Now I said yesterday, I guess, we're studying this koan. And we're studying how to study koans. And we're studying Now I think the most important thing and I think what I'm glad in the winter branches we've come to through your suggestion primarily come to focus on koans. I mean, I feel I need your permission to speak about Collins. You know, I don't want to introduce Collins into your life unless you're willing for me to do it. And I don't want to introduce or imagine Koans in your life if you're not ready for me to do it.

[01:23]

And the most important thing probably of the three I mentioned is to study, I hope we learn, discover how to study Koans themselves. Because the study of koans presumes a certain kind of world. As I said earlier, you know, German had to be Latinized in order to pour Christianity into it. And to bring Buddhism into China, You couldn't just pour it into the Chinese language. Yeah, the Chinese language had to be adapted and dramatically adapted and the vocabulary increased in order to pour it into the Chinese language.

[02:29]

Buddhism into it. Yeah, it would have been like trying to pour a waterfall into a teacup. You have to make lots of special things to absorb the waterfall. Without changing the waterfall too much. But you did not only had to change the language. You had to use the changed language to change the people. So Buddhism could be poured into the Chinese persons as well. And they changed the Chinese person In two main ways.

[03:55]

One way is they changed the language they used. If you start changing your language, you start changing how you identify the world. So they changed the language the Chinese person used and they changed the Chinese person through yoga, meditation and mindfulness. So we're doing something quite similar. We're changing our language. And you can see I'm consciously trying to change language, create terms. Yeah, and we're all practicing meditation separately and together. And the together changes us in a certain way, and the separate

[04:56]

And this changes us in a certain way. Now, these two koans, the Luke Cliff Record koan and the Shoyeroku koan, The Shoyuroku koan emphasizes the nine years. It doesn't emphasize much the encounter with the emperor. It emphasizes the encounter with China. And the nine years, the incubation, the hibernation. And it emphasizes not saving yourself, but how to save all sentient beings. And what conception of your practice is that? which can change the individual and society.

[06:30]

Now the Blue Cliff Records koan emphasizes the encounter with the emperor. And Bodhidharma's, yeah, maybe encounter with himself. And this blue cliff record coin emphasizes let's say the encounter with Yogacara Buddhism, with the encounter with the Dharma as understood through Zen and Yogacara Buddhism.

[07:35]

Now it says in this koan, if you can penetrate through a single phrase, you can penetrate through a thousand phrases, you penetrate ten thousand phrases. Now what is this about? What is the emphasis on penetrating through a phrase? May I ask something? Yeah. Penetrating through a phrase is by a phrase or a phrase through? Well, you can say it in English either ways, but through a phrase is more accurate.

[08:43]

So the phrase is the means of penetration or is the phrase to be penetrated? The phrase is the means of penetration. Okay. With the help of a phrase penetrate. The phrase is like a bridge between you and the dharmic bits. Now, the use of phrases is very particular to Zen. And it links practice to a very particular worldview. I mean it links it so fully that there's no other worldview but a dharmic worldview possible.

[09:51]

And as I said to Paul the other day, There's a lot of scholars who know a lot about koans in the last couple of decades. And I said to Paul recently that there are a lot of scholars who know a lot about koans in the last couple of decades. quite a few of them know a lot more than I do. But as far as I can tell, none of them understand penetrating with a phrase. And you cannot understand, you cannot proceed in Buddhism in the way Zen practice proceeds without learning to use a phrase. It is so central. If you don't get it, you're going to not open up the deeper and wider dimensions of practice.

[11:07]

And it was interesting, you know, in the discussion at Crestone of the text, the book text, everyone sort of No one exactly said the phrases don't work for me. But what I heard from others from the seminar is, except for one person, almost everyone said, everyone but one person said, I can't really make use of phrases. If you're someone who falls into that category, maybe not. I think you have to I think you have to at least mechanically do it for a while until you find a breakthrough.

[12:35]

And now here's the first go on in the most famous and definitive collection of Zen teachings. And it starts with, you have to penetrate with the phrase, is our practice. There couldn't be a bigger emphasis on it. It's an emphasis equivalent to Bodhidharma's nine years of sitting. To just sit Zazen, even to sit Zazen, merging mind and body,

[13:24]

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