Call forth as much as you can of love, of respect, and of faith. Remove the obstructing defilements and clear away all your taints. Listen to the perfect wisdom of the gentle Buddhas. Talk for the wheel of the world, for heroic spirits intended. Good morning, everybody. Is anybody ready with their memorization? You are? Well, we'll see. Good, great. Okay. Well, give it a try. You can give me a hint here. I've had it and I haven't had it, so we'll see how it goes. Okay. I think that the second word is a misprint. I think it's Maitreya on the one side. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So Maitreya on the one side, we have on the part of a Bodhisattva, their meritorious work, which is founded on, let's see, am I getting this mixed up, which is founded on the dedication, is that right?

[01:15]

Her rejoicing? Oh yes, his rejoicing at the merit of all or something. And his dedication of that merit to the utmost enlightenment of all beings. On the other side there is, on the part of all beings, the meritorious work, which is founded in giving, morality, and meditational development. Among these, the meritorious work of a bodhisattva, which is founded in jubilation and dedication, is declared to be the best, the most sublime, the highest, the most supreme. There is none above it, unequaled and equaling the unequaled.

[02:18]

Great, good work. What was Gordon's translation? You can read it. Yeah, I didn't memorize his. All beings have, number one, all beings have meritorious work founded on giving, morality, meditational development. Two, Bodhisattvas also have meritorious work founded on rejoicing at merit of others, dedication of that merit to enlightenment of all beings. And then he says, then two A and B are the best beyond comparison. That's the short version. But I realized there was something that started to sink in. You didn't like the logic of it? Sounds like the logic of the way it was laid out partly. Yeah, but the meaning of it, the way, I'm not quite sure if the meaning of it, if something started to sink in even without the meaning being clear in the process of memorizing, and I wondered if other people had that experience.

[03:25]

It's as if I discovered that I live that way, in a way, like that's somehow a part of my commitment, and I am aware of it occasionally, to giving and morality and meditational development, that that somehow is a part of my life that is there, and it uncovered it in this little saying. If you keep saying, even now that you've memorized it, if you keep sort of just saying it over, That's actually the stuff we're going to cover in the last class, the dedication and jubilation class. Probably the last class. So, you know, by then you'll, maybe you'll have a lot to say about it. Yeah. Well, it was quite an experience memorizing that. Does anybody else want to do theirs? Does anyone else memorize theirs? Okay. But keep trying, I hope people are trying. It's really, even if you don't do it, I think it's really valuable just if you get a couple sentences rattling around in your head.

[04:29]

You want to trade with a shorter one? Or you want to see how far you get? Yeah. Okay, let's see. Because this just, it was so exactly what I needed to hear. Let's see if I can... Sabuti says, I do not look for a Bodhisattva who makes the difficult pilgrimage. Bodhisattva. Pretty strong there. Because one who generates the perception of difficulties is unable to work the wheel of countless beings. On the contrary, she forms the notion of ease. She forms the notion that all beings, whether men or women, are her children and parents. Now that's how far I got. That's pretty good. That's really good. That's a great one. Then I hit some stumbling blocks with the language, but then when I was reading it again tonight, trying to memorize it, but not quite, it really, it kept on... And thus she goes on the pilgrimage of a Bodhisattva.

[05:43]

And then the Nixons is really great. Give me the first... of Bodhisattva should therefore identify all living, no, all beings with her parents and children, even with her own self, like this, just as I wish to be freed from countless, from all, from all sufferings, so all beings wish to be freed from all sufferings. I ought not to desert these beings. I ought to relieve them. Set them free. And I should not produce towards them a thought of hate, even though I'd be dismembered a hundred times.

[06:51]

Thus, a bodhisattva. Somebody should lift up her heart. Oh, we missed a sentence that says, earlier on, like, thus she goes on the pilgrimage of a bodhisattva. No, we did that, yeah. Does she, okay, lift up her heart? Yeah. It is thus that a bodhisattva should lift up her heart. When she dwells as one whose heart is such, then she will neither course nor dwell as one who perceives difficulties. Could you read that last? Yeah. Actually, let me just go ahead. And I should not produce towards them a thought of hate, even though I be dismembered a hundred times. It is thus that a bodhisattva should lift up her heart. When she dwells as one whose heart is such, then she will neither course nor dwell as one who perceives difficulties.

[08:00]

That's really good. This is a really good one. Right. But I don't think it means, I mean, you know, that you fail because you perceive difficulties. It's like you have to kind of get in yourself to the person who doesn't perceive them, past the person who does, kind of. It doesn't mean like you have to get rid of the aunt who perceives them and then, you know, or something. I think you kind of have to penetrate that somehow. That's a nice penetrating through there. Would you comment on the sentence because one who has generated a perception of difficulties is unable to work the wheel of countless means. What page is that? That's the not parable. Page 93. Oh, it's up towards the need to keep these things. The 93. Oh, what do you think of it? Oh, just... well, I think... You think you could work the Wheel of Counting, even if you did think that things were really difficult?

[09:11]

No, this is all beyond me. I don't think... Well, it's all beyond all of us, so you get to say what you think. What do I make of that? Being willing to say something foolish or try, because one who has generated a perception of difficulties I suppose because, just in common sense language, with your self-conscious you stumble about, but if you don't see, if you're not aware of the problem, you can be part of it. I don't know. Huh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking more like you'd get disheartened too easily. Perception. There aren't a perception of difficulties. There are no, really no difficulties. That's how I can see it. Right. Since there aren't any, if you perceive them, that's out of ignorance. And how could you then help others?

[10:11]

But I tend to interpret things in ways that I'm not convinced. That sounded right to me. That sounded good to me. That's what you feel is being. Is this sort of like a Rorschach test? Well, it's tricky. In a way, it is sort of like a Rorschach test because, I mean, what little I know about Rorschach tests, you're constantly, you're taking these words and you're projecting some, from the shape of them you're projecting something of yourself on them. But you're being asked constantly also to see through it. You know, to see that at the same time it's not what you're projecting on it. You know, it calls that up in you and yet it's also not that.

[11:15]

You know, this inkblot you know, is not a cloud or a bird or my mother. Although it, you know, it brings that up for me. But it's also, it's also empty. It has no, no identity like that. So I think that's a good analogy. I think, right, so it says more about you. What you see in it says as much about you as about perfect wisdom. I mean, that that's kind of like what it is. It's a time that you reveal yourself. So Alan and I had found, when we finally got around to talking to each other, that we both... Which is not easy. We both had kind of been thinking about some Zen, I had been thinking about some Zen stories and kind of had an urge to frame this text in a kind of a Zen, in our tradition, or kind of a Zen text, or do our best to do that. So should I go ahead?

[12:19]

So the first thing that I was thinking about almost right after the class or the next morning or something I just popped into my mind is that most people have probably heard that famous line from Dogen where he says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be enlightened by all beings. And I felt that in some ways this book was like I think it's definitely directed towards people who are studying themselves. And I don't think we can get much use of it if we're not engaged intensely in that kind of study. But it's kind of like, well, you know, what if you don't forget yourself? What if you study yourself but you kind of get stuck there and you forget to forget yourself? Or, you know, what if all beings come forward to actualize you and you say, No, I'm busy studying myself, you know, so it's kind of, to me, I kept getting this image of this kind of dogged study where you kind of, um, you know, lost the thing where you're, you know, like, where yourself is actually this huge, vast, hi, what's up?

[13:30]

Sylvie. Hi. What's up, Sylvie? Okay, remember the deal though? You've got to be quiet and not talk and not play if we're in here, right? Yeah. It's just this sentence. Thanks, Emily. Do you want to just stay over here? What happened? Did the house get locked or unlocked? I don't know. So? I don't know. Well, I'm uncomfortable. I think one of the daughters is coming to realize herself. Yeah. Well, what do you think? Let me go while you're leading this discussion. Okay. I just don't want that. It's fine with me for Emily to stay here or stay in the house whenever she wants. Yeah, wherever you want to be. But I don't want the house to be left unlocked if no one's over there. No, I was thinking of safety, I was thinking of loneliness.

[14:37]

Right, yeah. So, you know, when you study yourself, I think my sense is the idea is you sincerely open yourself to what's actually there. And you keep trying to drop your idea of what studying the self is, and you keep trying to open yourself to what's actually there. what's actually there is vast, thing that's actually your everything, you know. And I think that this book is sort of directed towards someone who kind of gets stuck there somewhere, doesn't quite get to the point. Or maybe they never get stuck, but that's just where they are, you know, where they see that they can't see it, or they can't grasp it. And the other story that I was thinking of is this, I don't know if you've heard this, have you heard the story of Don't Be Suspicious of a True Dragon?

[15:37]

It's taken from a Chinese folktale or story or something about a guy who was really into dragons, like he just loved dragons and he collected all kind of obj-dar, you know, dragons and paintings of dragons and statues of dragons. And he was just this incredible fan of dragons. And one day, a dragon saw that this was happening and said, oh, you know, he's so into dragons, he'd love to have me come visit him. So he somehow descends upon this person's house. And the guy is just, of course, you can imagine, he sees this real dragon, and he freaks out completely. And he runs out of the house. And so, I read this from Suzuki Roshi, but I think it's Dogen. It says, don't be suspicious of the true dragon. But he also says that you can only be into the paintings and the statues.

[16:45]

When we study ourself, we're only seeing these marks and these signs and these skandhas. It's not like we're seeing something else. But somehow, between the lines, it's revealed something. And, you know, we have to be open to that, too. So, that's about all I had on my mind. And Alan had some related things. Well, I just wanted to find that. Here, let's see if I can... Let's see if the true dragon... But I think, let me just add, say again, I think I felt a little uneasy after the last class because I felt like if you weren't intensely engaged in studying yourself or the part of me that isn't, this is kind of just an excuse or it gives you or something, I had this feeling, you know, just like, oh, it's all empty, you know, or something, and so I don't really need to look at it or something.

[17:46]

I didn't get that feeling from anybody in here, but I just felt like, you know, the only way to make this text really work and come alive is for us to be engaged in, you know, in something that we might be clinging to, you know, we might be stuck somewhere because we're intensely, we're so intensely studying it. We're so intensely looking at ourselves that we might be kind of caught, or we might, you know, be stuck somewhere. I had something like that experience today. I brought this book up to the top of Mount Camelot's highest within these chapters. I read some of it up at this picnic table at the top of East Peak, and there were some bicyclists, and there's this huge, hairy, practically war going on between the bikes, the guys who ride the bikes on the trail, which is illegal, and the hikers. And so I've gotten into, you know, really violent fits with bicycle riders illegally riding on trails before, and at the top of the mountain,

[18:54]

there were two guys telling another guy which trail to go down to get to the road he wanted to go. And I know that trail, and I've run into bikers coming up that trail. And I've had, you know, extremely unpleasant, nasty things to say to them. And I thought, God, I wish I had, all I've got is a $5 bill. I don't have any change for the phone. It's not really an emergency. I'm not going to dial 111. And I was sitting here at the same time holding in my mind the fact that I've just read some of these chapters and thinking about how to handle what in the past has been really a very upsetting experience. And it was very funny. It wasn't funny, it was just strange that I noticed as I was thinking about it. and realizing that I didn't have the means to deal with it at that point, I would have called the ranger station or something and say, hey, go meet this guy at this particular place, you know, this is what he's wearing and all that.

[19:57]

And I just had to let it go, you know, and it wasn't upset, it wasn't terribly upsetting. It has been, you know, like I had to realize that my health wasn't going to survive if I let myself get that upset about this sort of thing. But that mountain was real special to me and I started thinking about wanting other people to behave well and wanting to behave well myself. And how you just don't have control over all of that. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you have some strategy and some wise things you can do and sometimes you don't. And it was, in somehow reading these chapters, have an input into that so I could just not cling to it. It was very helpful. That's great. But I don't usually admit that or understand that I don't have any control.

[21:06]

I think I'm supposed to be in charge of the world. Well, Barker's wouldn't bother me, but I become, I am one of these people, of course, who's in the perception of difficulties. Me too. Well, yeah, I think that we all are. This is what I was going to pick up from here. Quite a wonderful commentary in Trevor Leggett's book, Second Zen Reader. Actually, I used this a lot when I was teaching the Heart Sutra. This is a commentary on the Heart Sutra, and I went back to it because

[22:10]

But I was looking through this. Because there is no commentary on the Perception of Wisdom. We checked it out. I called Rabbin and everything. This Prajnaparamita teaches us the method of training by which we can see emptiness in each one of the steps which, whatever our attitude towards life, we are forced to make. At present we keep doing the same things over and over again in an endless round of mundane good and bad built up on ego illusion. We may happen to do good, we may happen to do evil. This is all part of the round. Against our will anger rises. To discover in the very midst of it the world of light is the meaning of the phrase, the passions are the bodhi. Profundity means technically to penetrate to the real form of the illusion, the truth and all the lies.

[23:17]

And when the true character of the self is realized in the religious sense, that is the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, a fire to negate everything. The profound Prajnaparamita negates self. In Zen, negation means to drop, to throw away, to throw all away. By this power of renouncing, the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, we complete a training which carries us across to nirvana. Master Dogen says, just discard and forget body and mind and throw them into the house of the Buddha. The important thing is to see right through to the reality of the illusory self. This is why body and mind are to be discarded and forgotten. The Zen way of meditation is renouncing. Renouncing itself has to be renounced, and so it is no renouncing. Religion is not something imposed. The effort to throw off body and mind has to be renounced.

[24:22]

and so it is no renouncing. Not renouncing, and yet not without renouncing, this is the real renouncing. It is not something done at the instance of another. And then a little later, this throws a little different light on the same thing. In the Discourses at A.H.U. Temple, Zen Master Dogen says, when the clay is plentiful, the Buddha is big. By clay, he means the raw passions, the mental operations in the mind within us which seethe and rage unbridled. These are the clay. And the more abundant it is, the greater the Buddha into which it becomes molded. The stronger the force of attachment, the greater the Buddha which is made. Do you ever get angry? No, I'm never angry. Such people have nothing to them. When the time of anger comes, when the whole body is ablaze with it, then it is that the form of the Buddha must be seen.

[25:30]

By coming to the taste of emptiness in the midst of the illusion of five skandhas, we grasp the real meaning of what emptiness is. And so in the Vimalakirti Sutra, which is another It's a little later than the perfection of wisdom, but it's very related to it. It's very much about the pathway of the bodhisattva and non-attachment. In the Vimalakirti Sutra is the phrase, in the soil of the high meadows the lotus never grows. In base slime and mire does the lotus grow, which is kind of the same thing. So, This is a way of just throwing another light in maybe a little plainer language, throwing a light on some of what we were reading last week and what we're going to study and talk about more as these weeks go on.

[26:36]

But it's really a challenge. when the clay is plentiful, the Buddha is big. It's very encouraging, you know, but some of us who worked in clay in Rebecca's class, the clay was quite plentiful and the Buddhas were very misshapen. So I don't know, does that call up anything for anyone? Yes. After our last class, my sister came into town. And I feel pressured, you know, I was feeling pressured, and I got really upset with my husband for various reasons, which were all really sort of ridiculous. And I ended up, and I have not done this in years, I ended up throwing three pots of food at him. Full? One was full. Ah, that's good.

[27:41]

And I felt so much better. I don't understand this. I've just come out of this class and here I am, just blowing up. And I just felt like the class had an influence on me. And also I taught. I don't know exactly how that fits in. But I came out of it feeling Gordon wasn't upset, particularly. He was fine with it. And I just felt... I don't know if I can talk about how I felt, but it was not a bad thing that happened. It's like fully expressing yourself somehow? Yeah. It's as if I had no control at all. Very interesting. And he's, you know, he's not one to hold a grudge.

[28:43]

I mean, he's certainly not with me, and it's fine. Is the food tasting good? I'm still cleaning up some of the stuff. That's good. My sister scrubbed the floor, so it all worked out. You're saying it's good. Well, I guess the feeling that she had to clean up after it, somehow, in some very crockery way, sounds good to me. There was something, some cleaning up that happened, and it was, it wasn't, and there was also a sense of looking at this from another perspective, rather than this narrow, the way you're supposed to behave, and what's appropriate, and what's supposed to be controlling. And I think that when I hear that there's this idea of in the midst of the anger, having an experience of enlightenment, that's not what I would suggest as a way to go about doing it.

[29:44]

But there was some aspect of that that was true for me. It wasn't where you were expecting to look for it, exactly. Well, I think in a way you made a different kind of mess. You know, you made a mess with pots and food instead of a mess with people. Yeah, it was pretty clean with the people. That's cleaner. You know, I just said what was on my mind. I just said exactly what was happening. And it was clean. It was a mess, too. It was sort of fun, in a way. But, you know, I don't want to go into the psychology. Right. I mean, if you did it a lot, you know, that would be something else. No, and I don't foresee doing that again. I mean, it was just... What plans do you have now? About what?

[30:50]

He's going to move across the room. Yeah, right. Anyone else want to comment or say anything? You know, when you were talking about studying the self, it brought to mind the thought that studying the self is one thing, but until I heal myself, then I'm not free in studying and healing ourselves. two very different things. It's like healing is you let something go, you let go of it, you know? It has a very, for me, a very spiritual aspect to it. But you can't let it go until you really see it though, right?

[31:55]

Isn't that part of it? I'm sure. So I think that's the kind of studying he's talking about, is when you really see it, it goes away by itself, or you can let it go. Let me read this to you again, what the words are actually. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So, it is about letting go. And it's gotten to, in many different ways, And that's some of what maybe we can read together. We had this section, this sort of couple sections actually, that we wanted to read together and talk about.

[32:57]

Now, are we going to read them in unison or just read them out loud? I think so. I think, what so? Yeah? It's going to be quite a while. It's going to be a while. Because you didn't play very long with Emily. Only about 20 minutes. You could go back and watch a movie with her or something and then I'll come home soon. No? Emily, you can hang out in this room with us if you want to. There's art books and stuff to look at over here if you're interested. There's some papers, pens, draw pictures. So, should we go around with this? What page were we on? We were on page 90. She's in the kitchen. What do you mean, go around? Well, I just think that people will hear it better if it's not read aloud.

[34:04]

Altogether, right. So when you say go around, you mean go around the room? Different people can read it, yeah. Okay, so we're going to do a little section that's in the center of page 90, starting out with the Lord. Su, do you want to start? The Lord. Here the bodhisattva, the great being, thinks thus. Countless beings should I lead to nirvana, and yet there are none who lead to nirvana, or who should be led to it. However many beings he may lead to nirvana, Yet there is not any being that has been led to nirvana, nor that has led others to it. For such is the true nature of dharmas, seeing that their nature is illusory. Just as if Sabuti, a clever magician or magician's apprentice, were to conjure up at the crossroads a great crowd of people and then make them vanish again. What do you think, Sabuti?

[35:07]

Was anyone killed by anyone or murdered? or destroyed, or made to vanish? Do you want me to read from it? Why don't you be Sabuti? Howard? Next to read, did you say? No, just read, you be Sabuti. Why don't you read that last sentence? What do you think, Sabuti? What do you think, Sabuti? Was anyone killed by anyone, or murdered, or destroyed, or made to vanish? No, indeed is the word. Even so, a bodhisattva, a great being, leads countless beings to nirvana, and yet there is not any being that has been led to nirvana, nor that has led others to it. To hear this exposition without fear, that is the great thing which entitles the bodhisattva to be known as armed with the great armor. Okay? Good. And then... We have to do something.

[36:07]

In here? What do you think of that? You and Emily go over there like near that door and color? Yeah. So you're still the same room? Where's the coloring stuff? In there. Huh? Keep it in here. Well, I don't. God, I must have wasted five dollars with the food. Did you see any paper in here, Alvin? No. She can have some of this lime. Yeah, this will work. This is so cute. Yeah, do we have any more cardboard pieces? That might work for Emily. Here's some more. There's big paper.

[37:18]

All right. Way to go. And they all have sticks. David's on it. Can we all do that too? Okay, now we're going to flip ahead to page 98. Remember, we're going to read the whole picking of saints in this, aren't we? Yeah. So Ross, Thereupon the thought came to some of the gods in that assembly, what the fairies talk Subuddhi, here explores, demonstrates, and teaches that is remoter than the remote, subtler than the subtle, deeper than the deep.

[38:45]

Subuddhi read their thoughts and said, no one can attain any of the fruits of the holy life or keep it from the stream-winner's fruit to full enlightenment unless he patiently accepts this elusiveness of the Dharma. Then there's God's thought. What should one wish those to be like who are worthy to listen to the doctrine from the holy subhuti? Subhuti read their thoughts and said those who are the doctrine from me one should Doctrine for me one should wish to be like an illusory magical creation For they will neither hear my words nor experience the facts which they express God's illusion, are they not just an illusion? Subhuti, like a magical illusion Gods, a fully enlightened Buddha also, you say, is like a magical illusion, is like a dream?

[40:16]

Buddhahood also, you say, is like a magical illusion, is like a dream? Subhuti, even nirvana, I say, is like a magical illusion, is like a dream? How much more so anything else? Gods, even nirvana, holy Subhuti, you say, is like an illusion, is like a dream? Subhuti, Even if perchance there could be anything more distinguished, that too, I would say, is like an illusion, like a dream. For not two different things are illusion and nirvana, are dreams and nirvana. Okay, that's a good place to stop. So we thought those two pieces kind of went together. Any thoughts?

[41:18]

Oh, yes. But they're directed to the whole edifice of Buddhism, not just to this, but this is even more pointed. But it's such a basic thought. It's such a basic, imponderable thought, much as a child might have, I guess. If there is a dream, and if the dream is repetitive especially, there has to be something constant that is doing. There has to be a dreamer, it seems to me, to wake up. And if the dreamer is also an illusion, It's kind of like going back when I used to lie in bed when I was five years old and trying to imagine infinite space or something. I can't do it. I can't take this on.

[42:21]

It's too much. We've built this whole nebulous, illusory speculation. and never penetrating beyond it to solidity or that which recognizes that it's elusive, that which does the dreaming. I don't find it helpful in a way. It's intriguing. But I don't know what to make of it. I wonder what other people feel about that. Well, it's a tough one, and I guess the way I came up at it was from that phrase in the little thing I memorized about

[43:31]

meritorious work founded on giving, on morality, and on meditational development, and combine that with what's being said on page 90, that there is no nirvana, it's all an illusion and a dream, and the bodhisattvas lead people to nirvana, but there's not nirvana, and there's not people, it's all illusion. And when you face that, I think we've talked about that last week, the fear of that, there's just tremendous fear. And I got a sense of that when I thought about what my husband does for a living, which is work for an analytical laboratory, an environmental analytical laboratory. And he was complaining about... I'm not sure if he was complaining, but he was commenting on the fact that the women gossip in the halls and the men talk about work in the halls. And it hit me, this passage, that if what you're doing in your job, which is trying to tell nuclear power plants or something or oil refineries that they're polluting or they're not polluting, that it doesn't make any difference.

[44:53]

It doesn't make any difference. People are still going to keep consuming. We're still going to have the demand for all this power. Anyway, I just started to put it together that we have to hold at the same time that we make absolutely no difference, that it's all illusion, and there's no difference, and that we do make a difference at the same time. Anyway, that's where I took it. If that was the response to my inquiry, No, no. I probably wasn't listening very clearly. That's usually the case. But you're not going to throw a plate of food? No, I wouldn't throw a plate. I don't know. We could talk about that. Here's the place where maybe it would be nice to know the Sanskrit, because is dream being used pejoratively?

[45:57]

I happen to think dreams are wonderful. And when you think of who is the dreamer, It starts to shake loose the idea of who you are. If you start to think of it, things disintegrate. There's the dream, and there's the dreamer, and then there's me, or the person who remembers the dream in the morning. I don't take it as pejorative. I don't know how other people see it. Well, in the sense that when you're dreaming, you think it seems real, and then when you wake up, you realize.

[47:04]

I don't think it's pejorative, but it is saying that things aren't what you think they are. So let's don't worry about, I mean let's don't all second guess ourselves about whether things are unrelated or not. Well, if you take your life as a magical illusion or as a dream, you have great freedom.

[48:11]

Yes. You have great freedom to create it in almost any direction. It's a freedom that we don't feel so much in our so-called waking life. The thrust of this is that actually we have that freedom all the time. That's what's revolutionary about this. Now, we have all of our associations with dream. You're bringing the association of the cogency and power of it And Howard is thinking about who's doing the dreaming. I mean, it's a very, you know, it reminds me of a Chinese philosopher who dreamed he was a butterfly, dreaming that he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly.

[49:26]

And that was an idea that was very really entrancing to me about 25 years ago. But each of us here, we're each of us coming to think about, well, what's our feeling towards a dream or towards illusion? And all of these feelings are, we may not completely agree about them. because they're just actually just rising at the moment according to the conditions that we bring to the discussion. So it's interesting in that respect to me. But I think that there is this underlying feeling of this freedom to create, to create our lives and to transform them. And yet there's also, as As Su was saying, the sentence that kind of leaps out to me on page 90, you know, you're reading, it's just as if Subuddhi, a clever magician or a magician's apprentice, were to contract the crossroads, a great crowd of people, and make them vanish again.

[50:41]

It seems fairly harmless. What do you think, Subuddhi? Was anyone killed by anyone or murdered or destroyed or made to vanish? No, my mind wouldn't work in that. necessarily in that direction, thinking about that illusion. Even so, a bodhisattva, a great being, leads countless beings to nirvana, and yet there is not any being that has been led to nirvana, nor that has led others to it. To hear this exposition without fear, that is the great thing which entitles the bodhisattva to be known as armed with the great armor. It's like, well, wait a second, What's so great about it? Yeah, first of all, what's this fear? I haven't been afraid through that passage. What's such a great thing about that? And what is this great armor? Armor? This is like a whole other... We've been talking about dreams, and now we're talking about... Armor is a very...

[51:48]

tends to cause very solid images in my mind, you know, very concrete. I'm curious what you think about that. Where is this fear? What's this fear that grows out of this This magician. I'm glad you brought that up because I don't feel afraid when I read this either and I'm wondering what's going on. I mean, why am I not conscious of any fear here? Where is this fear? You're entitled to be known as a Bodhisattva who's armed with the right arm again. No, I don't think so.

[52:53]

Isn't this fear about taking away our basic belief here, what we're doing here, about there's no awakening, there's no getting there, there's no promised land? No. I'm afraid of that. And what the hell am I doing? I get fear with that thought, and I'm afraid with that thought. But we're just doing this, and everything is just a big myth. There's nothing to stand on. There's no point to anything. That's pretty terrifying to me. I've lived with that for years. It's just a disappointment. Yeah, and but can you keep leading beings to nirvana? I mean, you know, I think that's the key. I mean, there's a grasping to that, that leading to nirvana.

[54:01]

Yeah, we don't usually think of doing that anyway, but can we keep up the practice, you know, when we see that it's just all as soon as you do it, it sort of dissolves into emptiness or you see that you didn't really know whether what you did was good you'll never know whether what you did had any good benefit or or you know you never will see the causes to the end and and you know can you keep up can you keep it up do the practice for no reason For me, it's no pain, no loss. It's not... I don't get the fear. Yeah, you don't have to. There's a koan about this that I really like for some reason.

[55:41]

It just always makes me laugh. It's the one where Some monk asks another, asks his teacher, I think, what do you say to someone who says there's no solid, not only is there no something, I can't remember the exact language, no solid ground, there's also nothing to stand on. What is, I think it's... So then he says, oh, well, what I do is I wait until this person was kind of, you know, unsuspecting, and I, you know, startle him suddenly, and I say, not only is there no solid ground, but there's nothing to stand on.

[56:42]

And the other one says, oh, good, good. I think it's in the Moomakon. I don't remember that one either. But there is a direction throughout all this. I mean, what you suggested about the dissolution of the self, and it's true, the self, we all know how it's constructed from all the things that happened to us through parenting and our general environment, one to another. And it is a lovely idea that it dissolves and it's rearranged and takes a different shape, and it's fluid. And that is frightening. But where you seem to be headed for, and I talk about it in the literature, is that when you are free, when you act out of freedom from arbitrary restraints of conditioning, you behave like a decent human being.

[57:51]

That's a very lovely idea. And that's in Buddhism. Yeah. So then you don't need the precepts because your very life is an exercise of the precepts. You're not aware of them any longer. Well, the precepts are inherent. That's right. But until we arrive, we need protection from the fear of what happens to us when we can't rely any longer on what we grasp at to protect us. Then we need to precepts sort of an interim until they... all of this is an interim. You know that's... But the interim maybe never comes to an end. Right. I mean this is on page, if you look on page 97, Sabuddhi is talking to Chakra, the king of the gods. Now, Kausika, listen and attend well.

[58:55]

I will teach you how a bodhisattva should stand in perfect wisdom. Through standing in emptiness should he stand in perfect wisdom. Armed with the great armor, the bodhisattva should so develop that he does not take a stand on any of these, not on form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness, nascandas, not on eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, not on forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, mind objects, not on eye consciousness, etc. the dharmas of the dhatus or the ayatanas is another system, until we come to not to mind consciousness, etc., until we come to not the elements, that is, earth, water, fire, wind, ether consciousness, not on the pillars of mindfulness, right efforts, roads to psychic power, faculties, powers, limbs of enlightenment, limbs of the path, not on the fruits of the stream-winner, once-returner, never-returner, or arhatship,

[59:59]

not on pratyekabuddhahood nor on buddhahood. He should not take a stand on the idea that this is form, this is feeling, etc. to this is buddhahood. And then, he should not take a stand on the ideas that form, etc. is permanent or impermanent, that form is ease or ill, that form is the self or not the self, that form is lovely or repulsive, that form is empty or apprehended as something. So here, These are all, and that would include the precepts, these are all Buddhist concepts. These are the elements of Buddhist psychology. And as I was saying last week, this perfection of wisdom is a case to sort of rectify the course of the Abhidhammas, you know, the people who were reducing one's being to these psychological elements.

[61:03]

But these are also all the things that we study. You know, I don't know, many of us who've been here a while, we've heard Mel lecture about the factors of enlightenment or the pillars of mindfulness. You know, I lectured about the path last week These are all the basic things that we talk about. And so they're all in the same way as you were identifying the precepts, they're all... I can't remember, I can't think of the word, but it's like... Well, they're all conditioned, and they're all just, they're useful up to a point. But they're just concepts.

[62:08]

The more you invest in them as something concrete, you can try to make them something concrete, which is our natural tendency. But if we do, then we're you know, we're just twisting around something that's useful, you know, into making it something that will, uh, kind of, uh, well, it'll sort of come up on us like yesterday's lunch or something. Sit it in your stomach, you know, you'll taste it again and it won't be nearly as good. Oh, wow. Oh, there she is. Oh, that's great. You want to have the boot up? This looks like the color your face was when you had that makeup on today.

[63:14]

Anybody who hasn't said anything want a chance to break in? Linda or Peg? old sessions. We may, after tonight. Both of our daughters may be here. I guess I keep thinking that this means you shouldn't think. I mean, I know that's not what it means. Right. But when you go through all this negation, it sounds like you should just have a blank mind. And I know that's not what it means. I think that's one of the things you want to, it's good to worry about. You know, I think, you know, well, what does it feel like? Is there a different kind of space created when you're, like, whatever, walking on Mount Tam or whatever, and when you can say, oh, now I'm conjuring up anger, now I'm conjuring up this, you know.

[64:20]

kind of admit that you're conjuring it without actually stopping trying to stop yourself from conjuring it or you know to actually look at what it is and see it see and you know oh I really think this is real oh this seems really real to me you know and not try to stop yourself from thinking it's real or try to talk yourself into or say this isn't really real but but to just there's a is there a little space there maybe I think that space comes from practice. You know, here's the thought, let it go. Here's the thought, let it go. Here's the thought about that thought, you know, and just let it go. I think that takes practice. I like that the thinking of thoughts is beautiful. They're full of something, but you're happy to let it go. I think some of them are clean. So I don't feel like they're saying you shouldn't do this magical illusion act, or you shouldn't conjure this up, but just when it drops away, it's not going to feel like anything's gone.

[65:31]

You know, whenever you have an experience of self and other, the separation between self and other, or the body and mind or whatever dropping away, it sounds like it's going to feel like something that was really there and then it's gone, but actually it's just going to be kind of like waking up from a dream. Oh, I thought that was real, and now I realize it never was, you know. But... But it was real, so that to me is... The dream was real, it was your... It came from the depth of your own self, much more real than maybe some of your waking experiences, and yet it was a dream. Maybe that's what the text is trying to say, that at the same time is very real and very Right, and it's so important that you still want to leave these beings that aren't really there. As long as you see a being, you better take them to Nirvana. As long as there's another being there, you better identify it with yourself and want it to become fully enlightened.

[66:40]

So it's real. As long as it's real. As long as you think you can kill somebody, don't. Would you care to comment on two obviously vastly different interpretations of emptiness, because they're just polar, but on the one hand the schizophrenic, or a person who is severely disconnected, disassociated, where, in fact, the world, things, objects, and self do not feel real at all. That's very scary. That's probably what brings a lot of people to sitting. And then, And on the other hand, just intuitively, I think we recognize that the teachings and the fruits of our labors, even though we're not attaining them, we're not... No, now we're trying to get the party line.

[68:10]

The fruits of our labors are to recognize with a specific, what's the word? Specificity? Yes. The actual presence should take into account completely and clearly and with great awareness that which is around us, this insight, whatever it is, to be present. And yet that dissolves in what we're now reading about, which seems to, in some circular fashion, go back to where this person is who is floating around in the ether and doesn't quite know what's going on and is very frightened because there are no moorings.

[69:15]

What I said was terribly obscure, but I'd have to sit down and ponder, but maybe there's something there you could comment on. On the Facebook, there seems to be something similar, but obviously it's a grotesque. One is a grotesque parody of the other. Is that very confusing? No. I don't think, well, I mean, I don't have vast Other people here probably have more experience with schizophrenics, but from my limited experience, I think they dwell in a lot of fear. And I can't think of any that I've met who seem quite happy. Oh no, it's a given that it's a terrifying state.

[70:23]

I think this is too obscure. I'm not sure about this, but I feel like it gets back to, similarly, you have to have a self to forget yourself. And if you don't have a self, or you don't know where the line is, if you're not drawing a line, then the teaching for you is not to forget. Even though the self is illusory. You don't need to see that right now. Buddhism is just what's helpful. So it's not Buddhism if it's not helpful. It's not Buddhism to tell somebody to forget their self if they've already had their self hammered into non-existence by external causes or whatever. Yeah, I mean, that's all I can think of to say. I don't feel like I have very much experience with that around me.

[71:46]

The idea of the schizophrenic, though, it brought up some thoughts for me. And also what, I'm sorry, What's your name? Mike. Mike. What Mike said about dreams, you know, living in dreams 50% of the time, or accepting dreams. For me, dreams have always been scary, out of control kinds of experiences, and not where I want to live. And the idea of being locked into dreams is like my recurring nightmare. the idea that there could be freedom in that. I think Alan said something about there's a freedom, oh, in a dream to transform the lives. And if what we live in is a dream and we can't get too hooked into that because, as you say, it wouldn't be helpful, then you can look at the way life is or the way you perceive life as your self-expression, as an expression of some self or an expression of something.

[72:55]

that it's a creation that you have. Your perception of life is the way you've created it. It's just that you're creating your own frame at night. You, in some sense, create your own waking experience throughout the day. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about Haley's question. This is... This is an oversimplification, but it's a comment. Consider, for example, a madman. He does not know he is mad. When he realizes it is madness, soon he recovers. These days there is an increase of madness which affirms its own sanity. To be saying one is sane is already madness. He who says, I am mad, is indeed the real man. And then he gives a little story about that. And then he goes on at the end, he says, tell the madman he is mad and he does not understand.

[74:05]

If he could understand, he would be well again. And are not the people today all raving and yet bragging of their sanity? Yeah. It's, you know, it's too simple. things don't fall out quite that simply, and yet there's some truth there. There's the truth of seeing things. There's this koan of the first Before I began to practice, I saw mountains and rivers were mountains and rivers. And then when I took up the practice, I saw that mountains and rivers were not mountains and rivers. And then I understood that mountains and rivers were mountains and rivers, which is a state of enlightenment.

[75:15]

But actually, it's not like Even though we don't talk about these stages and steps in this practice, the first is not exactly the same as the third. It's not the same perception. It's not a mundane, everyday perception. It's really seeing into, seeing how you know, in the first stage, maybe you're just, you're seeing the name, River, and the thought, River, you know, and you're not seeing all the elements that come together to create this sort of interdependent. And that's, you know, the madness It's like that second stage. It's when things fall apart. Everything falls apart into these various conditioned elements that make them up.

[76:23]

And they don't make any sense to us. And our lives don't make any sense to us. And in a bodhisattva, doesn't coerce in any of these things, just accepts the full interdependence of her life. And so that is arriving at that third place. And it's a place of, as we were reading, in the section that Anne was reading. I think it was yours. Which one was the one that talked about ease? Yeah. Not perceiving... Right, not perceiving difficulties, but perceiving... Forming the notion of ease.

[77:29]

Forming the notion of ease. Or just... I don't think of it as... I'm not happy with... I don't know what the real words are there. But I'm not happy with the notion of the notion of ease. I think it's just moving in ease. Just moving in your life with ease and grace, regardless of what comes. Well, maybe... It's also like you're saying that to attach thinking to everything is to really control it. And so therefore, things, life does not impact you in a very free-flowing kind of way. In other words, if I don't, you know, analyze, okay, I see a mountain, okay, I put the thought with it, instead of just letting the mountain impact me as a mountain.

[78:33]

instead of through the mind. I don't think we have any other way but through the mind. I mean that's the equipment that we have. And I don't think we're in the same wavelength. Right. It's like when you attach thinking to everything that you come across somehow that limits it, you know, and otherwise if you just let it Let yourself experience it without a thought going to it, you know, or however you want to put it. Then you can experience it as something beautiful on another level. And maybe both levels are happening at the same time. Like, I don't think you can stop the thoughts, maybe, but it just... how much reality you ascribe to that maybe?

[79:35]

Well, it's a reality of experiences opposed to a reality of creating it from my mind. Right. But in a sense, you only think it's coming between you and your experience. You're still having direct experience. As the thought appears to be in the way. It's like the golf swing. You know, if I think, and I think how to do everything, My mind is always running and attaching. And if I just allow it to happen, I'm on a different level. And somehow I'm free. I'm free to... Life comes and impacts me freely. But wouldn't you have had to do a lot of practicing and thinking to have an effective golf swing? I think you have to be open.

[80:37]

I know for myself, if I have perfect trust, perfect openness in the situation with the teacher that I have, then I'm very open to that situation with no thinking past, no thinking future. complete openness to that situation in that very moment. And then it can happen. You know, like at work. You know, I used to get disgusted with this one girl. She was always coming to me. And I thought, oh no, not again. You know, I have to listen to three hours of her personal problems, or eight hours, or six. And I thought, oh my gosh. You know, and I was just, And I knew she could read it in me. And I had to drop that. And I worked on that, and I worked on it, and kept working on it.

[81:39]

And now I listen to her stuff, and she's not repulsed by my aversion that she can read on a psychological level, you know. I mean, I would try to be nice, but you can't be incongruent, you know. You have to be real. And so now we do just wonderfully, and I just let it come. I give her what I can give her, and let the rest go, and I let it be alright, that's life, and it's okay. You know, I accept it as it is. But see, in a way, that's what, I mean, I think that's what that passage was talking about, is... The words that got me were creating a perception of... It wasn't create, what was that? Anyway, but that was the idea, that we create these perceptions of difficulties, and so it was the idea of forming a notion of ease, just shifting something consciously, was helpful.

[82:50]

Yeah, I think that's where forming the notion is. It's a conscious act in that way. To realize that I'm creating this perception of difficulty, and I can actually just I think you're right. I think that's actually what's helpful about that passage, that it's very nice to have ease, but if you have it, you don't need to study on it. But if you have a thought, if you're creating the thought of difficulties, then you have to create a notion of ease to balance it off and that's that's your practice you're practicing with that I think you know what you're saying is like from my experience it's like totally right you know just letting go it's a surrender right but but you have to practice to do it oh yeah it's not you don't just it doesn't just happen right you have to work well I like the I like the golf idea that um you know that's a good good universe to live in I remember

[83:55]

That whole idea of coaching really works for sports. I did inner skiing years ago. Inner skiing? Inner skiing. This is embarrassing. I'm doing embarrassing interventions tonight. And it was great because you can't help those thoughts, you know. Oh God, I'm going to fall. My butt's up in the air. My weight's wrong. You know, down the mountain you go again. What she did was she got us up there and she said, you know, at the top of this thing, and it's like this cliff, and she says, all right, who's terrified? And we all raise our hands. She said, good, we're going to ski terrified. So actually, the thought of being terrified didn't get in the way. And then she had us in buckle or buckles, leave our poles down, and we all went down, following, follow the leader, singing the skater, humming the skater's waltz. I mean, we were complete idiots. But the thing is, That thought, we weren't attached to it anymore. And I think that kind of coaching, really, we see the power of it in sports.

[85:00]

And I think that it's, you know, this may be arrogant, but I can see a similar helpful thing about practice. It's like a paradox. You know, you become, you're not attached to it when you accept it. Yeah, I mean, you have the thoughts. You can't get out of that. You know, like, God, I wish this part would get out of my face. But, yeah. Instead of running away from something or pushing it away like I wanted to do with that young lady, I accept it. It's OK. But you might still have the thought, like, I wish it'd get out of my face for a while or something. Yeah, right. But that's all right. Yeah, but you don't just cling to it. Well, we are near the end. I'm forming a notion that we're not... Does anybody else have a feeling like we're around it, but we haven't quite gotten to it or something? I mean, that's fine, I think. I think either we won't ever get to it, there is no it to get to or whatever, or if we just keep calling forth, you know, all that we can of love and respect and faith together, we can... Like, everyone's gonna flip through my mind, but then I can't quite remember what it was when it's time to say something or something.

[86:16]

So, please let's keep at it. So should we keep at the... should we just sort of focus our attention on the third chapter? Should we? Is that what you'd like us to actually ask people to look at it? Yeah, we definitely want to ask people to look at it. And think about it. Try to find... I'll tell you, my own experience is that sometimes I have moments of... where the words fall apart for me as I'm reading them, where I can hardly put the sentences together in sequence. And I think when that happens, just keep reading. And also, keep yourself open to the moments when there's some clarity. because I think you'll find that also sometimes you'll find you'll find the moment when you're reading when things don't fall apart but they they hang together for that moment and that won't stay with you either but I had like I'm thinking about that because I've been reading chapter two over and over again and I must have read it a half dozen times this week last night I read it and

[87:41]

It was like the first time I was reading it that I thought, oh, I'm actually reading this. It's like one sentence is connected to the next. So pay attention to the tone, to just the general background tone of your mind and your body as you read this. And regardless of what it is, keep reading it. Even though if you feel kind of sleepy and inattentive, try to push through to the end. If you have a time when you're reading it and it hangs together, then that's also a gift. To me, I found that very useful to see, oh, there's a difference. It's not the same every time. And I don't think it had to do with just repeated readings. I think it had to do with opening. closing of different physical and mental states.

[88:47]

So let's put that kind of attention towards the third chapter and continue maybe a couple more people to do memorization next week. And also I wanted to say, to apologize in advance, I will not be here next week. That's right, isn't it? Yes, I'm leaving. I'm going to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site to spend Buddha's first day there at an event that I'm helping to organize for Buddha's Peace Fellowship. So Lori and Sylvie will have to do their inimitable best. Yeah, and let's keep studying ourselves, too. Don't forget to study the self. The period of things come forth and we lessen the self.

[89:51]

That's the tenth help. Thank you.

[89:52]

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