'Guko Moves the Mountain.'
You know, I like that idea.

There is a phrase that embodies the spirit of stinting no effort and piling labor on labor to get things accomplished: "Guko moves the mountain." You know, I like that idea. Guko was an old man who lived long, long ago someplace in China. In front of this old man's house was a high mountain, and it was terribly inconvenient to come and go from the house. At last he got fed up with it, and together with his son and grandson, he commenced to dig out the mountain. Of course, there were people who laughed at them as fools for trying to take on a mountain. But this didn't phase Grandfather Guko at all, and he answered them, saying, "Even when I die, I have a child. The child begets my grandchild, and that child begets a child. Child follows child and grandchild follows grandchild without end. If we all put our time into it and cut down the mountain, well, the mountain doesn't get any higher, so there's nothing to stop us from flattening it out."

What do you think? Full of lessons, wouldn't you say? It means that even when you can't accomplish something right away, if you change the way you think, the way you see, the way you go about things, then the impossible can become the possible. That's right. Moreover, the story of Guko also contains a spirit of concern for his ancestors and people in the future, a desire to do something for those people, a desire to consider them. I often say to you all, "If you do not know the joy of giving, then your so-called life will hold no charm," and it's true, really. That means the idea of existing completely on your own be it under capitalism or socialism is not possible. Understand this well. And, if I could add anything, it would be that if you do live in the spirit of Guko, then even your smile, while its still just a smile, it will become a thing of splendor. Japanese people have a grimace of a smile that's like the Mona Lisa's somehow all hollowed out, that has some ineffable quality, some power to radiate obsequiousness, and it's said that we're a people not too well liked throughout the world. However, if you pass your days with a refreshed heart, then someday a fine smile with no trace of the faked grimace will come to you, naturally.

You know, I couldn't do it right off the bat either. I won't say I've become a handsome man, but to become someone people would like and trust, I had to put a great deal of conscious intention and effort into making the man who can smile now with this fine expression making myself Doshin So. [laughter] Don't get caught up in murky fears of the future; vanquish your clinging to the past. Don't you think you might try using your head and your heart to value the present and live simply?

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