \u201cfirst person perspective\u201d-location.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC5348511\/\">https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC5348511\/<\/a>, emphasis added)<\/p>\n<p>The neuroscientists used head-mounted displays, live video feed, and tactile stimulation to cause \u201c\u2018first person perspective\u2019-location\u201d to separate from where the eyes are \u201cphysically located in space\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>My experience has been that such a separation occurs naturally before sleep:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Just before I fall asleep, my awareness can move very readily, and my sense of where I am tends to move with it. This is also true when I am waking up, although it can be harder to recognize (I tend to live through my eyes in the daytime, and associate my sense of place with them).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(<a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/waking-up-and-falling-asleep-anm\/\">Waking Up and Falling Asleep<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Zen teacher Koun Franz spoke about \u201cletting go\u201d to allow \u201cthe base of consciousness\u201d to move away from the head:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Okay\u2026 So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there\u2019s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It\u2019s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you\u2019re not looking out here and out here and out here. It\u2019s the positive version, perhaps, of \u2018navel gazing\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are\u2013to relocate mind (let\u2019s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn\u2019t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it\u2019s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you\u2019ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can\u2019t will it to happen, because you\u2019re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it\u2019s an act of letting go\u2013and a fascinating one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(\u201cNo Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]\u201d, by Koun Franz, from the \u201cNyoho Zen\u201d site)<\/p>\n<p>Franz described \u201can act of letting go\u201d to allow the \u201cbase of consciousness\u201d to move away from the head. Gautama described \u201cmaking self-surrender the object of thought\u201d, in order to lay hold of concentration and \u201cone-pointedness\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Herein\u2026 the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.\u00a0 (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 48.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 174)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaking self-surrender the object of thought\u201d is making a surrender of \u201cthat which we will, that which we intend to do, and that wherewithal we are occupied\u201d the object of thought, such that a station of consciousness no longer \u201ccomes to be\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">But if we neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness\u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 12.38; tr. PTS vol II p 45)<\/p>\n<p>A person \u201clays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness\u201d when they continue a presence of mind with \u201cthe subjective experience of\u00a0<em>where I am<\/em>\u00a0in space\u201d, even as \u201c<em>where I am\u201d<\/em>\u00a0shifts and moves in the body.<\/p>\n<p>The successive places &#8220;<em>where I am<\/em>&#8221; in the body can be made contiguous, provided that a feeling is extended such that \u201cnot one particle of the body\u2026 is not pervaded\u201d by that feeling. As I wrote previously:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Gautama described the \u201cfirst trance\u201d as having feelings of zest and ease, and he prescribed the extension of those feelings:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">\u2026 (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">(AN 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Words like \u201csteeps\u201d and \u201cdrenches\u201d convey that the weight of the body accompanies the feelings of zest and ease.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The weight of the body sensed at a particular point in the body can shift the body\u2019s center of gravity, and a shift in the body\u2019s center of gravity can result in what Moshe Feldenkrais termed \u201creflex movement\u201d. Feldenkrais described how \u201creflex movement\u201d can be engaged in standing up from a chair:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">\u2026When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">(\u201cAwareness Through Movement\u201d, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 78)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u201cDrenching\u201d the body \u201cso that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded\u201d with zest and ease allows the weight of the body to effect \u201creflex movement\u201d in the activity of the body, wherever \u201cone-pointedness\u201d takes place.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a \u201chypnic jerk\u201d. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of \u201creflex movement\u201d in inhalation and exhalation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(<a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/just-to-sit-anm\/\">Just to Sit<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Gautama described the extension of feelings of zest and ease in the first and second concentrations. He said that zest ceases in the third concentration, yet the feeling of ease is still present (see <a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/applying-the-pali-instructions-anm\/\">Applying the Pali Instructions<\/a>). In the fourth concentration, a \u201cpurity by the pureness of mind\u201d is to be extended:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 seated, (one) suffuses (one\u2019s) body with purity by the pureness of (one\u2019s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one\u2019s) mind.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(AN 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19, parentheticals paraphrase original)<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cpurity by the pureness of mind\u201d that suffuses the body is the purity of the mind without any intention to act.<\/p>\n<p>Gautama declared that \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d was \u201csomething perfect in itself\u201d. For a mindfulness to be a thing \u201cperfect in itself\u201d, that mindfulness must renew itself, must be self-sustaining. In my limited experience, \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d is only self-sustaining so long as a return to the conscious experience of \u201creflex movement\u201d in inhalation and exhalation is possible.<\/p>\n<p>My summary of the actionable elements of \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d did not include any mention of the aggregates:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">1) Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation.<\/p>\n<p>I find now that a mindfulness of mental states related to the aggregates can serve to unstation consciousness, provided that I have \u201cno latent conceits that \u2018I am the doer, mine is the doer\u2019 in regard to this consciousness-informed body\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Gautama sometimes referred to \u201cthe mindfulness of inbreathing and outbreathing\u201d as \u201cthe intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing\u201d. About the \u201cintent concentration\u201d, he said:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Formerly, monks, <u>before I myself was enlightened with the perfect wisdom<\/u>, \u2026 I used generally to spend my time in this way of living (the intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing). As I generally lived\u00a0in this way, neither my body nor my eyes were fatigued, and my mind was freed from the \u0101savas (the defilements).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 54.8, tr. PTS vol V p 281; parentheticals and emphasis added)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 if the wanderers who hold other views should thus question you:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">&#8216;Friends, in what way of life does Gotama the recluse generally spend the rainy season?&#8217; thus questioned, thus should ye make reply to those wanderers holding other views:\u00a0 &#8216;Friends, the Exalted One generally spends his time during the rainy season in the intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2026 (One) who would rightly use the words &#8216;noble way, best of ways,<br \/>\nthe Realized One\u2019s way of life&#8217; would rightly do so in calling by this name<br \/>\nthe intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(SN 54.11; tr. PTS vol V p 289; \u201cnoble\u201d for \u201cAriyan\u201d, \u201cRealized One\u201d for \u201cTath\u0101gata\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a website devoted to discussions of the early Buddhist texts, I found a passage and a comment: B\u0101huna, the Realized One has escaped from ten things, so that he lives unattached, liberated, his mind free of limits. What ten? Form \u2026 feeling \u2026 perception \u2026 choices \u2026 consciousness\u00a0\u2026 rebirth \u2026 old age \u2026 death &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=2672\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;\u201cSomething Perfect in Itself\u201d&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2672"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2700,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions\/2700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}