Happy cows chewing the dharma cud!

Cows digest grass. It’s not so easy to break down the cellulose to get the nutrients they need. In order to facilitate this they have four stomach compartments, and they chew the cud…(see below)

We humans just chew our food a bit then swallow it…down to the stomach where most digestion occurs.

However , we are not so used to digesting the very healthy kind of food found in this text and need to keep at it, with it, over time…chewing more diligently than a cow chewing grass!

James, i think, said he had made eighteen different translations of this…That’s going to provide a qualitatively different  level of nourishment from the casual  ‘Oh yes I’ve read that’ (My ego-driven quick response on mire than one occasion!)

Following on from the advice he gave, mentioned in the previous post, on how to listen to the talks…in the latest, third, weekend’s teachings, James suggested how we might engage with the texts to maximise our receptivity to the depth of wisdom from which they originate.

He invited us to write the text out by hand. This will deepen our relationship with it… and at the same time we can make a note of anything which is not clear to us. Then checking this with the commentary which opens out the text making it more accessible.
If queries remain then answers are available…!

Repeated engagement will surely effect incremental or perhaps, through time, sudden changes.

Simply Being (1998 edition) was the first Dharma Book I read and, despite the teachers encouragement to take it really slowly, line by line, I could not do that.
From a young age I was addicted to reading – the next page, the next page the next chapter – devouring without any reflection.
This habitual way of reading has taken many years to change… to slow down and really engage whole-heartedly… has not come quickly or easily.

At the beginning I would read through the texts and the notes that went with them a few times but found them hard to digest. Lacking ease and familiarity with the concepts and vocabulary i could not unlock them, and mostly happily engaged with part 2 The Talks instead!
Even there I skated over the second paragraph where it suggests that the ideas presented are to be engaged with and struggled with for the maximum benefit to be obtained. I was just struggling to engage…

The more recent edition was a revelation and, for me, much easier to engage with, so if you haven’t updated you might well find that worthwhile…
But even then the texts were challenging…but opening up a bit, and becoming more ‘relatable to’.
For me this was largely thanks to the Macclesfield teachings where there was time for James to expound the different aspects of the dharma tree in a way which engaged directly with our conditioning… and also through reading and engaging with other dharma writings by James and many others.

Surely some of the headaches from trying to engage with this text, as given in the book, will be much eased by the commentary that he has been giving over these four sessions…

Gradually the words and their meaning and our alignment with them come together… the blurred and cloudy vision clears…
Then the import and impact are such that giving time to receive becomes the only way that’s fitting.

Read a bit, reflect, meditate… repeat…this can become a fully satisfying engagement rather than an onerous task to be completed

Here’s the  link to the third video ( most recent, March 13/14) in the series of four Lama Chetsangpa talks.

If you scroll down below that you will find the previous two.

Question: Why do cows have three stomachs?

Answer: Cows are true ruminants, which means they have four stomachs, the first of which is the rumen. When a cow takes a bite of grass, it chews it briefly, mixing it with a large amount of saliva. The grass then passes to the rumen, which is a large pouch. The rumen does not produce digestive juices. Instead, it is a fermentation chamber that contains millions of bacteria. These microbes produce digestive enzymes that break down the cellulose in the plants. When a cow “chews its cud,” it returns a small lump, or bolus, of food from the rumen to the mouth, where it is thoroughly chewed. When the cow swallows the bolus for the second time, it is finer and settles at the bottom of the rumen. The rumen contracts, forcing some of this well-chewed food into the second stomach, or reticulum. From there it passes to the omasum (third stomach), where water is extracted. It then enters the true, or fourth, stomach, the abomasum, where gastric juices (containing hydrochloric acid) are added to the food. This kills and disintegrates the microbes from the rumen, making the nutrients in the microbes available for later digestion and absorption.

Source of info on cows stomachs!

photo:Jim Champion / Cattle ruminating at Latchmore Bottom, New Forest

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cattle_ruminating_at_Latchmore_Bottom,New_Forest–geograph.org.uk-_157259.jpg