Word. Did you hear that? Word. What am I speaking about? It's... I said word, and also, you just said word. You remember? You just said word. I vowed it is the truth that I told you. I said words. I vowed it is the truth that I told you. I said words. For about 15 years at the ,, I gave some pox.

[01:33]

And then for the last six months, I haven't been giving pox yet. This is the first one for six months. So I want to not forget that this is the first one. And I want to taste the Tabagata's word. As I have feeling that it's a faith too. It's the way I think too. And it's my sense of faith also.

[02:39]

That to paste, for me to paste these words has something to do with tasting the object of words. And that might fall to the face. The truth of the target is words. It's related to tasting my own words. And it's not only just my first time to give a talk like this for a while, but it's also the new year, fresh beginning of a year.

[04:09]

It's an opportunity to refresh, to renew our life, our attention. So this morning, I feel the words. I feel words. are important. I feel contention is important, or revolution, and I feel a taste is important. Somehow to put, to bring our revolution into a new world,

[05:19]

to use words and anything else that we can find to pace our resolution, to find it, to find our original taste. any taste that first brought us to be interested in it or appreciate teaching the Buddha. Can you remember that original taste, that original inspiration? Perhaps that original inspiration has happened several times. Perhaps you keep finally that very fresh sprout of interest and that taste of truth.

[06:35]

Perhaps you found it more than once. So how can we now refresh and resolve ourselves? In case I forget to mention, I think we can find a way to refresh our most fundamental in this slide. But later, there would be another question, namely, how would you care for that intention once it's aroused?

[07:43]

I might forget to mention that. I'm mainly concerned today with how to find that they succeed. So I propose that to think about this basic seed, this basic sprout of Buddha, think about it to feel it, to sense it, and to intuit it.

[08:51]

Any other dimension of experiential access you can have to it, that that devotion to that search or to that origin of our practice. That is pretty much the practice. This is the fundamental work of the people who are working for enlightenment, the enlightenment workers. We enlightened workers, we work for the Buddha. Buddha doesn't do any work, and nobody including Buddha knows what Buddha is. Without knowing what Buddha is, we work for Buddha.

[09:55]

We're employees of Buddha, but also our activity is Buddha's work. Everything we do is Buddha's work, even though we don't know what Buddha is. And in order to be able to do Buddhist work, we direct our attention to this basic ad. Look and think about what is Buddha. What is Dharma? I personally like to make medicinal resolutions and what I call religious resolutions or dharma truth resolutions.

[11:12]

I like both kinds. As a person, I like both kinds. Medicinal resolutions are like, for example, I'm going to not eat so much next year. I'm going to chew my food very carefully and be very aware of how I chew. Or I'm going to get rich. Or I'm going to control my symptoms. Or I'm going to give up trying to control. Et cetera. These are perfectly good resolutions. Perfectly bad too. But I might adopt one of them just for medicinal purposes. The resolution for truth or about truth is somewhat different. It has to do more with, like I said earlier, just I resolve by I commit myself to look at what is life and death about.

[12:22]

Medicinal, I would suggest that these medicinal resolutions are more about good and bad. And getting good at resolutions about good and bad develop virtue. You can do that very well, but nothing better. However, it has nothing to do with the truth. And downward resolution is more having to do with paying attention to birth and death. No mention of just birth and death. The seed that there before your parents were born. Your original face is in this swirling stuff called birth and death.

[13:33]

So I resolved to have that be my favorite program, my favorite entertainment, birth and death. It's everywhere. All I have to do is keep looking at it. or tasting it, thinking it, or feeling it. All the other resolutions are also inseparable from it, but they make up for it in death. That night at Wilmington, One of our members who just had a baby told me of a conversation she had with another one of our members who just died. So there we have this mother with the baby just ready to come out saying, I don't know when the baby will come.

[14:41]

And the other member saying, I'm just ready to die, but I don't know when. The women sitting at the portals, where did that check Our practice is, we say, beginningless, and yet also we see many beginnings. And I remember I told certain times, but when I first became interested in Zen practice, I became interested in it through hearing stories.

[15:51]

Hearing stories and words, I heard words, supposedly talking about the likes of Zen monks. I didn't care that they were Zen monks. I just thought I was cared about. I was interested in what they did, how they acted, the way they worked for Buddha. They were very attractive. I wanted to be like them. But hearing the words I felt, when I heard those words, something happened in me. What happened in me? I heard the words that I was so attracted by. Did I feel good when I heard those words? I did.

[16:56]

I felt really good. Also, those words, when I heard those words, I was thinking those words were my thoughts. I think that I like my thinking. What were those stories about? They were stories about these enlightenment workers, these Buddha workers, how they lived. I wanted to be an enlightenment worker like them. And I also felt that the way they acted was just a tiny bit different from what I had.

[18:02]

It was like, it was just very close. To be like them, very, very close. I couldn't quite do it, but it was very close. It was like the difference between going like this or going like that. It's the difference between this and that. It's not that big a difference. It just breaks your hands a little bit, and the thing falls. I was going like this, and they went like that. Pretty close, huh? They had some money in their hands. I had some money in my hand. They spread their grip a little bit, and the money fell off. So close. Or someone gave me a compliment, and my cheeks went black. And that's it. And someone insults me, and my cheek gets tense.

[19:05]

And I say, nothing. And what he thought was when someone covered this, and their cheeks get black, and he said, oh, my cheeks are really black. And someone insults him, and their cheeks get tense. And I say, oh, my cheeks are tense. It's so close to what I did, but a little bit different. What's the difference? Well, one of the reasons I like the way they did it, I thought they were more people. And part of it was just different from what I did. But more than that, I thought it was just a little bit needed, a little bit better. Why did it feel that? I didn't know. But I decided to turn my attention towards those stories and stories about, more stories about those same kind of people that were creating these stories. And I found out that a lot of these people took these stories for example, and that they did certain kinds of exercises.

[20:20]

In addition to the story, sort of in the background, they did exercise. They bowed. Some of them bowed a lot. A lot of them sat a lot with their legs crossed. Some of them .. But a lot of them did the sitting, so I tried the sitting. And when I tried the sitting, I got a similar taste that I got when I heard the stories. What was that taste like? I could never say what it was, except I said, well, it seems real. And it was my favorite thing.

[21:29]

I find it kind of funny that among the various things that I was interested in up to that point in my life, and still I find it kind of strange that I was interested in something that's real, that I would be interested in reality. It sounds such a bad, I don't like that word. that I would actually dedicate myself to truth ahead of all the other stuff. And truth isn't really what I'm dedicating myself to. I dedicate myself to look at birth and death, but people say, well, what do you like about looking at birth and death? I say, well, I can't exactly say. It seems kind of conceited to me. It seems to me what's really going on. It's what I really like to look at. It's what all the people who generate these good stories, what they seem to be looking at, too.

[22:34]

But I feel a little I feel kind of bad telling you this, because I also want each of you to think about what your resolutions are. And you don't want to think about birth and death. I don't want to think about, well, he said that he really liked to look at birth and death, that he thinks that's really bad. I really want to think about something else. I really think it's important that we be honest about what we really want to think about. And I really did not say to myself, oh, what I want to think about is birth and death. I think about what I actually want to direct my attention to. And then I find out later that it was birth and death. I did not want to sign up for this kind of like, be this good little Buddhist kid and sign up until I will benefit from birth and death because it says in the books that that's what Zen monks are supposed to look at all the time. Supposed to look at birth and death.

[23:42]

So that's what I'll look at. That's not what I am trying to say. I'm trying to say that I discovered something that was really seeking the best possible topic. And then later I found out, oh, that's birth and death. So I don't want to tell you that you should think of birth and death. I want you to find out what you most love, what you love most of all among everything else. And you may find out that that's birth and death, even though it's certainly, I would myself never think that I want to look at birth and death. It sounds like a disgusting meditation to me. Like, also to think of reality sounds really dry and intellectual and philosophical and industrial libraries and skinny professors and people that don't kick ass very often. That kind of associations I have with truth and reality.

[24:47]

And birth and death has been an all new thing to me. You know, the blood at the beginning, and ICU units, and it had all this, the jumping associations. That sounds beautiful. It's only afterwards when I find out that what I really want to look at is something that is most beautiful. I'm actually interested in the most beautiful thing. Truth is beauty. Actually, so I'm really interested in beauty, not truth. But then I find out that the beauty that I'm looking to actually turns out to be truth. So I say it, that's why I say taste. I don't suggest to myself or to anybody else that you turn your attention towards the truth. I would suggest turn your attention towards the thing that tastes the best. And taste in terms of on the tongue, in the ear, eye, nose, touch, think, feel, in all possible dimensions.

[26:03]

What tastes the best? What do you most enjoy directing your attention to? And they say, wow, you're interested in sex. Well, OK, let me accept. But what is it about sex that makes you Now, maybe if I change and say that what Zen monks are supposed to meditate on is sex and death, that makes it more appealing. Because that's another way to say it. It's sex and death. They're very close to . It's not birth and death they're both meditating. People who are dying. People who are just about to be born have a lot in common. And people who are helping people be born, like parents having sex, that helps people be born.

[27:05]

And people who are helping people die, those people have a lot in common. The same woman who was having this conversation, as she was about to be beginning first, was having a conversation with this dying parent. The same woman had a little boy, who I think is about three or four years old, and loves his parents very much, and really likes to go with them when they go up. But this little boy did not walk with his parents last night. They hope to watch a TV show. The main TV show we watch is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[28:18]

It's their show. Everybody know what a ninja is? A ninja is a Japanese professional assassin. They dress all in black. They're skillful assassins. So this is a teenage nuke. And this little boy watches a show. I don't know when it's on. I think it's on every day. Once a week at 4 o'clock. Well, he, excuse me for saying so, religiously watches a show. So that rings a bell for me, because I think that little boys and little girls, if they're lucky enough to have parents, parents are very important to them, especially in the book.

[29:21]

But both little boys and little girls, I would suppose, is something. They must have been mortgaged to them, even, by their parents. Strangely enough, I would suppose that little boy is watching that .. But he's watching birth and death. But that is the focus of this practice at this time. And our parents are also very important to us, our values of working life, too. But they may not be the essential. We may not be able to see in them the essential point of concentration of our lives. because we're so, you know, caught up in all these virtual relationships.

[30:25]

And then in a TV show, a little more needed to find that point of life and death that is the most deepest. The enlightenment worker, the entire what? The entire career of the enlightenment worker is to think about this point, this point, where all sentient beings in the entire universe come together to create teenage or a sun-side up egg, or a yellow worm, or a straight spine, or a word.

[31:34]

Actually, everything I just said was words. It's all words. What is the word? that you are concentrating on? What is your favorite word at this time of the month? What word are we resolved to dedicate our interest to? What's that? The one that you trust the most, the one that you love the most, the one that you will even pay attention to when you're parenting, and the one that will be there when they come back. What is that word that attracted us to this practice? How can we find that word?

[32:39]

This is my karmic background. I have a question. How can I define that word? I think sit up straight. Sit up straight, relax your stomach, and look at the right end of your nose. It's not an object. It's not something. It's like me. So, on New Year's, I reinvented myself to absorb my entire life onto that mysterious place where everything comes together to create this deep mission, this experience. And New Year's, I do it, but I have to do it all over again, a mile after a mile.

[33:51]

They don't call it New Year's. So I have turned on what it means that in new years or every moment, in every moment, I have been the one to look at this point. Nobody can do this to me. And if I look at this point, then I won't get in the way of this work. I believe no other work can happen if I am absorbed on this point. that what is the part that you can concentrate on that will allow you to be good at work, that will allow your life to work for you? Only you know the place you do life the best.

[34:54]

Only you know the place, the time, the feeling, the thought, the work. Only you know what you're capable of. And again, I find that as I speak, if I face what I'm saying at the talk, I feel I can almost hear that word. I almost taste that word if I taste . It's a kind of really embarrassing coincidence.

[35:56]

However, when I'm not talking, The words that I hear, as I hear those words, are also the ones that I feel almost as though I hear. So it's not just what I'm saying, but also I can listen to what you're saying. And I can feel myself tasting your words. His words are very close to there, too. So now this talk, I'd like to say now the talk is over.

[37:26]

OK? OK now. So was that a good? Was this a good time to end? Pretty good time to end. Now I'd like to ruin about you about some samosa. And The second thing I'd like to say, historically, is a thing I saw on TV one time. It's a story about King Arthur. King Arthur was a great king. And then after he was a great king, he became a lousy king. You know about the second part of it? He was this great, wonderful king. He pulled the sword out of the lion. He was just a really great guy. And then somewhere along the line, he got messed up. I think his wife kind of fell in love with Lancelot. And after that, he went into a state of decrepitude, and the whole team sort of fell apart. And one day, he was kind of crawling along the ground.

[38:30]

And they were telling stories about him. Here's his total wreck, right? And these people were telling stories about him when he was young. And one of them said, I want to be a knight. Here's the greatest knight, the king of the knights, just crawling along the earth in great suffering and misery. And here people telling stories about him and his friends. And the boy says, I want to be a knight. So he said to the boy, why do you want to be a knight? He didn't say, I didn't tell you, it's real. He didn't say that. He said, why do you want to be a knight? The boy said, because of the story. So if some of you are knights or queen or whatever, and sometimes you feel yourself crawling along the ground, still some people want to be like you.

[39:42]

Be like the stories that you generate. You know what, you did that really deep thing, and you had a wonderful experience. That's a great story. You know right now, you can't be, how do you remember that story? Some people would like to be their disciples back then. They're very discouraged right now. They don't care about that. One good story is enough to convert many people. Our basic story is unimpaired, even though temporarily we're kind of let. Temporarily we're falling down on our face. But that story, that beautiful story, still is good for us, even though we were actually, we were the story and now we're falling down. Other people that heard that story would like to try a story that affected us. But even, you know, even the generators, even actual origins of the stories fall down at some time.

[40:46]

And other people realize all of the stories after they can't believe in themselves anymore. So I just want to emphasize that I couldn't be close, very close. But it's a two-way street with closeness. It's not just that it's close to you. You also have to be close to it. But it's right there all the time and working closely to us. But then you have to turn around and say, hey, it's close. It's something that's important. It's working. You have to work. And in that strange dance there between it and you, For me to want to work out a good thing at that site. Right there. Whatever it is.

[41:51]

Thank you. Thank you.

[41:59]

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