I got some feedback on last week's class after class and I'd like to tell you about that at some point. And also I wanted to mention that I was reading this case And even before I started reading in this case, I started to feel bad about reading it. And then I started reading it and I felt off. I continued to feel kind of off. I was thinking of a couple things, you know, Also a couple of warnings that you may have heard, like in the Phukan Zazengi by Dogen, he says, you know, give up.

[01:14]

you know, intellectual pursuits or give up chasing words and following after speech or something like that. Does that sound familiar? And then also I remember a little interchange I heard about between the founders of Tendai Buddhism in Japan and Shingon Buddhism in Japan, these two esoteric schools. And the founder of Tendai wanted to study tantra, esoteric teachings, with the founder of the esoteric school. And the founder of the esoteric school said, you know, he wanted to study some particular books with him. The founder of the esoteric school had a lot of books. He brought a big library back from China with him. And the founder of Tendai wanted to study with him and wrote him a letter saying so.

[02:22]

And the founder of the tantric school said, trying to get Buddha Dharma from books is like stealing the Dharma. So somehow today, as I approached the book, I felt like I was trying to get something from this book, and I don't like trying to get something from this book. But then I thought, well, it's got this class. Are all these people going to come here tonight and try to get something from this book? So I was kind of feeling, this is looking bad. I said, uh... But there's nothing, there's no activity that you can't get involved in as a bodhisattva.

[03:26]

In other words, actually you must get involved in all activities. The thing is not to be approaching the activity to get something from it. And there's various activities that you can approach to try to get something from, and you may feel like you've got something. And then you feel pretty good, maybe, until you hear somebody say, if you're trying to get something, if it's Dharma anyway, if you're trying to get something, you're stealing something. But actually, if I think about it, it's like probably in any field of life, if you're trying to get something, basically, I mean, or strictly speaking, we're stealing if we're trying to get something. Or we're taking what's not given. And so to approach Dharma practice or Dharma scriptures, trying to get something, is like stealing.

[04:33]

And yet bodhisattvas must approach and enter all Dharma material. So how do we do it? So then I remembered something that happened with Wang Bo one time. And this is kind of a spectacular story because it involves the emperor of China who was not yet the emperor but was kind of in hiding from his brother. And while he was hiding, he visited some Zen monasteries. And one of the monasteries he visited was a monastery where Wang Bo was serving as head monk. At one time, Wang Bo was prostrating himself to Buddha, to Dharma, and to Sangha. Maybe he was chanting something like, in Chinese, I take refuge in Buddha before all beings, immersing body and mind deeply in the way or something like that, and bowing.

[05:47]

So this young aristocrat, soon to be the emperor of China, saw him and said, if you're not seeking Buddha and you're not seeking Dharma, and you're not seeking Sangha. What are you doing paying your respects like this? Or, you know, what are you seeking to do in paying your respects?" And Wang Bo said, I pay my respects to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha by not seeking Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as I bowed to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha." And they slapped him in the face.

[06:48]

And I think the future emperor said, you're so crude. And Wang Bo said, what's crude or refined got to do with it? Slapped him again. This story is referred to slapping him three times, but I don't know why they call it slapping him three times. They slapped him again later. And then after the boy became emperor, he gave Wang Bo a title, which was coarse-acting ascetic. So I feel like I personally need to express my reverence and express my devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha by not seeking Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, or express my

[07:58]

express my not seeking of Buddhadharma and Sangha by expressing my devotion to Buddhadharma and Sangha. And one of the ways I express my devotion is studying these texts and not seeking anything in the text. So I think with that approach I can continue to study this text And I wrote a little drawing on this piece of paper of a mountain range. And the Book of Serenity is kind of a mountain range. And I think in the introduction or the acknowledgment I wrote to the book, I said something about it being a mountain range. I don't remember for sure. But I think it's a kind of mountain range. And this case could be seen as quite a high peak And I've got the feedback from some people that they feel kind of overwhelmed by this case.

[09:06]

It brings up some lofty attainments and some very difficult, not difficult, but some wild stuff is said in here. It brings up difficult attainment. It brings up these three phrases. It brings up lots of poetry and talks about, you know, Yuen Mun having the three phrases and everything he said and this kind of stuff. These are like, this is a lofty peak with lots of challenging facets and, you know, cliffs and stuff like that. And I feel like if I approach this peak to get somewhere on it, if I try to attain something with it, I think I'm off from the beginning. Plus, I might feel sick too. But some people approach, again, approach things, they feel like they get what they're trying to get and they feel pretty good. Other people approach something like this and don't get what they get and they feel frustrated.

[10:08]

But even if you feel successful, you may be really off in this department if you're trying to get something. So I think I'll continue to study this book and offer these meetings where we come together and we express our devotion and respect by not trying to get anything from Buddha, by not trying to get anything from these texts. But we study them, perhaps somewhat thoroughly, and discuss them rather thoroughly, and keep watching to see if we're trying to get something from this study. And a lot of people can not study something and not try to get anything from it. A lot of people can not do a practice and not try to get anything. A lot of people can stay in San Francisco or Berkeley or someplace outside Green Gulch and not come to this class, and they're not trying to get anything from this case, right?

[11:21]

They're like pure. But can you come and devote your precious time to this teaching without trying to get anything? That's not so easy. It's pretty easy not to get anything, but it's not so easy to come not trying to get anything. And some of you are trying to get something and have already been burned by that, and that's good that you got burned. But let's see if you are devoted to this teaching even if you don't get anything, even if we never get off this case. Can you keep coming and basically it's no difference to you because you can express your devotion to any case at any time for any length of time because you're not trying to get it over with to move on to the next one or get some more or whatever. So I just, this is kind of like what I'm saying to myself because otherwise I feel like I should quit if I'm trying to seek something from this study, if I'm seeking something from this study.

[12:30]

But really this study is just a test to make sure I'm not seeking anything, that there's no seeking in my practice. And another thing I want to mention is that I said, I think I said at the beginning of the class and I might have forgotten, I sometimes forget, is that if you feel overwhelmed during the class, you can stop and just go like this and I'll stop the class and we can see how things are going. Address your situation. It may be that you're feeling overwhelmed because you're trying to get something. So then you don't want to stop the class because then everybody might find out you're trying to get something. But it's fairly likely that if you're trying to get something, probably a lot of other people are too. So it's actually kind of you to ask the question for the sake of those other people that are trying to get something, but don't even notice that they're getting burned out. So that's what I want to say.

[13:39]

Does that make sense to you? So I guess I would ask you to consider how you feel about studying a text for a number of years or study a big text like this for a number of years where you basically get trained in not so much getting more information, although you might get information, but basically you're training yourself in non-attachment You're training yourself in wishlessness, in non-greed. And you're testing to see if you can make a big effort to study this text without then getting attached to what you're making a big effort towards. And I'm doing the same.

[14:40]

I thought about this last week. And I was thinking about the classes that we've had where they've brought the cons to life the most. And it feels like those are the classes where whatever we're doing, we're all giving to each other. Those of us that people come to in front of the class and ask a question, or just some of the things that we've done where we've actually extended the generosity entirely in terms of what you're thinking about and how it affects us. Right. And I had a question. I was thinking about the difference between what they just stay stuck in the mind, just feels like it's sort of the realm's thought, just like the stuff I couldn't last week, and the ones that drop into a sense of feeling, or drop into the heart. And you had talked last week about the final 30s being awkward, and here, like, someone asked last week about, you know, if love and attachment.

[15:54]

And so I wanted to ask about that. You want to ask about, what was it that you'd like to ask about? You said that the final good, the final phrase was purified love, which was very different than the God abiding in the non-love. It just seemed like it shifted from when you said that. Okay. So the phrase purifying love, you're interested in that? I'm feeling kind of in a quandary about how to answer your question because I feel like your question is somehow, the way it's coming to me is that you're trying to get something.

[17:05]

And so maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but... I find it hard to do in this class. That, when you said that, and saying that, I don't feel like you're trying to get anything when you tell us that you find it hard to give, or if you told us that it was easy to give, I wouldn't find that. But when you brought this thing about purifying love, I felt like you're trying to get something about, get more information about that or something, or understand it better than you do now. That's what I felt by that question. Right. That's what it seemed like. And that's what the third case gives up. That's what the third phrase gives up. It gives up trying to have an understanding of what purified love is.

[18:11]

So if you hear about some... Did purified love sound pretty good, huh? Yeah, or some of the other stuff that you thought was, sounded like what you thought was nice for the koans to, like, come alive or drop into the heart. Did you have, like, a positive affect to those things? Yeah, that's what it sounded like, which is fine. Right? I mean, that's okay. It seems all right. But trying to have an understanding of that is what the third case, and if you did have an understanding of that, to, you know, to give that up, to give up your understanding, and then after you gave it up, not to change your mind and try to seek it back again. Or to seek it back would be fine, too, under the guise of not having understanding that that would be wrong and going, pardon? Yeah. Yeah, you are. And you don't like that?

[19:14]

Yeah, there you go. So there's these verses about these phrases. And then there's these phrases, too. And I don't know what to do about them. Because I don't want to encourage you to try to get something from these phrases or get something from the verses about the phrases. And yet, here they are. Somebody was telling me, who was it? Where was I? I think maybe I was in Montana just recently. And somebody says, what do you worship? Do you worship something in Zen? And I said something about what we worship.

[20:21]

I don't remember what I said. But anyway, do you feel okay about worshiping these verses? Or do you have something you'd rather worship than these verses? These verses are supposed to be a verse written by a Zen master, right? Do you worship the verses of Zen masters? But again, the worshipping, what does the worshipping mean? It means what? What is worshipping the words or the verses of a Zen master? How do you worship them? Practice them would be a way to worship them. And so how would you practice the verse, I guess, first of all, the phrase. How do you practice the phrase... Containing the universe. How do you practice that? By containing the universe. By containing the universe.

[21:22]

Practice that? Sounds good to me, Klaus. And that's your way of worshipping, right? And then, I guess, how would you practice cutting off all streams? Huh? What? I said that's worshipping you. I know, but how do you practice cutting off all streams? Forget about them. And forgetting about all those streams is your way of practicing? Have you forgotten about them? But someday you'd like to practice. Okay. Someday you'd like to practice, and that would be your worship. But you haven't started yet. Okay. And then finally... What? Right. And finally, following the waves. How do you practice that? And that's your way... And is that your way of worship? Okay, yeah. How does that sound to you guys? Any comments?

[22:22]

What? What? Sounds ridiculous. What do you have to say about these verses? What do you have to say about worship? Pardon? What? I don't know what I have to say about worship. Do you practice worship? Are you worshipful? I don't think so. Do you see a place for worshiping? Yes. Where? I don't see a place for worshiping in words. You don't see a place for worshiping in words? No. But where do you see a place for worshipping? You don't know? Okay. Well, just stay tuned.

[23:24]

You might hear some ways. Does anybody see a way to worship with words? Huh? And when you just said, let it in, was that worshipping with words? Okay. Yes? Memorizing them. Repeating them. Writing them down. And saying them to others, yeah. Or like worship, one way of understanding worship is you do something to remind yourself what's most important in your life. Like you say, I want to be kind. And you say that. And when you say, I want to be kind, I want to be kind can be a verbal expression, a verbal form of worship of kindness. And by saying that, you perform worship, and that worship transforms you, the one who said it.

[24:33]

You can also take a piece of paper and write kindness on it, put it on a table, and prostrate yourself to it as an expression of, I consider kindness to be totally cool. Not cooler than me, but I want to throw my whole body into kindness, so it's a kind of worship. So memorizing this case isn't necessarily a form of worship. It might be a form of greed, right? I memorized case 76, or I memorized part of case 76. So it wasn't that swell that I did that, and now I got it. That's not necessarily worship, unless you actually, that would be actually a form of worship and greed. And I just worship greed by doing that, yea, greed. think greed's cool. But also, now I'm going to worship this case just to learn the case as a form of reminding myself that I worship what this case is teaching.

[25:44]

So is everything we do worship? I guess it depends on how you understand it. In some sense, everything we do is worship because in some sense everything we do is putting our, if it's a physical act, we put our physical act into what we think is important. So if you think eating is important, in some sense you're worshipping eating when you eat. So does worship, though, take some sort of mindfulness, though? Seems like I need to bring it to mind somehow. Yeah. that I know what I'm doing, when I'm acting unconsciously, I'm not sure that I can work it. Well, some people may say, I see what you mean, but like, in fact, you may say, you know, I don't think eating is that important. and then you just walk over there and you eat. So you said it, you didn't think it was that important, but in fact, you did go over there and you did spend your time eating.

[26:47]

So in some sense, you do worship eating because you did it. Now you say, but wouldn't it be more worshipful if I was mindful that I was doing it? Well, it might be, but also the mindfulness might be not so much a mindfulness, not so much a worshipfulness of eating, but a worshipfulness of mindfulness. So if you mindfully eat, it seems to me that you're worshiping eating and worshiping mindfulness. Some people say, I think mindfulness is like one of the most wonderful practices in the world, but they don't practice it. So they say it's great, but they don't worship it. What they worship is, guess what? What do you think they worship? They worship mindlessness. They are mindless. That's what they're worshiping. but they don't call it worship, even though you try to get them to be mindful instead of mindless, and you find that there is a tremendous energy towards not being mindful.

[27:48]

So in Buddhism, in some sense, the most precious thing is this cartoon in the New Yorker, not the New Yorker, maybe it was the New Yorker, but it might have also been Playboy, but I think it was the New Yorker. It was this cartoonist that, I think his name is Graham, does these kind of morbid cartoons. Is it, oh, Wilson? Han Wilson. So it was this big, you know, huge, like a juggernaut, a huge float, right? A huge wagon with a huge band on it and stuff. You know? And then a huge banner over this whole big, huge chariot vehicle. with this mass of people moving along with it, and across the top it said, nothing. And somebody in the crowd watching this huge float go by, this guy says, is nothing holy? So in Buddhism, in some sense, the holiest thing is, you know, like in Zen school, the holiest thing is emptiness, right?

[28:58]

What's the highest truth, the highest truth of the holy truths? Vast emptiness, no holy. That's the holy for us, right? No holy. Vast emptiness. That's our holy thing, right? Right? That's what we're supposed to be worshiping if we're Zen Buddhists, right? But a lot of us don't worship that. What we worship is self-existence. That's what we worship. In other words, we worship anti-Buddhism. We don't believe in Buddhism. We worship self-existence. That's what we worship and everything we do all day long. So actually, we do worship all day. Like somebody says, you know, I went to work religiously. I exercised religiously. I saved my money religiously. In other words, we do actually, we are devoted to something. Would it be good if we notice what we're devoted to? I think so. If you start noticing what you're doing and what you're devoted to, then you're starting to worship mindfulness.

[30:05]

So I think we are actually, as you said, actually worshiping all the time. The question is, do you notice that you're worshiping? And if you don't, you're missing that you're worshiping. And then once you notice you're worshiping, like for example, if you notice that you're worshiping something rather than nothing, if you notice that you're worshipping self rather than no self, then you can say, I'm worshipping this and I have this kind of life because I worship myself. This is the kind of life I have because this is my God. Anti-Buddhism. And now that I've been doing this for a while, I'm thinking of changing religions. I'm thinking of becoming a Buddhist. For eons, I've been an anti-Buddhist. I've been doing karma, and I admit it. And now after admitting all this karma that I've been doing, all this belief in the opposite of Buddhism or the overthrow of Buddhism, I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism and devoting myself to emptiness.

[31:10]

and to studying the three phrases and understanding them. And the way I'm going to do that is by getting together with a bunch of people who are worshipping something and devoting themselves to something, and we're going to all try to find out what it is that we're worshiping. Some of us are worshiping greed. Some of us are worshiping hate. Some of us are worshiping confusion. Some of us are worshiping arrogance. Some of us are worshiping, you know, putting everybody else down. Some of us are worshiping being wimps. Some of us are worshiping being toughies. Some of us, you know, we all have these things we're worshiping, and et cetera. worshiping judgment. And we're getting together in this diverse group and then worshiping something. Like some of us are worshiping being aware of the other people's bad behavior.

[32:15]

And then we're getting upset because we're noticing what smarty-pantses they are. Right? But that's what we're putting our energy into. Any comments? Pardon? I said, yikes. He said, yikes? Are you devoted to yikes? Temporarily? Brian? In the sense of what? In the sense of what? In the sense we've been using... Excuse me. In the sense we've been using words? Oh, worship. Okay. Yes. That... Well, I think you could understand that Shoshan's answer was his worship of what?

[33:36]

What do you think he was worshipping when he said what he said? What? Worshipping emptiness? That's a good guess. But not just emptiness, but maybe he was worshipping not even grasping emptiness, not even giving up understanding of emptiness. Maybe he was worshipping that. So yes, Andy. I think the case, first of all, is really a wonderful trap. Because people walking around about not coming here and get something, I'm caught up in the three phrases that came. So just it seems to me that people that have a real problem on their hands when they try to correct this case, immediately it presents a lot of confusion and contradiction.

[34:43]

Right. Can I say something? Yeah, there's three achievements. Yeah. They really cause even more confusion. Right. You immediately fall into stages. Yeah. Or you're tempted to fall on the stage. But you're attempting to fall on the stage. And somebody seems to be talking about, you respect, seems to be talking about stages. Seems to be. Yeah. And so you've got quite a lot of confusion going just from the beginning when you start digging into this case on that level. Yeah. And then it seems as if, well, maybe, you know, Shoshan gave a great answer to this, but in the commentary, one starts talking about the other man's three fables, three fables, and how his third fables always incorporates the other fables. Now, that's a really great teaching. And I think it's, I don't think it's actually related to what I'm here to share this on, but I think it's a wonderful teaching to be used for.

[35:48]

But I think that the real question is, when you look at class at the beginning, and you look around, and the core people start talking about the face, and you see the wonderful light in their eyes. You know, you see all these beautiful faces, and it's wonderful. Sincere devotion, sincere worship. And then they start talking about patients, and suddenly the light goes on. Suddenly the light is gone. And people who, you know, a few minutes before you look at them, you think, that person's really great, and their life is now kind of bent over, and they're looking like this, and they're really struggling. And I think that that, you know, I think that what comes out of this case for me, first of all, is I'm really grateful for the teaching about human men, about them incorporating all the phrases in one. What that means, of course, is that you can't see human men, and you can't see the other phrases.

[36:51]

And that, to me, is the ultimate teaching of our school. That's why human men, I think, always appeals to me so much. But the question becomes, When we come into the class and we encounter this case, what is our orientation? And is our orientation the orientation in that matter? Because even though you can't see in that, you don't know, you can't tell what he's doing, you can't see anything special, you can't see anything holy, I propose that that there are two doors to the temple, and some people hear you and then they go out one door, and some people go out the other door. Some of them go out a door that's a door of confusion, and a door of dejection. And people go out a door where they never look back. And even though you can't see the difference between these two people, the people that hear you and listen to you, and hear your praise,

[38:01]

they go out the door of a temple, or give them the same as the other door, but they are completely different. I think that, I'm not trying to be abstract or evasive in this, because I think that Yiddish teaching is just so wonderful. and his way of dealing with Photoshop was so powerful that it really is worthwhile to look at this face and consider that face. Consider this face, it's amazing. But I propose that the result of that is not going to be seen in the waters. It's going to be seen in the eyes of the water. How people react to it. How they work with it. What phrase was that?

[39:09]

One phrase. Now, did that one phrase fall into the stage of one phrase? What happened to the third phrase on that one phrase? What happened to the third phrase? The third phrase should have saved that one phrase from being the one phrase. The third phrase or the three phrases? The fourth phrase. It's a betrayal of your men. Have you betrayed?

[40:10]

What did you say? A betrayal of what? Your men. Did you betray your men? When I speak a free phrase, I betray my men. Okay, so now how can we talk about these three phrases without sending people to hell? Without sending people to hell. How are you going to talk about these three phrases without causing trouble? Now some, again, I would suggest that, like Andy said, if you come to this class, there's a trap and you're already in trouble. But you might think if you stayed home, you wouldn't be in trouble. If you stay home, you're falling into stages, but you don't have a name for it. You come here, you have a name for the stages you're falling into. It's called three phases, which you can fall into now, like Andy did.

[41:16]

His devotion to the one who didn't fall into the three phases forced him to fall into three phases, right? So anybody else want to fall? Pardon? What was your, what was it? Oh, and don't you think all beings don't fall into three phases? Okay. Now, did you fall into a phase there? Did I? Did I? No. Did you? Wasn't talking to you. Did you? It's okay, don't worry. I'll get to you later. You don't think so? Where are you? What stage is that? It's no stage. You're at the stage of no stage? Is that the stage you're at? Sure?

[42:24]

What does sure mean? I'm in stage, no stage. Is that true? How would I know? I mean, if you feel like that's where you want to be and you're going to hold to that, then you get to do that. So is that your position? Is that your position, no stage? No. So what's your position? I don't have a position. Is that your position? No. So you don't really have a position of no position when you say that. That's not a position that you just gave me. It was when I gave it to you. But no more? When I gave it to you, I had it when I gave it to you. Right. And how are you now? Like this. How is that? There you go. Now, Katrin, what did you want to say?

[43:29]

You don't know, right? Okay. What don't you know? What was the question? Since you don't know, you have to know what it was that you didn't know because there's something else you do know. You don't know anything? Not right now. Is that pretty good? It's all right. It's okay? For now. Yeah, for now. For now, it's all right. It really is. All right? You're okay? You're alive, like air still moving through? Yeah. Yeah. More alive than I was 10 seconds ago. How are you now? How's the tightness? Slightly less than I was at night. Okay, well, what should we do next?

[44:29]

Should we worship these phrases here, these verses? Vernon, is that you? Yeah. Did you want to say something? Yeah. What? I just wanted to say, that, you know, when I first started to look at the story, I thought I understood something. And I told it to you in Docusan, and you said, oh, congratulations. And you started to cry. It was too big. And I felt so good that I started to go up and start to teach people this. Then I realized that, hmm, there's another way of saying this. I was still telling people, but I was a little bit more hesitant, realizing that, well, the

[45:35]

Then I realized that there were at least three brains to see this, and I just totally shut up. And it probably goes off the 10,000 thing. Wow. Did you by any chance read that certificate to see what it said? It said 42. And then I said on there, be very careful of this man. Yes, Roy? I think there is no way, I'm not sure, but there is no way you can't get caught.

[46:38]

There's no way you cannot get caught? And maybe by knowing that, just watch yourself get caught on this side or this side, maybe something will happen. You mean something, for example, what might happen if you watch yourself get caught? Maybe you're less caught. Maybe less caught? Yeah, less. So then if you watch yourself being less caught, then what might happen? You can enjoy the strawberry. Right. Simon, did you want to say something? What? Not just at this moment? You are talking right now. Is there anything else you want to say?

[47:39]

Really? Okay. Pardon? Pardon? What phrases did you attain at? . So anyway, what I heard you say is you're very nervous. Got that. What phrase is that? It's no phrase? Did you say? What? You have ideas about what these phrases are?

[48:41]

Most of us do, I suppose. Anybody? Almost nobody probably has no idea what these phrases are. Huh? Right. I think I'm going deaf apparently, so please speak loudly. I have a question for you. Yeah. With all due respect, it seems like what you're trying to do or what's happening here is that you're trying to pin people down into saying, well, You push them into a corner, and then what they do is they see the fear, and they don't acknowledge the fear, and then you move on. Are you trying to just get us to say that this is, I mean, because this is maddening to me, to read this text and go, what the hell are they talking about? And does it matter? Because we're trying to put words onto things that you can't really describe words to. You're trying to put word on things?

[49:44]

No, no, no, no. The case. And then as we talk about it, I mean, they're just words. Wait a second now. Are that your position that I'm now cornering you into? Yeah, a little bit. Your position is that you say this text is trying to put words on something? Yes. Right now. At this moment, you think that this text here is trying to put words on something. That's what you think. Okay. And... Would you consider the possibility that this text is not trying to put words on something? Sure. But I don't understand. I don't understand how it is not doing that. And I would be willing to bet that there are at least four other people that would agree with that position. You think that some other people would think this text is trying to put words on things? Yeah. Okay. And then would you also think that some people would think What was the second part?

[50:45]

Maybe it's enough for now. That you think, and you think some other people probably think this text is trying to put words on something. Yeah. Okay. That's a position. And, okay, that's a statement on your part? Yeah. Now, is that statement trying to put words on something? What you just said? Mm-hmm. Is it? Yes. Okay. And if so, what stage is that? If you're trying to put words on something. The same as the first. It's a mirror. The same as the... In other words... The same as what you said was happening, you're doing. Okay. So, if you're doing the same thing you say the text is doing, what stage have you in the text attained? No attainment. No attainment yet, right. Attainment would be that you realize this text is not putting words on anything. That's the first stage.

[51:47]

First stage is this text is not putting words on something. These words are not putting words on something. These words are not about something. That's the first, realizing that, And me saying that, to realize I didn't put words on something when I just said that, that's the first stage. That's the first phrase. But that's not all the text is doing, and that's not all you can do. You can also not hang out in not putting words on things. You can think, I am putting words on things, and other people are putting words on things, and texts are putting words on things. But words don't put words on things. But you were asking for interpretation. So I guess when I spoke about you cornering us, I mean, you were... I'm not asking for interpretation.

[52:52]

I may get that. I'm asking, what have you attained? Where are you at? How does where you are now relate to any kind of stage or any kind of phrase or any kind of attainment? And what you told me was, I guess, at the stage you were at, was you thought this text was putting words on things. And I think you further said it's putting words on things that you can't put words on. And I agree that you can't put words on anything. I mean, you can put words on things, but they don't hold. So you can't really put them on. You can try, and you can think that you can, but you really can't. So if you say this text can't put words on things, I would agree. But I'm not saying the text is trying. And you are, which means that you think you can put words on this text, I think. No, uh-uh. Well, what's your position? Tell us your position, then. No, my position was, I mean, you can't put... Tell me your stage.

[53:55]

Abject confusion. That's my stage in this moment. Okay. That's a perfectly good stage. It's not one of these three, right? It's not. It's not one of these three because these three, what's the difference between the first phrase and adjunct confusion? What's the difference between that, would you say? And am I going to put words on this? No, I'm just going to say something. What's the difference? I mean, I might say something, but you can say it. What's the difference between the first phrase, which is non-attachment, and adjunct confusion? What's the difference? Well, in abject confusion, I am in a place. Yeah, right. You're holding it. Yeah. If you don't hold it, you're not confusion anymore. But I didn't mean that what I just said put words on something. I just said that. How are you doing now? This is kind of fun.

[54:57]

Did anything loosen up? Oh, I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, Matt. I'm wondering how we can study this case about, how do you study the case about time to get something? Well, I don't know, you know, we often like go up and offer incense and bow to Buddha. Does that ever happen without trying to get anything from it? It's like that. I mean, that's like, you know, worshiping. I don't think worshiping, to me, I wouldn't call it worshiping that I put incense in to get a dollar. No, I put incense in, you give me a dollar. Put another incense, you give me a dollar. I don't call that worship. I call worship basically doing nothing. in a formal way. Like, take a form, like, offer incense and bow, and there's nothing to it.

[56:02]

It's just like a little thread going over vast emptiness. It's like, one time I was, I went to New York to do fundraising for Zen Center, and I was there for a month, and then I came back, and I came into this room and offered incense and bowed, and I just felt like I was drinking cool water Finally, it's been the first time in a month I did nothing. I did something which is totally useless. I didn't get anything from. And although I didn't get anything, I didn't get anything, I did get something. I got a cool drink from getting nothing. Whereas before, I was actually trying to raise money for Zen Center. And that's what I was trying to do. And everything I did was to try to have that happen. And that was fine. But it wasn't really worship. It was actually greed for the sake of Zen Center, trying to get something for the sake of Zen Center, almost like trying to stimulate people to give to Zen Center.

[57:08]

It was like purposeful activity for a goal. That was that. But then this incense offering was a different animal. which I wasn't expecting. I didn't know it was going to be that. I wasn't coming in here to do that nothing. I was just doing the thing which we usually do. And I realized this is quite a different type of activity. So to read a text that way is possible, I guess. But it's easy to get off again and then start feeling like, I've got to go to the text and get something for class tonight. Play. Play. Play. Instead of work. It's play instead of work, yeah. Right. It's like being in a dark room with a cobra. Yeah, it's like being in a dark room with a cobra.

[58:11]

Right. And I read this story about this guy who was practicing shamatha living in a room with, he had two cobras living in his room. And you've got to be careful. where you walk and stuff. But he said, cobras are actually, they don't, humans are not their ordinary food. So they actually don't want to eat humans. And basically, the only thing, the only problem is if they get scared of you. So you just gotta be careful when you move around the room that you don't scare them. But they're not gonna attack you unless they get really scared. This case is like that. I agree. It's like cobras. If you're not careful how you walk around, you can get hurt. But I don't know if the room's dark, though, because you can see the words.

[59:14]

If you can't see the words, then the text isn't so dangerous. The fact that we can read it is what makes it. actually more likely that we're going to get too close to it. Yes, Bernard? I think of the word liberation. Uh-huh. And I didn't spend time with words. I spent a lot of time with reverberation. And that's just that. And how about bondage? Well, I spend a lot of time there.

[60:24]

Bondage through words and liberation through words, both are possible? No. Every once in a while, the liberation comes through. Yes? I'd like to comment on the bondage that I brought up last week. Yes. I didn't like the interpretation of bondage for a bodhisattva because a bodhisattva doesn't need to be bonded. A bodhisattva willingly puts on ignorance. It's another case I don't believe that a bodhisattva is still being enslaved by ideas of self. It seems to me more like Bodhisattva is a person who simply walks over and picks up the handcuffs and puts them on.

[61:31]

So it seems as though their interpretation of that is just being something like a Bodhisattva somehow still doesn't, hasn't escaped, hasn't gone over the other shores. No, I think there's one kind of bondage of bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva puts on bonds, okay? But a bodhisattva putting on bonds, handcuffs or whatever, that's not a bodhisattva's bondage. A bodhisattva's bondage is if they can't, for example... Let's say what a bodhisattva needs to do, a bodhisattva understands that what they need to do is put on handcuffs. And if they can't put the handcuffs on, not being able to put the handcuffs on is the bodhisattva's bondage. The bodhisattva's bondage is not that they're bound, it's that they can't demonstrate their liberation because they're not challenged enough.

[62:38]

So if a bodhisattva needs to put on bondage so it can demonstrate freedom, even in bondage, and they can't get bound, then not being able to be bound is their bondage. Bodhisattvas sometimes are limited in their skill. Bodhisattvas are not all completely skillful from the beginning of being a real bodhisattva. And if their wisdom is this big and their skill is this big, then that's their bondage. Their bondage is that they're not able to express the full scale of their wisdom. And some bodhisattvas have this much wisdom, but they have only this much skill. And the reason why they only have that much skill is because they aren't challenged enough. So a bodhisattva with a well-developed wisdom is in bondage if they can't express that fully because they aren't being given enough opportunities. So this class is nice for bodhisattvas because there's a lot of people in it, a lot of challenges here.

[63:42]

So I don't feel like this class is a situation where bodhisattvas are in bondage. I feel like this is a class where bodhisattvas are not limited in their behavior so much. Because there's lots of manacles and handcuffs in this room. But if somebody had wisdom so great that nobody in this room challenged them, then I would say that would be that person's is that there's not enough suffering and there's not enough confusion and there's not enough attachment in this room for that person to thrive. That's the bodhisattva's bondage. It's not that they're bound like they're unfree. It's that they don't... Because bodhisattvas, like it says in the third case, they can't even save themselves. The bodhisattvas, their inability to be free is not their bondage. Their bondage is their inability to express their love. That's their bondage. So, yes.

[64:47]

So anyway, the thing is like, please express yourself, right? And if you don't have an opportunity, if you can't express yourself, that's your bondage. Not the challenge of all these people, not the manacles and hindrances, but that you don't have the skill to respond to this situation of this class, for example. And, you know, Stuart's got his hand raised, but after that I'd like to see some new paws raised. Yes? Yes, I was just wondering, the question was re-studying, rephrasing, so that we could, you know, quickly form an understanding of them so we could more quickly pick them up. So we could form an attachment to our understanding of it and get it... Yeah, right. You'd like us to be more fluent so we can get more attached.

[65:53]

Yeah, that would be good. Are you fluent? Is everybody fluent enough to get stuck? No? Oh. So... Is anybody... So you're not fluid enough to get stuck? Is that what you're saying, Cedar? So, again, vis-a-vis those, where are you stuck? Do you have a mic? That's where I'm stuck. Do you understand? I'm stuck because I don't have the skill and means to stay up with you all night. Poor guy. I don't have the skill to stay up with her all night. That's where I'm stuck. Is anybody else stuck there too? There's somebody who's not stuck.

[66:57]

Wow. Well, do you want dispensation from the schedule to stay up with Patty all night? Huh? Now that's her bondage. That's her bondage that you won't give her a chance to do this thing that she's willing to do for you. See, that's her bondage. That's the bondage of a bodhisattva. My bondage is not the bodhisattva bondage. I don't know what to call my bondage. You call it just regular old human attachment and fear. And fear about what would happen if I stayed up all night with Sita. Stuart's feeling frustrated. I think he ought to assess the three points himself, and then I think people should respond to that.

[68:01]

Do you agree, Stuart, that that would be... he thinks you're mistaken he expressed himself fully and he's in a state of what what stage are you at now what you're blissed what phrase is that don't bother you about such things Well, this is Nazi now. If I was a bodhisattva, this would not be my bondage. This is my opportunity. What? Do you want me to bother him?

[69:06]

You mean you don't want to be the only one? Stewart's weakness is Beats. You know? It's like Beats are to Stewart as Kryptonite is to Superman. Yes, Linnea? Yeah? Say that again? The bondage of a bodhisattva? Did you say the implication is a bodhisattva's skills can be increased by responding to opportunities?

[70:19]

That's right, that's hard. Yeah, so when they can't respond to an opportunity as a bodhisattva, they're bound, because their job is to respond to opportunities. When they can't, that's their bondage. Being in prison is not bondage to a bodhisattva. Being in prison is an opportunity for bodhisattvas to express prison skills. Okay? So prison is a place they develop. But if they're in a place where there's no prisons, where there's no beings to, like, hassle them, and they can't express their skill, then that's their bondage. Yeah. then they don't have any bondage. No. Their compassion and skill is the same. When their skill and compassion are matching their wisdom, then they don't have any bondage as bodhisattvas.

[71:26]

They're cooking for their present level of development. There's no bondage for them. A bodhisattva with a pound and a half of wisdom needs a pound and a half of skill. If they've got 10 pounds of wisdom, they need 10 pounds of skill. Their bondage is when they're not able to... No, I mean, if you understand something and you don't have an opportunity, if you understand how to help people and you don't have an opportunity to do it, then that's your bondage as a bodhisattva because that's your job. So it's like, you know, it's like a being that has a capacity and it's unfulfilled. And bodhisattva's capacity, their activity is helping people. And when they don't have an opportunity to try, they're bound in their bodhisattva activity.

[72:30]

What's happening? You look kind of like, yeah, a little spaced there. Okay. Okay, good. So do you need to know more, do you need to be more fluent with these three phases? Like Stuart thinks you do. Do you need to be more fluent with them? You do? Did somebody say no? Said no. Do you feel you need to be more fluent? What do you need to know in order to play? I would like just more of an understanding of what the three phrases mean. You would like more of an understanding of the three phrases? Well, what are we going to do with that? What's happening with you there? Are you trying to get something? Okay, so what are we going to do with that, Stuart?

[73:39]

She's trying to get something. And she's using you as an excuse, and Andy's sort of saying blah, blah. So what should we do with this person who's trying to get a better understanding in three phrases? You want to do that? Okay, would you give it to her, Glees? Well, who's going to give it to her? The teacher's going to give it to her. Wait a second. Who is the teacher? Tonight? Now you happy, Vern? I didn't sing. So, I'm kind of stuck because I don't want to give anybody...

[74:40]

something which is going to make them try to get something. Yeah, that's already happened. Okay, so what should I do? Help me. So would somebody, what do you want to know about these three phrases? What do you think she should know about the three phrases? What should she know about the first phrase? Pardon? She can't see the first two. She can't see the first two? Does that help you? Can't see the first two. Why can't she see the first two? Because they're all in the third. And what's exactly? Just what you said. There's only one way to teach the three phrases, and that is to not use the three phrases.

[76:07]

So teach the three phrases. What did you have for dinner? Rice. How was it? That's rice-y. Rice-y is the three phrases. So, do you understand better now? I think so. It's like, why have I tied it in a three? I know, I don't have questions, but... Oh, now, yeah, now you're asking about how come it got three, and besides, do you understand the three now, though? Oh, I'm not going to comment on that. Isn't there sort of a multiple choice that we should be expecting as much? Yeah. Yeah, there's kind of a proliferation of 3s.

[77:14]

We had the original 3, we had the next 3, and then we had a following 3. And then there's other 3s, too, that we haven't talked about yet. So there's a lot of 3s going on, blossoming out of previous 3s. Have you folks been worshipping this text of the three phrases? Yes? A little? Do you have any questions about these three phrases that you'd like to bring up now that you've been worshipping them? No? No questions? Shall we continue to worship these three phrases, or should we try to get these three phrases?

[78:23]

We can split the group up, we can split the class up into two parts. One part is, or three parts. One part would be like the group that's trying to get the three phrases and understand them. The other group could be those people who are worshipping them. And then it could be a third group, which I haven't figured out how to name yet. But I would suggest that the third group also worship, but maybe worship with some added element in it, like Or maybe just have one group that's trying to understand these three phrases better, another group that's trying to just worship without getting anything. Maybe that's enough, those two groups are enough. Oh, and then after worshiping for a while, the worshiping group could be tested to see if they slipped in to try to get anything. And the purple trying to understand something could then move over to worshipping and before or after being tested about whether they got something or whether they're still trying to get something.

[79:28]

And you could choose which group you want to be in. Is that different from what's happening now? I don't know if it's different. It seems a little bit more organized. And then also people could, like, you know, what do you call it, express themselves about which group they wanted to be in. That would be kind of a, you know, it might be an interesting experiment. Would the third group be forgetting what they were worshiping? No. The third group would be forgetting what they were worshiping. I think it's better to have two groups. You can switch groups later, but one group starts just trying to get some understanding. The other group isn't trying to get anything, just worshiping. And then as they're worshiping, we keep checking to see if they're slipping into trying to get something from their worship or trying to use the worship as a kind of surreptitious way of getting something or understanding something.

[80:33]

And then both those groups then could be tested to see how they're doing. Are the people in the sort of trying to get something group ready to switch to worship? Have they got anything? Have they given up trying to get something? And have the worshiping people understood something even though they weren't trying to get anything? We could test them. We could ask them questions like you might ask someone who was trying to understand. Like you could ask the worshiping people questions like, what have you attained? Then they would answer from their worship. And maybe their answers would be, you know, like really the correct answers. Coming from like not trying to get anything. Just pure expressions of perhaps the first, second, and third phrases all at once. But maybe some of the people who are totally into getting something, they might be so into that, they forget about that.

[81:35]

And that they also can express all the phrases in their expressions, in their responses to the question, what phrase did you attain at? But I'm just saying maybe people need some place to exercise themselves. So I guess I'd like to ask, it's not much time left tonight, if anybody feels like they have not exercised themselves, would you be able to make the effort to let me know that, if you feel like you have not exercised yourself, have not expressed yourself? You haven't? [...] Okay, would the people who said that please come out in the middle of the room? Is that all? And everybody else has been exercising themselves and has been, you know, been working?

[82:39]

Is that right? I want to talk about people who feel like they have not. Okay. Now's your chance. Please do it. Worshiping frightens you? What is worshiping? Worshiping over something. Putting something over something else. Okay. Can you change your worship to worship without putting something over something else? Can you do that? Please don't sit down. Oh, okay. Wait a second. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have somebody who just sat down. She said she's not feeling well. Okay. Are you, Elmer? Ready? Okay. She sat down. And now, Pardon? So you dropped out of the haven't expressed yourself group?

[83:42]

Because you expressed yourself? You don't want to be part of a group. But are you expressing yourself now? Are you expressing yourself now? You want to be part of the human group? Not all these other categories. Confusing. Confusing. You don't want to be in this confusion? Is that what you're saying? You don't want to be in these groupie things? Okay, now have you expressed yourself? A little bit? A little? Do you want to finish? Huh? You're too tired? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tired person who's not feeling well. Can this person... When I was a kid, there was a show at Stardock. Can a girl from a small mining town in Colorado find happiness with a sophisticated lord of the British Empire? Can this girl, can this woman, this tired woman, can she, at this time, can she express herself fully?

[84:49]

Is it possible for this person to express herself? She did pretty well. She said, I don't want to be part of this group and that group and that group. She first said, I'm not feeling well, so I've got to sit down. Now she's sat down and she's actually standing up for herself, right? I don't want to be in those groups. I'll be in the human group. I'll be in the human group, but I'm not going to be in any subgroups. Okay? How are you doing? Female is okay. Oh, female, okay. Human and female, but you're not going to be in any other groups tonight. I think so, yeah. But anyway, you express yourself a little bit more. You're welcome. You're welcome. See, it's possible. Now, how about you? Wait a second. One second. Did you get over that worshipping problem? Probably. Yeah. It is possible to worship something without putting anything up above you.

[85:49]

Like you can worship a little kid. I have this grandson, you know. Very risky. Yeah, it is risky. Dancing on the edge of a cliff. Where do you live? Are you on the edge of a cliff? Are you on the edge of a cliff? And would you like to dance? It is? You backed away. You're now in the middle of a plateau, and the altitude is dropping down lower and lower. Maybe. I don't know about the images that you're offering. You said the cliff. You feel better and better? What does that mean, better and better? Pleasure. Pleasure? Okay, great. A little bit of shine that comes with it. Yeah, so are you worshiping? I don't know. Okay, well, it's 9 o'clock now, so if you want to talk to me, Linda, I can talk to you now.

[86:55]

Well, right now, yeah, we can talk right now, or you just want to postpone it a little bit. Elmer, and et cetera, thanks for coming up. I look forward to you getting another chance, Elmer, to fully express yourself. Hmm? What? I would stay in the group. You would stay in the group, yeah, but other people would have to go. But I think you'd have to do it. Anyway, I feel kind of like, I just want to express a fear I have, is that this koan is going to get so difficult. that some of us, and I might be one of them, will not come to class anymore. Because we don't want to make an effort to come into a situation where we're not going to get anything and et cetera is going to happen.

[88:06]

Why go all the way to Green Gulch to not get anything? Why come to Green Gulch to suffer with this going on? Because I don't think we can leave this go on until, I don't know, probably ever.

[88:24]

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