Uji — Session 3

Images of time

Yesterday we did the poem, which presents concrete nows, and Master Dogen's commentary that although reality is just concrete nows, we also need to accept the view of time as a process.^[1]

That process view relies on memory. But then he switches his viewpoint and says that somebody who has clarified their real state only sees now, now, now. That sounds a kind of superhuman state. But of course he's not talking about something permanent. He's talking about the state of action. In action, we do what's in front of us, and immediately we move on. And we all experience this in our own lives. In action, we clarify our real state. In action, we are in the same state as buddha.^[2]

Then he says ordinary people imagine time as a journey: what happened to us last year is back there, and what we haven't come to is in front. But he suggests another way: all events as mountain peaks. We stand on the peak where we are at this instant, and all the past and future are arrayed as peaks.^[2][3]

It's an image he's creating. He's not saying that's really how time is. He's creating different viewpoints, and these viewpoints are models. And just as with scientific models, the model is not the reality. Even Master Dogen is not able to actually describe what time is, but he gives more than one viewpoint, and that's the great importance of his work. He contradicts himself.^[3]

Flowing and moments

Seeing time simply as flowing away is not enough.^[4]

So our normal linear view of time is not enough. In our ordinary life, we are totally immersed in this process of time. Time is flowing and carrying us with it, and sometimes we can't even appreciate where we are. Although we can't appreciate where we are, we are always here. But ordinary people only see time in that way, and they do not experience time present, or do not fully experience time present. Of course, in a way they do. We all experience time present.^[4][5]

In actual fact, all the things in the whole universe are time present, that are both continuous and separate. …^[5]

In this line, Master Dogen introduces a huge contradiction. He says we think of time flowing as if it were a river, but for the present to be now, there must be a gap between this present and the next present: moment, moment, moment. He doesn't say both are wrong. He says both are true views. One view of time is flowing like a river. Another view of time is a series of momentary flashes like frames in a film.^[5][6]

Although time can be seen as a process like this, times arriving do not pile up on top of times past. Neither do they extend out in a continuous line.^[7]

So he's denying that our images are true.^[7]

What we're like now

… Although they think that their views form the basis of and are based on their experiences, they are not the basis of their reality.

They themselves are only reality presenting its results at this time present as causes and circumstances.^[8]

That's a completely unsatisfactory group of sentences, but it's the best I can do to make it easier. I wonder if it has. We think who we are has been made by who we were in the past. But he's presenting another view: what we're like now is just what we're like now.^[8]

For instance, we could say: I've got a sore throat this morning because I talked too much last night, smoked twenty cigarettes and drank two pints of beer. But Master Dogen's saying another view is just: you have a sore throat, and the sore throat and its cause are all contained in now.^[8]

People say to me, Why did you go to Japan? And I trot out my little story, but in the end I went. And why did you come here? You can trot out your little story. Master Dogen's saying that the fact that you're here contains all the causes and circumstances of you being here. He's suggesting that the present moment is complete.^[9]

Science is founded on the belief that cause and effect is absolute. And Master Dogen doesn't deny that view, but he keeps putting a different view, and he puts it as though it is the only view. So you get paragraphs with completely contradictory views all put one after the other.^[9]

So people mistake their view of reality, which they form from their past experience, for reality itself. But Master Dogen says, well, reality is not actually based on past experience. It's just complete here and now.^[10]

Just being there

He might say the most important thing is not to cut yourself. It doesn't matter how you cut yourself before. The most critical thing is: don't do it now. It's only related to me, my finger, the knife, and my action.^[10]

I can't play tennis, but it seems to me very clear that when professionals are jogging on the baseline, they're trying to drop off everything that happened before and to be ready to hit the ball. They seem to be just trying to be in that moment. That's the kind of view that Master Dogen put in. You can't learn from the past. However, in another way, of course we can learn from the past.^[10][11]

The place we are already at

People do not see reality itself as being this time present. … And so they feel that the state of a buddha is not time present, but a state they must make efforts to attain.^[13]

That's a very common situation in Buddhism. People think that the state of a buddha can't be just being here and now, the mind and the body in the present moment. They think it's something they haven't got and therefore must get.^[13]

But even the moment in which they make their efforts … is also time present.^[13]

So the place we are all trying to get to is the place we are already at. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value.^[13]

A complete universal instant

Master Dogen is saying all the process markers of time that we use, two o'clock, yesterday, next year, are time present, actual concrete time. We are concrete times. Or we are concrete nows is better. Now is complete with all of us exactly as we are now.^[14]

The concrete time present of being angry makes the whole universe real. The concrete time present of being a buddha makes the whole universe real. …^[14]

Here he's trying to collapse our images into each other, if you like: concrete now, me, angry, universe, all one. At that instant, reality is complete. We usually think the world is made up of parts, but at this instant of time, there's nothing separate. We can't move David off the sofa and keep the sofa here. ‘The time present in which the universe makes itself real is called perfectly real.’ So I can't comment on that, really.^[15]

If it talked about, as in the previous sentence, the state of Buddha making the whole universe real, then there's me in there, because I practice zazen. But that sentence is about something that's beyond me.^[19]

The state of Buddha, which wants to search for the truth, practice zazen, attain the truth, and enter the balanced state to make the state of Buddha real, exists at time present. It is making perfectly real that the whole of time is the whole of existence, with nothing left over. …^[15]

Well, he's saying time present is the only reality, and it's indivisible. The universe is created at this moment. We can't escape from this moment.^[15]

Neither avoiding nor trying

Even the times when we seem to be blundering along heedlessly are at time present. … The vivid state of being in our own place in the universe is time present. … We should neither confuse it with not being present, nor force it into being present.^[16]

He's suggesting that we can never escape from reality. When we're confused, feel a bit ill, feel well, whatever, they're all reality as it is. And to be in our place in the universe is not to avoid being in the present moment, and neither is it trying to be in the present moment. So he's suggesting a middle way between two positions: to try to do something, get something, or be something, and to avoid it.^[17]

Participant: I was maybe wondering if I'm trying to be more present.

Try not to try. So we can do the same thing listening to a Buddhist talk. If you get trapped in my complicated attempt to describe Dogen's complicated words, all we're doing is preferring the words over what the words are talking about.^[18]

Preferring the words

We may be trying desperately to understand what these words mean. If we feel that we're heedlessly blundering along, we can notice how biased our civilisation is towards understanding. Because actually, it's only me sitting here reading out these words that I made up to try and explain the words that a thirteenth-century person made up, to try and describe something that we're all in now. Although we are experiencing time present, right in front of us here and now, we might tend to be confused by somebody's words about it, because we are trained to prefer those words to our own experience.^[17]

Sometimes when we listen to a Buddhist talk, we hear words that describe a state which is right here and now in front of us. But we prefer the words to the state, and that's the kind of habit of our civilization. Fortunately, we then end the talk and we go and sit, and we realize that the words were just words. But the words are about something real, the reality that we're in now. So I think I'll stop there, because I've run out of words.^[19][20]