Good morning!
Even if the temperature is 17 degrees, the sunlight shows spring coming soon. Our most important question is “What is Buddha?” Buddha is the Awakened One of the Dharma in nirvana. Buddha Gotama, when addressed by one of his five previous co-practitioners, “Hey Gotama,” said, I am not Gotama any more, but Tathagata, Thus-being, being in thusness or truth. It is a white hare in snow or a black crow in darkness, merging into the Dharma-realm, becoming Dharma-body.
The Twelvefold Interdependent Co-origination shows how suffering originates on thirst and nescience, the two roots of suffering and samsara, whose dynamic cause is formations (saṅkhāra, past and present karmas, physical, verbal, and mental), which originates our psycho-physical world (sense organs, objects, and perceptions or the perceived world). This illustrates how our life in samsara suffering goes on unless we understand and undo it by stilling formations.
The Four Holy Truths show the truth of suffering, the source (thirst) of it, the cessation (nirvana) of it, and the path leading to the cessation of it – how buddhas see the truth or reality of our samsara life and still its suffering, in principle and practice of the Awakened Way. The Four Stages of Zen show how we can reach nirvana and awakening therein, unhindered by karma and its bad outflow of the Triple Poisons (desire, divisiveness, and delusion).
The Eightfold Holy Way is the concrete application of it into our daily lives, right view, thinking, speech, action, livelihood, mindfulness, striving, and concentration. “Right” is sammā/samyak (from sat, being) in Pali/Sanskrit and 正 in Sino-Japanese (止 is the pictograph of a foot and－is interpreted as a stop-line, straight, ankle, city: commonly taken as “settling at target”). So, we settle in the Dharma (unmoved, ceasing fabrications), wherefrom prognosis and practice come.
February 9, 2019 C.E. Dharma talk
お早うございます！
気温は零下8度ですが陽光は間もなくやって来る春を見せています。私達の最も重要な問題は「仏とは何か」です。仏とは涅槃にあって法に目覚めた者です。ゴータマ・ブッダが、（初転法輪：最初の真理の説法の前）以前共に修行をした一人が「やあ、ゴータマ」と呼びかけた時に、自分はもはやゴータマではなく、タターガタ（Tathā-gata）、如（真如：真理）に在るもの（如在）だ、と言いました。それは雪中の白兎、暗闇の烏、法界に溶け込み、法身となったということです。
十二支縁起は苦と輪廻（完全流転：転移：展開）の二根である渇愛（渇く愛欲）と無明（涅槃の無確証：無体験）から起き、その動因は行（行為：サンカーラ：saṅkhāra：過去現在の身口意業）であり、それが私達の心理-身体世界（感覚器官、感覚対象、感受または感受：感覚世界）を生起させるのです。これは私達がそれを理解し行を静止させない限り輪廻苦の生が活動するのかを（図表）表現しているのです。
四聖諦は苦、苦の源（渇愛）、その止滅（涅槃）とその止滅に至る道－どのように覚者達が私達の輪廻の生の真実・事実を見てその苦を静止するか、覺道の原理と実践、を示しています。禅の四段階は私達が涅槃とそこにある覚醒に、業とその流出である三毒（貪瞋痴）に邪魔されないで、至ることが出来るかを示しています。
八聖道はその私達の日常生活への適用、即ち正見、正思、正語、正行・正業、正念、正精進、正定です。正の原語はsammā/samyak (Pali/Sanskrit: sat, 「在る」に由来）し日中語では正（止は足の象形文字で一は止、直、踝、城市など諸説あるが共通項は「標的・目的に到達・達成・安住」の意味）です。それで私達は法（真理・法則）に安住し（造作を止めて不動：差別・人為を止め安住）することで、そこから般若（hannya: paňňā/prajňā: 智慧：洞察）と修行（実践）が出て来るのです。
2019共通年2月9日 法話
The above pictures were taken and sent by Erin
from Washington State
The above three pictures were taken from websites
The above three pictures were taken and sent
Mr. Noriyuki Otsuka from Shimoda, Japan