Zhaozhou said, teaching the assembly, the ultimate path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing. This is clarity. This old monk doesn't abide within clarity. Do you still preserve anything or not? At that time, a certain monk asked, since you do not abide in clarity, What do you preserve?

[01:05]

Jiaojiao replied, I don't know either. The monk said, since you don't know, teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you don't abide in clarity? Jiaojiao said, it's enough to ask about the matter. Bow and withdraw. The ultimate path is without difficulty, just avoid picking and choosing. Just don't love or hate and you'll be lucid and clear. I think I might have said that nobody understands what an unsupported thought is. So how can I say that?

[02:12]

I'm just a stool pigeon. If I keep talking like this, some one, some nobody may understand what an unsupported thought is. And that person might say, why didn't you say so before? Although nobody understands what an unsupported thought is, according to certain people, still there's quite a bit of chatter going on about it. Even I said that thanking people after you're dead is an unsupported thought.

[03:21]

Later a monk said to me, did you say that thanking people after you're dead is an unsupported thought? And I said, I don't remember what I said. Yeah, I guess so. Well, isn't everything an unsupported thought, the monk said? And I said, Yeah. Why did you pick that one? And I said, because I think it makes a way for people to connect through feeling, It's hard to connect maybe at first to an unsupported thought through thought. It may be easier to make your first friend there through feeling. It isn't really the thanking of people after you're dead that's an unsupported thought.

[04:27]

And yet, somehow, in thanking people after you're dead, there is an unsupported thought. I think you all understand that. Although nobody understands what a thought of no-abode is, still there are utterances of unsupported thought. There are utterances like, Mu. Like yes and no. Like not killing life. There are these utterances.

[05:34]

this leaky, tumble-down grass hut, left opening for the moon. Now I gaze at it. All the while, it is reflected in the teardrops on my sleeve. So I spoke yesterday about the precept of not killing and also the three pure precepts.

[07:29]

I didn't finish that precept on not killing, but maybe now that you're fresh, I could finish it. So again, reviewing the context of this precept, there are three pure precepts. First one is the precepts of restraint or discipline, the samvara-shila. And bodhisattvas have these precepts of restraint or discipline. just like practitioners of the individual path have such precepts of restraint.

[08:36]

This precept of not killing life is the first of the Bodhisattva's Sambharashila. The next section of Bodhisattva precepts is to gather together all wholesomeness. And this is the six perfections of giving ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. And the last precept is the precept of serving others, of devoting one's life to the welfare of all living beings. These precepts are in order, one, two, three. Usually you start with the precepts of restraint, then go on to the precepts of the six paramitas, and then serve beings.

[09:46]

All these precepts are, in order to serve beings, the first two precepts of avoiding evil and practicing all good are to prepare us for effective enlightenment worker activity. Of course, we have to start serving others before we finish that course, but still they're put in this order. to make clear that we will not be fully effective in our service of all beings until we have completely gone beyond the practice of the six paramitas. So again, Dogen's grandson Kyogo said, in each instance, in all versions of Mahayana precepts concerning the precept

[11:26]

Not to kill, there is no reference to beginning or end, but is just not to kill. Not to kill means the whole universe is mind only. Not to kill is the three worlds. Not to kill is sentient beings. Not to kill is not to kill. Not to kill is one precept. Not to kill is ten precepts. This is the meaning of maintaining the Buddha's precepts. Besides this, do not expect any other result. The precept light of the Buddha issues from the mouth according to conditions and is not without causes.

[12:59]

This light is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. It is not form. It is not mind. It is neither existing nor not existing. It is not of the things of cause and effect. So it is explained. How do we understand these words? As the light of the precepts is already the true mark, all things are not to be denied. Yet it's said that the light is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black, not form, not mind. However, among things that belong to the three worlds now, not one thing is without being blue, yellow, red, white, or black.

[14:09]

So where can we see the precept light? From this we see that the not of not form, not mind, no blue, yellow, red, and white, and so on, is not the not of yes and no. We should know that this not is the not-tathagata. This not is the not-thus-come-one. The excellent expression and radiance of the not-tathagata is itself things of blue, yellow, red, white and black. Form, mind, existence and nonexistence, cause and effect.

[15:21]

This being so, when we receive Buddha's precepts, there is no skin, flesh, bones and marrow of transmigration in birth and death. And it is said that we are the same rank as a greatly enlightened one. Of the same rank as a greatly enlightened one means that we are the same rank as sentient beings. When we understand attaining the way with all sentient beings on earth. What is there to be killed? The light of the precepts is not blue, yellow, red, and so on. It's not form. It's not mind. It's not existing, it's not non-existing.

[16:27]

And this not is not the not of yes and no. It is the not of not Buddha. And the not of not Buddha has an utterance like good morning Buddha. Vietnam, good morning Never Never Land, and moo. This is an utterance of no blue, yellow, red, white, or black. no color, no sound, no existing, no non-existing can talk and walk.

[17:29]

And when it talks and walks, it washes our sins away. Oh, happy day. Okay. So did I talk about the precepts enough, Herman? Huh? Speak up, please. Well, what I mean by enough is, will you let me talk about, will you let me stop talking about it for a while? Well, I kind of want to talk about something else, if it's okay with you. Yesterday I talked about patience too, did you notice?

[18:33]

Which is the next paramita after the ethics. And also at the beginning of session I talked about joy and happiness. So I'd like to talk about patience a little bit more and also start talking about the next parameter, which is called sometimes joyous effort and sometimes called enthusiasm and sometimes called heroic effort and sometimes called strength. and so on.

[19:36]

Patience is the primary cause of enlightenment in terms of practice. Of course, the primary cause for enlightenment is suffering beings. But in terms of our practice, patience is primary. Some people are having some problem with being joyful some problems with being joyful, or just aren't joyful. One person felt pretty good about the Sashin for herself so far, but couldn't say that she was joyful.

[20:55]

And there's a point here which I'd like to suggest, and that is that until you really have settled into the practice of patience, you may not be able to be joyful. If you leave that stone of the practice of patience unturned, it may trip you up in the practice of enthusiasm. Patience sort of gets your feet on the ground. If you don't have your feet completely on the ground, it's kind of hard to spring into a dance. Because you feel of uncertain footing, you may be shy to dance for joy or even walk forward

[22:05]

steadfastly with joy. When you really have accepted your position, I propose to you that a lot of energy will come forth. I'll even suggest that it will be joyous energy. But if it isn't joyous energy, then that's okay too, and we need to then take that energy to heart and make it joyous. It is possible to be joyous before you even have accomplished fully accepting your position, that is possible.

[23:10]

But it is much more possible to do so once you have completely settled. A friend of mine who has taught at Zen Center for quite a bit, who taught at Zen Center for a long time, used to give talks here, and some people liked his talks and some people didn't. But sometimes when he was sick, he would talk more slowly and not so intelligently, and most people liked his talks much better then. It's a tricky point. So now I'm going to tell you something which may annoy you.

[24:17]

But anyway, we'll see. During this session, after almost every single meal, This isn't the case after every meal in my life in the Zen Do, but after every single meal during the Sesshin, it's when I get up towards the end of the meal, and particularly just right at the end, and when I get up from my place, a word comes into my head. I wondered if you might guess what that word is. Any guesses? What? What? Thank you, gratitude. Those are good guesses, and I have had those thoughts. What? Bathroom. Bathroom, that's warmer. Sticky feet? No, you're getting colder. Dessert, did you say? Anyway, the word is owie.

[25:21]

Owie. That's the word. I even went up, and when I bowed one time, I said, owie, but they hit the bell right as I said it, so nobody heard. Did you hear it, Jim? Owie. That doesn't bother you, does it, to hear that? Does it bother you to hear that I feel owie at the end of the meals? As in, ouch. As in, ouch. But it's a, what do you call it, a diminutive form of ouch. It's a cute form of ouch. Does that annoy you? Hmm? What? Where's the ouch? Where do I feel the ouch? The owie? The owie is in the butt, in the fanny, and in the kneesies. And in the footsies, the little footsies burn.

[26:29]

The top of the feet burn on the top of the thighs. There's a thigh, top foot burn, and also a butt burn and knee burn, and sometimes lower back burn. Maybe we should. Are we? That's actually the point that I'm afraid will annoy you, is that I say owie instead of ouch, because owie is an unsupported thought. Because I'm very happy, too. Not just that the meal's over, which I am happy about that also. and that I've survived another one. And the serving's been getting faster and faster. The part I'm worried about annoying you is that I am happy in the middle of the ouch.

[27:39]

And when I say owie, I'm celebrating and I'm grateful and thank you and all that too. Thank you that it's over. But thank you that I can be happy in the middle of pain. that I can sit there in that pain. I'm grateful for that. And I celebrate it with a little internal owie. So the part I don't want to annoy you about is to say, well, here I am, so hotsy-totsy, able to smile in the middle of that pain. Because, of course, if the pain got even more, I might not be able to be so cute about it. Might not be, but also might be. It is possible to be successful, I believe, under the worst possible circumstances. As a matter of fact, again, I would suggest that when things really get tough, it's very clear that there's only one thing to do, and that is be happy.

[28:48]

things do not need to be any worse when they're really bad. Now, if things are sort of bad, you might think, well, maybe they should be a little worse before I get happy. Now, some people actually are verging on or actually have dabbled in joy and then back off during this very session because they feel guilty. because they're suffering people all over the world. How dare they be happy and joyful, even though they're in pain, knowing that other people perhaps are in greater pain? I don't know if anybody's... I have no way myself of measuring who's in more or less pain. I do not have a measurement device to tell who's in the most pain. I don't know. We do know that we've heard about people being in hell states and that they are really, really bad and then human states are not so bad.

[29:50]

But who's in hell and who's in human states is not so clear always. I feel that Sashin's generally speaking for people difficult. That's why I say at the beginning, under these circumstances of following this rigorous schedule and sitting there all this time, go ahead and have a ball. You're suffering enough. It's okay. But even so, some people don't feel like they suffer enough to be entitled to be happy. There's a word that bodhisattvas, that is associated with bodhisattvas, it's called karuna. And one etymology of the word karuna, karuna is translated as compassion sometimes, and other times as sympathy or misery.

[30:52]

No, it's pity, mercy, this kind of thing. And the etymology of the word is sometimes said to be stopped happiness, which means that your happiness is stopped by other people's unhappiness. But it's not completely stopped, necessarily. If it's completely stopped, you can't help them. But it's true that even though you're somewhat happy when you help miserable people, particularly help them drop what they're holding on to, which is the cause of their misery, it makes you more happy, a lot more happy. So it is possible to have greater happiness. And Karuna is involved in stimulating us to make us feel the hindrance to our own happiness of other people's suffering.

[32:03]

Each of us has to look into our own mind and heart and see if when we see somebody who's suffering, if we wince, not wince, but if we shrink away from them, or if we can say, okay, bring it on. I embrace your suffering. Give it to me. But sometimes certain people even me, when I'm happy, I sometimes hide it because I know if I am expressive of it too much, certain people will come to me with their suffering. That by openly expressing joy, suffering beings come to you. Of course, sometimes suffering beings come to you when you express misery, too, because they want to help you. That's okay.

[33:13]

No problem. So if you feel miserable, that's good to show too. And sometimes it might be good to look miserable just to help certain people express some positive feelings towards you. Because some people are angry at happy people. And a skillful device to make them generate positive energy would be to look really miserable. not dishonestly, just sort of, what do you call it, naughtily, be a little naughty, and act like you're really downtrodden, just so that they'll say, oh, what's the matter, dear? You say, I just wanted to get your attention. I'm secretly happy in anticipation. in anticipation of your kindness, which you've been withholding from me because you're jealous of my happiness.

[34:18]

That's the reason, yes. Really, they're very happy trying to attract all their jealous disciples who wouldn't come near them if they saw how happy they were. Now, I also told the story before about, you know, oftentimes when I would go home on my breaks from Sashin, you know, maybe I would get a little bit into my patience practice during Sashin and as a result have a lot of positive energy coming to me and maybe even joy, not to mention sort of floating a few inches off the ground. And then I would go home on my breaks to my dear family and they would be sometimes fighting with each other or something nasty like that. And then I would come in and I would say, now please. You get the idea.

[35:34]

Not only did they turn on me, sort of, which, of course, didn't bother me at all. I just got a little high off the ground. But more important than turning on me, actually, mostly they didn't turn on me. They just considered me to be basically irrelevant. I was a non-entity. And they went on with their work. I felt a little bit bad about my irrelevance, but it was so cool that I just glided back out to the zendo again. No problem. This is not quite the right attitude. It's a little bit funny there. There's some lack of engagement, which is the next paramita in joyous effort. Which means you don't get stuck in your patience, your settledness.

[36:47]

It means when you run into a sentient being and you find them in a fight, you dive into the middle of the fight. Not with the unwholesome attitude of fighting, but with the joyous attitude of engagement in the work of trying to find out what the fight's about. What is the fight about? It's interesting. Do birds have perspiration under their wings? Are you interested? A recent aspect of Aoi is not only on top of my physical Aoi, but now the flies are all over my foodsies. It's another little Aoi.

[37:48]

It's icky. Enthusiasm is joyful, is rejoicing in the opportunity to engage in wholesomeness. One session, I had a lot of back problems. I could hardly stand up. I could sit, but I could hardly walk. And when I tried to walk, I turned a pale shade of green. When I came home, I was not off the ground, and I didn't have enough energy to tell the people, you know, how to be kind to each other. I just suffered into the room and suffered out. That says she and I was not irrelevant to them. I wasn't quite joyful about my interactions, I don't think, but I was not irrelevant.

[38:50]

I was not, I didn't annoy them. But there was some enthusiasm, although I could hardly see it as joy. The enthusiasm, I guess, was I just kept going. I was steadfast, even though it wasn't too effervescent. So once we're settled, there is the possibility, even though we're settled and at peace and beyond it all in a way, unhurt by the pain, still we can be lazy. Still we can be lazy. Does that make sense? Just like I was lazy going home and just carrying my practice just far enough for me to be at peace with a few comments to the peanut gallery about how they should also find their way to peace.

[39:56]

But I was lazy. I was lazy. There are three basic types of laziness. One is called indolence. Another one is called engaging in unwholesome activities. And the other one is called self-criticism or self-disparagement or despondency. Indolence is what people sometimes think of as laziness more commonly. In other words, indolence is like when you're lying in bed, you want to stay in bed. Or when you're sitting on a nice swing with a glass of lemonade on a hot summer day, you just want to keep sitting there. But indolence is also when you're peacefully resting in the middle of your pain, when you've found a position that's in the middle of all your pain, that's safe and comfortable, that you don't want to move from there.

[41:07]

a hectic situation, you want to hold on to your cool. That's indolence. It took a lot of effort for you to get to that state of peace, but now holding on to it and staying in that state is indolence. Indolence is a type of laziness. There's three types of laziness. Okay? That is indolence. Indolence is to stay in your state, like to want to sleep a lot or to stay in a pleasurable situation. The inertia of where you are, particularly the inertia of comfort. But it could even be the inertia of discomfort, but that's not very likely. It's not so indolent. It's not so lazy. Now, I like to say, because it's such a good example, teenagers are excellent examples of laziness. Often.

[42:15]

All three types. And I also like to use teenagers because although they're often lazy, they are extremely energetic at the same time. That sometimes we think of laziness as having not much energy. And the practice, the fourth paramita of energy, it's sometimes called energy or effort, is in fact pointing to our great energy which is confused or obscured by this appearance of laziness. But 98.6 or even people with a fever can be lazy. They're very hot, very living creatures, and yet they appear to be in the form of laziness, and indolence is one of them. And Zen practitioners can be indolent with regard to their own attainments. lazy in their attainment.

[43:16]

The next kind of laziness is the laziness of engagement in unwholesome activities. Again, sometimes when people are involved in unwholesome activities, they're doing it with lots of energy. But it's a laziness. We call it laziness in this case. Laziness with regard to the purpose of life. which is happiness and freedom for all. And the third kind of laziness is laziness which is quite common among people who are making an effort. It's the laziness of, you know, I can't do it. It's too hard. I'm not up to it. I can't do it. It's too hard. I can't do it. I'm not suited for it. It's just not in the cards for me. I got bad karma.

[44:19]

And so does my wife. Matter of fact, she's part of my bad karma. So I have to stay in bed because she won't let me get up. And so on. Now, it's tricky, you know. You have to look carefully. But one example is if you haven't yet practiced patiently enough, then it's pretty difficult to be joyful because you're still irritated. You're still suffering. You're still suffering in the sense of not accepting your circumstances. So it's hard. But even sometimes when you are settled, still you say, I can't do all this work and also be joyful.

[45:22]

That's too much. So you have to look carefully to see whether your inability to practice joyfully is because you maybe haven't accepted your circumstances enough yet, or whether you actually are quite at peace, and it could be both indolence and kind of self-disparaging, like, geez, I've done so much now, I couldn't do any more. Well, please look at it. Try to see what's going on there. Well, I don't want to say yes or no to that because in a sense what sometimes does happen is that from acceptance a lot of energy comes and the energy just is joyful.

[46:40]

But as I say, sometimes if there's some indolence associated with that energy that comes from acceptance, if there's an unwholesome holding to it, for example, holding to it in such a way that you keep yourself separate from people, then the joyousness might be blocked. Energy is actually joyous by nature. Human energy is joyous by nature. So you're right. And particularly, the patient human being's energy is joyous. But if there's a laziness associated with that patience, and a laziness associated with that energy that arises from acceptance, the energy that comes with being in the present. If there's laziness, the joyousness is obscured. So as an antidote to these three kinds of laziness, there is the practice of aspiration, the practice of joy,

[47:58]

and the practice of steadfastness, and the practice of rest. And it's interesting that this analysis into these four forces to counterbalance laziness, aspiration, steadfastness, joy, and rest, I read a book which analyzed those four, and then I later read a later edition of the book. In the later edition, it said that the four were aspiration, steadfastness, joy, and rejection. They changed the word rest to rejection, I guess because people have misunderstandings about what rest means. When they hear rest, they think, oh, that means indolence.

[49:03]

Rest means indolence rather than something which refreshes you. Rest means like, what is it like in music? Da-di-da-di-da. Boop. a rest, a pause, a break, a change of pace, not a going to sleep, not a kind of like, whew, now I'm going to give up. No, it's part of the effort. It is an effort to make a rest. But the rest refreshes so that you can make an effort again like you were before. So part of what this rest means, part of rest means is that sometimes you're working pretty hard and you get tired. So there, the word rest applies. If you get fatigued and tense and tired, it's good to rest.

[50:08]

Otherwise, you're just going to crash and give up. So rest is part of effort in that case. That's not indolence. That's refreshment. But another meaning of rest is that when you're doing a practice, well, to accept not going on to a more advanced practice before you actually are ready for it. That's another meaning of rest. Another meaning of rest is after you've done a practice and you've attained it, to take a rest from your attainment. And there the word rejection seems to be more appropriate. Reject your attainment. Put it aside and go on. And again, in that case, resting from your attainment or rejecting your attainment is a way to avoid being indolent in your attainment. In this sense, the word lazy coupled with the word rejection

[51:16]

excuse me, the word rest coupled with the word rejection. These both of them have some, it's kind of like between the two. It's a pause, but it's also a release. A pause in the effort and a release in the effort. Ananda, the Buddha's great disciple, the second name we say in the morning, he was a great student of the Buddha. And he had the quality of being foremost among the Buddha's disciples in terms of memory. He could remember everything he ever heard the Buddha say, plus he could remember everything he ever heard anybody else say that the Buddha said. So after the Buddha died, they wanted to get together and start to recite what the Buddha said. to make an oral tradition of his teaching.

[52:20]

And they were going to have a congregation of the enlightened disciples. And there were 499 of them, conveniently. And Ananda was not enlightened. He was not yet enlightened. So he couldn't come to the meeting. But they needed him at the meeting because he knew all the teachings. So they had a very high-pressure course for Ananda. All the enlightened disciples got together and pressured him and massaged him to get enlightened. They did all the practices that they could think of to get him to get enlightened before this congregation was going to happen. And he sweated and he slaved joyously and steadfastly with tremendous aspiration to attain enlightenment by a fixed date.

[53:23]

And it was the night before the event. And all was still. Not a creature was stirring. Not even in Arhat. It was a cool evening there in India. Ananda had just one more night to go. And he kind of said, Oh, I can't do it anymore. What the hell? And he threw himself into bed, just like jumped into bed, you know. And in midair, he woke up. And by the time he landed, he was a, what do you call it, a... a legitimate member of the community.

[54:35]

He was an arhat, yeah. So he'd go to the meeting. So you never know. You might wake up during the rest period. But the rest, not rest in laziness rest, rest as a pause, as a refreshment in the midst of your joyous, steadfast, tremendous aspiration. So if, you know, again, I don't want you to manipulate yourself. I don't want you to do that. I'm not suggesting that. So as you're sitting there, I don't want you to manipulate yourself. I don't want you to lie and say you're joyous when you're not joyous. Just suggest to you that you realize joy. the joy of the practice that you're doing. In fact, you people are making a big effort already.

[55:37]

You're quite steadfast as far as I can tell. Looks to me like you are. You're not being indolent, except maybe some of you are holding back in the joy a little bit. Now, on the other hand, As I mentioned before, the child before one laughs 300, 200 times a day. I understand that the national average has been raised here a little bit. Some of you are approaching around 200 a day. Is that right? Have you been counting? So that's good. And someone said that I gave permission for this to happen. Yes, I did. It's true. So...

[56:45]

Please, those of you who have been restraining yourself in your laughter, relax and just laugh as much as you want. Don't hold it back. Go ahead. Right now. Don't want to now, do you? Want to wait until you're not sure anymore whether it's okay. And then it's more fun. Naughty. Naughty. Unsupported thought. A monk asked Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature or not?

[57:50]

Zhao Zhou said, Yes. Later, a monk asked Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature or not? Zhao Zhou said, no. The way they say that in Japanese is mu. Does a dog have Buddha nature or not? This is an unsupported thought. Moo. This is an unsupported thought. All sentient beings, said the monk, have the Buddha nature. Why doesn't a dog? This is an unsupported thought. Jaojo said, because it has karmic consciousness. This is an unsupported thought. This is unsupported thinking. But they can talk like this.

[58:54]

You can talk like this too. Now if you copy them, you can talk like this too. If you don't copy them, you can talk like this too. Unsupported thought means you can do what you are doing. And unsupported thought also means you can't do anything else. You're totally trapped in freedom. Since you're totally trapped, you can do whatever you want. What do you want to do? Ask a question.

[59:58]

Okay, go ahead. Does an unsupported thought arise from causes and conditions? Yes, and it's not a thing of cause and condition. Nothing whatsoever arises from itself, from another, from both self and others, or no cause. Therefore, everything's free.

[61:00]

Nothing arises without a cause, but nothing arises from itself or another, or both, or neither. The Buddha is not another thing of cause and effect. And if it wasn't in the realm, and if it didn't have causes, it wouldn't be a thing. So maybe it's not a thing. But this not-thing, this not-tatagata, can talk and it can walk and it can stick its tongue out and it can raise its eyebrows and blink. It can talk, it can sing, it can dance, it can sweat. It can do anything it's doing. This is sometimes called not-killing. Not-killing. This is sometimes called moo.

[62:06]

This is sometimes called yes. It's sometimes called thanking people after you're dead. It's sometimes called owie. It's sometimes called you name it, don't you? You do, but you got to die to be born here. You got to die to be born in this place of not killing. If you hold on to anything, you won't understand an unsupported thought. If you hold on to something, you're somebody, you're not nobody. Nobody is the one who understands this.

[63:13]

And nobody dies and is reborn in the land of no supported thought, which is also called never-never land. which is also called, you know, good morning Vietnam. Why do people sit there and listen to that? The Lord said to Subuddhi, you have, in agreement with perfect wisdom, you have pointed out the great vehicle. Subuddhi, through the Buddha's might, moreover, a bodhisattva does not approach

[64:30]

from where it begins, from where it ends, nor in the middle. The bodhisattva does not approach from the beginning, from the end, or from the middle. That's how the bodhisattva rides on the big wagon, by not approaching it. Because a bodhisattva is as boundless as form, feelings, perceptions, formations and consciousness. A bodhisattva is as boundless as these things are. She does not approach the idea that a bodhisattva has form and so on. She does not approach the idea that a bodhisattva has form and so on. That also does not exist and is not apprehended.

[65:39]

She does not not approach the idea that a bodhisattva has form and so on. That also does not exist and is not apprehended. Thus, in each and every way, I do not get any idea of the dharmas that constitute a bodhisattva. I do not see that dharma which the word bodhisattva denotes. Perfect wisdom also I neither see nor get at. All knowledge also I neither see nor get at, since in each and every way I neither apprehend nor see that Dharma. What Dharma should I instruct and admonish through that Dharma? In what Dharma? Buddha, bodhisattva, perfect wisdom, all these are mere words, and what they denote is something uncreated,

[66:49]

And uncreated does not mean that it's caused by something else, by itself, by neither, or by no cause. Uncreated is what it is. What it is. It is not This is the perfection of wisdom. This is the prajnaparamita. This is the lovely, the holy. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her. She's the mama of the Buddhas. Is she your mama? Is she your mama? Huh?

[67:58]

Hey, yeah, man. You can adopt your mama. This is a good mama. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her. She brings light. She is light. She's an organ of vision, your mama. You got to renounce it all. Got to renounce the whole thing. Got to renounce Buddhism, Bodhisattvas, all that's got to be renounced too.

[68:59]

Renounce Zen, renounce Zen Center, renounce Green Gulch, renounce everything. Got to get, drop it. And that's not enough. Meantime, this is called not abandoning one single living creature. This is called how to really be devoted to all beings. If you hold on to a little shred, there's somebody you're going to not take care of. Anyway, I don't know if I should keep going. In a way I think I should, and in a way I think I shouldn't. Partly because you have better things to do. You can go back to your practice of whatever.

[70:08]

Okay, so life is just a bowl of cherries, right? Life is just a bowl of cherries. Don't make it serious, it's too mysterious. You work, you save, you worry so, but you can't take your dough when you go, go, go. All together, beyond, bodhi, wow. So keep repeating, it's the berries. The strongest oak must fall. The sweet things in life, you were just loaned. So how can you lose what you never owned? Life is just a bowl of cherries, so live and laugh at it all. So live and laugh at it all. Are you scared to live and laugh at it all?

[71:24]

Are you loyal to the world of delusion? Sure we are. All the more reason to laugh at ourselves. We're so cute in our delusion. We don't know anything. We're so cute. Anyway, ready to sing the song? Some people know the melody. We'll try, all right? Life is just a bowl of cherries. Don't make it serious. It's too mysterious. You work, you save, you worry so. But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go. So keep repeating, it's the berries. The strongest oak must fall. The sweet things in life you just loaned. So you can't lose what you never owned.

[72:28]

Life is just a bowl of cherries. So live, laugh at it all. Okay, now, Jim and Kay. Jim and Kathy, why don't you guys sing it? Just alone so we can listen to the melody. Come on. Come on up here. Stand next to him. Stand up. Stand up. Everybody stand up. Come here. Come on, Kat. Stand up. Rise up. Life is just a bowl of cherries. Don't make it serious. Life is mysterious. You work, you save, you worry so.

[73:31]

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go. So keep repeating. It's the berries. The strongest oak must fall. The sweet things in life to you were just love. So how can you lose? what you never own. Life is just a bowl of cherries. So live and laugh at it all. So live and laugh at it all. You thought we needed no melody. I heard it on the grapevine.

[74:22]

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