Uji — Session 4

Coming back to the text

Master Dogen just gave his lecture, and it’s quite short. But we’re pulling it apart, and in a way that makes it more difficult. I couldn’t understand the Shobogenzo the first time I read it, or the second or the third. Nishijima Roshi said that he looks at it rather like a huge canvas: if we think of it more as a canvas we can see a bit there or a bit there. And I think he’s right. Coming back to it again and again we can slowly get something; even if we can’t understand some of the sentences they leave some kind of an impression, in my experience. Although I’ve tried to interpret it, I wonder whether my interpretation is clearer or less clear than the original in some places. But it’s an interpretation.^[1]

The example of Spring

He says the whole Universe is progressing from one moment to the next, and it’s not static, but it’s also not a continuous process, so that’s difficult for us to understand. His example is Spring. But the passing of time doesn’t involve anything external.^[2]

… the passing is not Spring itself … But Spring is made real at every time-present in the process of Spring.^[2]

We’ve got a process which we call Spring, and he’s saying that although we think of that period as Spring, actual Spring is just now. We need to come back to this again and again. What he wants us to come back to is the difference between what is real here and now in this time-present and what we call Spring, or what we call a process, or what we call a person.^[3]

Time doesn’t really exist, but it is really useful

He’s saying that if we think there’s something existing through all times and all worlds that passes from moment to moment, then that’s not right. There is nothing real and unchanging that passes from moment to moment called time. But we do call it time. It’s a kind of parallel with what he says about a permanent unchanging self. Our concept of time has something real about it, because it corresponds to something real for us, but it doesn’t really exist. But although it doesn’t really exist, it is really useful. And “the passing of time from moment to moment involves no external object” means that you can sit without doing anything, and you can imagine time passing; it doesn’t mean anything external.^[3][4]

Sentences that contradict each other

Question: A clock is external isn’t it but it’s not time?

No, we just keep looking at it and it’s different, and so we say time has moved. But the sentences are contradictory; this is the big problem with reading the Shobogenzo: he says one thing then the opposite. Making sense of that is not so easy until we notice that reality is not contradictory, but our explanations of it have to contradict each other to try and grasp it. We say today went very quickly; but today was exactly 24 hours. We usually call one objective and right, the other subjective and wrong. But he makes contradictory statements and gives them equal value.^[5]

Question: What’s he contradicting there?

That sentence at the end of the previous paragraph, “the passing of time from moment to moment involves no external object”, so there’s nothing external, just time passing, then the sentence at the end of this paragraph, “if we think there is some changing entity that passes from moment to moment”.^[5]

Baso’s answer

In the koan story, Master Yakusan, who has learned all the classifications of Buddhist theory, asks Master Baso what was Master Bodhidharma’s purpose in coming from India to China. It was in a way a kind of set question. It meant: when somebody goes to spread Buddhism somewhere, what is it that makes them do it? What is their intention?^[7][8]

On hearing this question, Master Baso Doitsu replied, “At one time-present he was moved to raise his eyebrow and wink, at another time-present he was not moved to raise his eyebrow and wink. …”^[9]

Master Baso is trying to say that he just went: there’s something natural in his actions.^[9]

When Master Yakusan heard these words, the whole of Buddhism became clear to him and he said to Master Baso, “When I studied with Master Sekito, I was just a mosquito sitting on the back of a giant ox!”^[9]

I think in everything we do, we have a tendency to expect things to happen: as a result of our efforts now we expect to see a result. I suppose when you’re practising Yoga you expect to get more flexible, and if you don’t, you feel you must be doing something wrong. But Buddhism teaches that things unfold naturally: don’t hurry, do your practice and it’ll happen. But we tend to be impatient. Master Yakusan had been studying Buddhist theory and classifications and thought that the more he got the more he would understand. Then Master Baso says, “Wink? Don’t wink?” In other words there’s some kind of natural process, not the result of some kind of intention. Master Bodhidharma didn’t have a strong intention such as, “I’m going to China to spread Buddhism!” Just that’s what happened.^[10]

Some replies in the koan stories sound so strange that people think there’s some mystical secret there, but I think all of them are strange only because of the way people spoke, and also the translation is sometimes not clear enough. I always work from the point of view that they must have been saying something sensible and down to earth.^[11]

Mountains and oceans are time-present

… The eyebrow Master Bodhidharma raised or the eye he winked may indicate a mountain or an ocean, … because the mountains and the oceans and his eyebrows and eyes are one whole.^[12]

We can suppose he’s connecting the eye with the external world. When we look at something, we separate the person who is looking from the object, and we feel that it’s an active process, light going out from our eye; but it’s not really like that.^[12]

All these are time-present. The mountains are time-present and the oceans are time-present. … It is from this truth that the bright star appeared to Gautama Buddha, the state of buddha appeared … All are time-present. Without time-present nothing could be here and now.^[13][14]

He’s identifying time-present with the external scenery, running round and round Master Baso’s words to reinforce that time-present is just what’s here and now. And what is here and now is not separate. That’s the most I can say about that.^[13][14]

Change, seen in the moment

I am seeing things moving, so it’s tempting to say that this is evidence of the succession of moments, and yet of course that’s always in the moment. I read an article about experiments with vision, which I can’t remember clearly enough to tell you about in detail. But the outcome seems to be that what we see as a continuum is filled in by our brain or our memory.^[15]

But we do see movement: my lips are moving, Stuart’s leg is moving. We’ve got a problem if we want to talk about change in terms of Buddhist theory, because there’s no doubt that there’s some process in existence which we track with our consciousness. But Master Dogen has also put in this chapter the instantaneous view, and these two views don’t fit together. Nothing contradicts itself in front of us, but in our brain it contradicts. To resolve that contradiction, Buddhism insists that we have to get out of the area of thinking. It says, “yes, think about it, you’ll tie yourself up in knots, stop thinking, then the knots will disappear”. And in that way, Master Dogen’s writing is rather cruel, because it ties us up in knots, then we can put it under the table and go out for a walk. Reality itself is not contradictory, but our ways of conceiving it have to be. Well, at least they seem to have to be.^[17]

The brightness of the present

Question: Is “illuminating the light of time-present” just a turn of phrase, or does Dogen perceive some relationship between light and time and the present?

Both. Also it’s a kind of poetic image. Our imagination doesn’t have the brilliance of what we actually see. If you’re practising Zazen, sometimes you’re not sure whether you’re asleep or awake; it’s quite peaceful, but not bright. Then sometimes you kind of wake up, and everything around you is just there, and it’s brighter. When we’re not caught up in the images in our brain, the present is brightest; it’s kind of illuminated. It’s not only a poetic image, he’s trying to describe something that’s real too. When we feel fresh, everything has a kind of brightness to it; when we’re tired, or thinking, things lose their brightness. I think he’s using an image to touch on that too.^[17]

A constructed world

Question: So even just on the mundane level, we’re building a picture.

Yes, that picture we build is a kind of constructed world. This doesn’t mean it’s not real, but we all construct it, then we all agree on it so we can share it. It’s not shared by other beings that don’t have our way of communicating: the plant doesn’t share it; the dog shares it partly. We all seem to fill it in in the same way, I guess.^[19]

Question: So we have to try and unlearn all that?

No, just we can notice how we are.^[19]

Question: So time is like a management tool?

It’s a survival tool: we learn how to plant at a certain time of year, depending on the position of the sun. It’s a puzzle … what is time?^[20]