But it is rarely met with, even a hundred thousand will help us. Now I can see and hear it, and accept and maintain it. May I unfold the meaning of love, because it's our job to see the truth. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. And Happy New Year. the year and so I want to talk about fresh starts and freshness and you know in some ways it's kind of arbitrary that January 1st is the beginning of the year that's what's recognized around the world now in

[01:24]

Our Chinese and Japanese Nan Tradition New Year was the Lunar New Year, so that's sometime in February. We still kind of observe Chinese New Year. But, yeah, part of our Zazen, or maybe one of the most important parts of our Zazen, is just to appreciate and be informed by the freshness of our experience. So this is the new year, but in some ways, every day is a new year. The great master, Yun Men, said, every day is a good day. And in Zazen, we might recognize how every breath is a good breath. So we sit upright, still, present, paying attention, gently.

[02:33]

Returning to our breath. And in some ways, whether we think about it or not, we can feel the Freshness of our experience, the wholeness of our experience. How can we not hold back from right now, right here? How can we give ourselves to the next breath? And enjoy our inhale and enjoy our exhale. So this has something to do with the new year. How do we find the newness in our life? How do we appreciate... Every day is a fresh opportunity. And as we sit, we can start to feel

[03:47]

the complexity and the unknowability of each moment. Maybe in some ways each moment is a new year, or each year is a new year, or, you know, somebody said to me that, well, this is the beginning, this is already the second half of this decade, depending on how you count that. Anyway, so we make, we do, we make these kind of marks in our life. Oh, this is a New Year. This is a birthday. Actually, traditionally in Asia, New Year's Day is everybody's birthday, and they count age by the number of New Years you've had. So there's various ways to do this, but at any rate, New Year is a good opportunity to remind ourselves, to remember ourselves, and to feel also the wonder of each breath.

[04:54]

So what is happening right now on your cushion or chair, what is happening right now in this room, is so amazingly ungraspable and immeasurable and boundless. We can't possibly, you know, calculate it and draw a map or write an outline of all of the experience right now, here. Each of us brings our whole lifetime to each moment. Each of us sitting here is sponsored by all the people and other beings you've ever known and been informed by. in lots of obvious and maybe less obvious ways. We're all here thanks to many, many, many beings. So all those beings are in some ways here in this room.

[05:58]

And when we start to sit, all the thoughts that come up and the feelings can be kind of overwhelming. We don't realize until we stop and sit and just be present how this continual production of thoughts and memories and awareness that zooms around in our head or whatever this is that we're doing. So New Year's is a time for looking forward, for new possibilities, for taking stock. So we have the practice of vow and New Year's resolution. But also, on some level, New Year's is... So part of the freshness and wholeness and complexity of our experience is also memory. So it's a time when we can look back at the past year. Of course, we can do that anytime. We can look back at the past week, or the past month, or the past lifetime, and memories are funny.

[07:07]

Some people tend to remember the good things. Some people tend to remember the difficult things. And I wonder, you know, we all have things we regret. We all have things we can look back and, you know, in this year or whatever year, and feel, oh, that was wonderful. That was joyful. And we can be comforted by memories. Or we can be, you know, sometimes tormented by memories. Oh, why did I say that? insecurities, unkindnesses, or whatever, anyway. One of the new opportunities of New Year's, I think, is to inform memory. So memory has to do with mindfulness. One of the practices of Buddhism is called Nembutsu, but it means to remember Buddha. So actually what we're doing here is to, we sit,

[08:12]

like the Buddha, upright, whether we're sitting cross-legged or kneeling or in a chair, still we're in some ways allowing our body to take the form of the Buddha sitting calmly, peacefully, settled. So we remind ourselves, we remember Buddha. Our body remembers Buddha. Our body remembers the Buddha that is sitting on your cushion or chair right now, that maybe we didn't even know ever before. Oh, hey, this is Buddha. And of course, for each one of us, how Buddha is in our bodies and mind is different. Each of us has a different way to express Buddha. Each of us has a unique expression, a particular expression of everything in some ways.

[09:16]

And so, you know, we can, I think we can, New Starts and the New Year is an opportunity for refreshing our intention. And we can talk about that right now. And we can talk about it looking forward, and we can also talk about it looking what we call the past. Of course, the past is just the story we tell ourselves right now about things that happened. So I think we can bring intention to memory as well. We can look at things we regret, or missed opportunities, or mistakes, ways in which we were hurtful to ourselves or others, and we can be tormented by that, or we can see that as something that we have learned from and overcome, and we can remember it in the context of, oh, I want to be more helpful or be more kind to myself in some situation like that.

[10:29]

Of course, no situation is exactly like any other situation, which is part of the point of New Year's and our freshness. But anyway, we can re-inform memory and appreciate the good things of the last year. So it's an intentional practice we can do to think about the past year It's the time of New Year's and already it's, you know, New Year's is past. That was Wednesday. That was Thursday. This is Sunday, so maybe it's too late. But anyway, we'll pretend this is New Year's Day. So, you know, you can look back at the past year and there's lots of things that, you know, you can appreciate that happened in your life. And there are things that we can feel sad about. So part of being fully present and whole is to include all of that somehow. to be able to face that which we fear or that which, you know, put losses and sadness and many things to feel sad about in the world in the last year, of course.

[11:36]

And then we can also look forward. So New Year's is a time of possibility. Of course, every day is a good day. Every day is a new day. Every day is a way to look forward and say, OK, how do I want to So again, part of this New Year's opportunity is to revision who we are, where we are, how we are, what our situation is, and to check our intention. So attention is an important part of practice. And we have this thing called New Year's Resolution, so we can resolve to all kinds of things. I'm always resolving each New Year to lose weight anyway. It's a headless struggle. So we have various things that we try to think of as New Year's Resolutions.

[12:44]

One context for that is the bodhisattva practice of vow or commitment. So, enlightening beings have various practices like patience and effort and settlements and insight and skillful means. And one of these practices is vow or commitment. And there's a whole range of how we can see that practice of vow that includes New Year's resolutions, that includes Well, it includes the huge, inconceivable bodhisattva vows like we'll chant at the end of the morning. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. What does that mean? How can we possibly do that? These are directing our energy towards something that is huge and vast and is beyond just me or any one of us. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Dharma gates are boundless.

[13:45]

I've got to enter them. How do we see each situation as an opportunity? So that's a good one for New Year's. We have a new year. We have a new Dharma gate. So part of this practice of commitment is, so it includes things like these huge vows, but it also includes, okay, I'm going to show up at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate this Sunday morning and do Zazen and hear some Dharma. and express some drama in my listening. We have specific, limited commitments that we make. I'm going to take care of this or that, or the various things on our to-do list. We can see all those as vowed, too. And part of this practice of New Year's, and part of this practice of looking forward or looking back, is to check our intention, to look at what is What is important? What is our intention? And I would suggest it's not just one thing, that we have a range of intention. We all have a range of things we're interested in.

[14:49]

We all have a range of things we care about. We all have a range of things we would like to do or accomplish or appreciate in the next year. So Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, used to ask, what is the most important thing? And I like to modify that question, because it's like if you ask, what is the single most important thing? Well, that's sometimes a useful question. It might be. So you might consider it. But then, you know, we can get hung up on what is the most favoritest of, you know, whatever, you know, the best movie of the year or whatever, you know. We can always, what is our favorite, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

[15:51]

And, oh, I only get to pick one? So I would suggest what are, not as what is the most important thing, but what are some of the most important things? So this relates to this practice of vow or New Year's resolution or just bringing our, you know, kind of looking freshly at, oh, what's important? What do I really care about? All of you are here because you care about what you care about. All of you are here because you care about the quality of how you are living and the quality of your life and the quality of the world and how do we take care of it? These huge questions of all of the injustice and difficulties and problems in our world and our environment and so forth. So, what's important to you?

[16:53]

And it's not that you should say, oh, this is, you know, saving all beings is important What do you really care about? It might be something that you think other people might think is silly, but you actually really care about it. So this is the practice of commitment and intention, and we can use it in various ways. We can make a list, or we can just feel, what does it feel like as I sit here? It's really important to me. How can I take care of that? And it might be one thing, or it might be ten things, and you might think about, what are the priorities of what is important to me? And then the actual practice is often just failing at that, the things that we don't manage to do that we want to do. And that's okay.

[17:54]

It's not about doing any of these things perfectly, or perfectly accomplishing whatever you think you want to accomplish. how do we take care of ourselves as human beings? So I was saying before, each of us is expressing Buddha completely, as we are, and yet we also are limited, particular human beings with particular situations and particular ways we identify ourselves. And in some sense, that self-identification is an illusion. We see that when we see through our sitting, how deeply interconnected we are with everything and everybody. And yet we also have to own this particular person on our Kushner chair who's got these particular hang-ups or fears or attractions or aversions.

[18:54]

So how do we take care of that? not in terms of some impossible New Year's resolution or some huge thing. So how we free all living beings has to do with actually taking care of yourself too. How do we find a way to balance all the many important things and also give ourselves space? So part of our sitting is a kind of focus. What's important, really, looking at that? And part of our sitting is a kind of openness, a spaciousness, a sense of breath, that we are sharing the oxygen in this room, all of us together. So to actually take care of what is important to us means being patient, paying attention, aiming at something sometimes, but what is actually possible?

[20:09]

How do we take care of ourselves and find a balance where we're not pushing ourselves too hard? So all of this is part of the practice of intention, part of the practice of Every day is a new year. Every day is a good day. So I thought I would do a couple of New Year's poems. The first one actually is from the 13th century, or a response to a poem from the 13th century co-founder of Soto Zen in Japan, Dogen, who I talk about a lot, and he gave talks on New Year's Day. And he quoted, in a few of them, a poem about New Year's morning by one of his predecessors, the 12th century Chinese master Hongzhe, who once said,

[21:21]

on a New Year's morning. In New Year's morning zazen, the myriad things are natural. Mind after mind is beyond dichotomous. Buddha after Buddha manifests presently. The snow on the river is completely pure and white, and the snow falling on Irving Park Road is still completely pure and still white. And he said, the mind of the son of She is satisfied on his fishing boat. Study this. So this is a reference to a great Chinese master, also known as Xuanzang. It's difficult to say. I'm going to be talking about him in a couple of weeks, too, in terms of his saying, the entire universe is one bright pearl. But in this context, There's a story about this. So Hongzhi said, the mind of the son of Xie is satisfied on his fishing boat.

[22:23]

And that refers to Xuanzang. Before he became Xuanzang, before he got his dharma name, and before he became a monk, he was a fisherman. which was traditionally in Buddhism as a practice for monks of not eating meat. But he was a fisherman who was responsible for, well, I assume that people ate the fish and caught it. But anyway, the mind of the son of She is satisfied on his fishing boat. And that refers to a story about how he once said that Xuanzang Xuanzang, later on when he became a teacher, once said, Shakyamuni Buddha and myself, Xuanzang, studied with the son of She. So this is really interesting. This is like saying, for me, Taigen and Shakyamuni Buddha studied together with Dan Laidman, which is my other name, or who I was before.

[23:36]

I was Taigen, and I'm still that, but I still acknowledge that. But how do we study with Buddha this person, this human person, on our, well, on our fishing boats, in our various capacities in our ordinary life, so-called? So, when we first connect with Buddha, we, Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. We study these karmic causes and conditions. We study these patterns and habits of grasping and craving and aversion and confusion and fear and anger and all that stuff. This practice is not about escaping from ourselves or from the world.

[24:40]

How do we study just the realities of that life? So that's the saying from Hongzhe. Dogen repeated that and commented on it on New Year's Day in 1247. He repeated that poem and Then he commented and said, on this great, auspicious New Year's morning, I'm delighted with Zazen. Zen practitioners engaging in the way are peaceful, just as they are. Each person is joyful and at ease with a spring-like face. So New Year's Day back then was sort of in, I don't know, near Chinese New Year, sort of in February. So it was starting, it was later in the season. So it's sort of also the beginning of spring. But anyway, each person is joyful and at ease with a spring-like face. Noses and eyes manifest presently. The snow on the river is completely pure and white.

[25:43]

The mind of the son of Cher is satisfied on his fishing boat. How do we find the mind of this person on your cushion and chair? And he's satisfied with that. So again, this goes back to our intention and through this, Dogen says, I'm delighted with Zazen. How can we be delighted with being peaceful just as we are? Studying or being open to the arising of this stuff, to use the technical term of our lives. And of course, Zazen isn't an escape from ourselves. It's a way of being present, fully present, and learning to be okay with who we are. And then we work with that sometimes. Sometimes we have habits that we want to get rid of or that we want to lessen.

[26:43]

We have a recovery group here Tuesday evenings to help with that. And yet we can do that in Buddha's body, Buddha's body on your own cushion or chair. And how do we see what's important and how do we take care of that in a balanced way? This is challenging. So I want to have some discussion in here, your own feelings about this New Year, but I'm just looking for a modern poem about New Years, and I found something from William Merwin. It's in Hawaii, and there's a poem of his on the wall out there. But he said, and I'm not sure which year he wrote this, but he said, to the New Year, we'll assume it's this year, with what stillness at last

[27:47]

speaking to the New Year, you appear in the valley, your first sunlight reaching down, to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir, as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all. Then the voice of a dove calls from far away in itself to the hush of the morning. So this is the sound of you, here and now, whether or not anyone hears it, this is where we have come with our age, our knowledge, such as it is, and our hopes, such as they are, invisible before us, untouched and still possible. So again, New Year's is a time of possibility. We can re-envision our intentions and our commitments See what's important. So let me read it again. With what stillness at last you appear in the valley, speaking to the New Year, your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all.

[29:02]

So I wonder if the trees appreciate New Year's Day. I don't know. Then the voice of a dove calls from far away in itself to the hush of the morning. So in each new year, each new morning, maybe in each new breath, there's a hush. There's a kind of quietness and silence. So this is the sound of you, here and now, whether or not anyone hears it, this is where we have come with our age, our knowledge, such as it is, and our hope, such as they are, invisible before us, untouched, and still possible. So on this New Year's, this is where we've come, with our age, whatever it is, with our knowledge, or our non-knowledge, such as it is, and our hopes, such as they are. So I think New Year's Day is also a time for hope. Hope doesn't mean just wishful thinking, but okay, how do we see our best hopes in terms of how we can contribute to the fullness of our life and to our world and suffering and the problems of the world?

[30:19]

Our hopes, such as they are, invisible before us, untouched, and still possible. So, hoping for something that we think is impossible maybe not so helpful, but within the situation that we're in, this life, with our age and our knowledge such as it is, how do we allow ourselves to give ourselves our best hopes to do what we can do this year? So, Happy New Year everybody. interested in hearing from any of you who have hopes or comments or thoughts on the New Year, questions, responses, please feel free. Anybody have any New Year's resolutions or

[31:27]

Just little hopes that you wouldn't care to share. Jeremy, what is your hope for the new year? I think I'd like to sit more. It's kind of late, but like I... It's not late. This year I've been really busy every day of the morning. But that intention has a power. Whether or not we actually fulfill what we think is our intention. We have a direction, we have an aim. And you've been working really hard this year, I know. So, yeah, busy. But each intention, each resolution, each commitment, you know, points us in a direction, and that does something.

[32:31]

So thank you. Good luck. Anybody else? Any thoughts? Laurel, Kyoshi. This is very nerdy. Good. So last year, for the first time in my life, I kept a list of all the bird species I'd seen for the year. And birdwatchers do that. They're very meticulous about keeping records. And I got up to 226. Oh, wow. And then on January 1, I had to start at 1. Which was really, I was so surprised that I hated that. And so on January 1, I got 17. Oh my goodness. And now I'm up to 23. So are you intending to have more birds this year than last year? I guess so.

[33:35]

Last year my only intention was to keep track, which was really fun. But anyway, I saw a bald eagle yesterday in Elgin. So that reminds me, I want to say something about this idea of perfection. So we make a resolution, and you might think you have to do it perfectly. And that's really an obstacle to practice, to have some idea about what it means to fulfill some commitment perfectly. My favorite American yogi once said, if the world were perfect, it wouldn't be. So we have to be kind of settled in what's possible. We can imagine what are the most important things for us, but still, how do we take care of that in a way that's kind to ourselves?

[34:47]

So if you don't see more birds than last year, it's okay. Yeah, good. Anybody else, anything to share? Questions or comments or responses? Douglas, what are your intentions for this talk? I've been able to sit in half lotus. And please, when you're sitting, and I'm going to talk about the half day sitting next week, but please be kind to yourself. And don't have some idea, you know, that it can happen, actually, that, you know, with certain exercises and stretching and so forth, maybe you can do half lotus. It's OK to sit in a chair.

[35:50]

It's OK to do walking meditation instead of sitting at home. It's OK to do what is kind to your body. And at the same time, it's really nice to just sit, isn't it? Any last New Year's wishes or commitments or important things anyone wants to express? David, what's important to you for this year? Now take just one, let's have many, lots of them. I think for me, the important thing is in the last couple of months in my practice, seeing the vision of Kanzeo and what that means and how

[37:00]

Okay. to manifest that in my life. That's my resolution. Wonderful. Beautiful. For those who don't know, Kanzeon is the Bodhisattva, the enlightening being of compassion. So just to think about this, you know, we have various images of, there's images of Kanzeon on the sides of the center, but images of awakening beings. And just to keep an image in mind or to chant about it or the various practices helps us to feel compassion for ourselves and others.

[38:18]

Thank you very much, David. Any last comments, anyone?

[38:22]

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