The Zen Master's Dance - 28 - Being-Time (Top of p. 128 to Middle of p. 136)

[Jundo]

Thank you for spending time on these exercises.

This time, we are reading to the middle of p. 136, stopping before the quote which reads, "[Though we speak of "being-time,"] do not mistakenly confuse it with "nonbeing" ... "

Assignment 1 - Usually, we experience times as moving forward, from past, through the present, into the future, and every moment of time is discreet and standing by itself.

However, in this chapter, I use several similes to get across Master Dogen's notions of time flowing multi-directionally, and each moment being all the other moments, and all time, in other guise for that place and time. So, for example, there is (a) the top of the mountain where one can see in all directions, (b) the one page of writing which contains everything written on the page and to be written on the page, (c) the ocean which flows in all directions and where every wave is the ocean and thus (because ocean is ocean) is also each of the other waves, (d) the DVD which contains the whole movie which can be played in either direction, and where any point on the DVD is the whole DVD and whole movie at that point, thus all the other points on the DVD too, (e) a river in which the top of the river is the river, the bottom of the river is the river, and the top is the bottom of the river at the top, while the bottom is the top of the river at the bottom.

Now, please pick your own image or simile, unrelated to any of the above, in which you likewise express all these different directions and inter-identities of time using the simile.

Assignment 2 - The book discusses how our thoughts, memories and feelings about an event in the past literally "change the past," because really the past event is shaped and defined by our memories as well as our thoughts and feelings about it (both at the time and after looking back).

Please briefly relate a past event in your life that was changed by changes in your thoughts, memories and feelings about it.

Please do not look at others' responses before writing your own.

Gassho, J
stlah

PS - A careful reader has noted to me that I got my relativity wrong! On page 120, I noted that, by Special Relativity, time for the twin on the mountain top passes more slowly than for his brother in the valley. In fact, it is the opposite. The twin on the mountain is traveling faster than the lower twin as the planet rotates, however, "Even though velocity slows the aging of the mountain twin, gravity is stronger and thus slows the aging of the valley twin even more." Noted, and thank you. I am no physicist.

If I could, I would travel back in time and correct the manuscript!

[Hosui]

1. The ‘dings’ of the meditation gong, those specious single instants first heard in musty halls way back when bells and gongs were invented, is dinging across all of time right now, signalling not just the billowy drowse of this sit but wrapping together like scare quotes ancient nebulae and unshoveled graves.

2. I remember as a teen I used to ration my exposure to music I liked, believing the warmth I got from a new LP would cool more rapidly if I squandered my enjoyment. The puzzle of puzzles is not the entropy of pleasure, nor the sequentiality of lofty hindsight, but why I haven’t lavished more love and compassion on my younger self until now.

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[Koriki]

1.
Stephen Colbert once interviewed the band Rush and asked them "Since your songs are so long (they're sometimes 20 minutes long) that by the time you're done playing one were you influenced by yourselves?"

2.
When I look back on what I have viewed as emotionally abusive behavior by my step mother when I was a child I am now more apt to see a flawed person (who had a difficult childhood herself) behaving badly due to anger and ignorance. She was young (compared to me now) and emotionally threatened by the very existence of my brother and I. The causes and conditions were simply unfortunate.

Gassho,
Koriki
s@lah

[Jundo]

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[Ryūdō-Liúdào]

1) Time is like a swarm of bees in flight. From far away, we think we see movement in one direction, but when we look closer, we notice: Each bee is moving according to its own vector, yet none are separate from the swarm. There is no single front/rear/center of the swarm that we can point to and say, "Time is there."

(Side note: I miss my bees. Last year's unusually heavy and longer-than-usual rainy season made it impossible to help them maintain their hives, and they both got wax moth infestations. As soon as the rains stopped, they left to find new homes. I do see them every day, as they return for flowers, but that honey was just... *chef's kiss*)

2) How I viewed some cultures, whether positive or negative, was strongly affected by what I grew up seeing/believing, and then changed (sometimes for the worse, opps!) when I came into more direct contact with people from said cultures.
Also, living in East Asia for half my life has changed my outlook so much that I often find modern Western culture to be a little strange lol. Looking back, I can see how the ‘same past’ feels very different depending on who I was at the time.

[Jundo]

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[Hokuu]

Assignment 1

Time is like an endless wheat field ripe and yellow and slowly moving in wave-like motions under the light morning wind. Boundless blue sky over it, and yellow ripe wheat in all directions, covering all the earth, being the earth, its past, present, and future with past contained in the endless now and future riping from it and being unfolded in the limited while fully limitless now.

Assignment 2

In the past, I used to feel the urge to help people make things "right", to help them avoid mistakes, egotistically assuming I knew what was better for this or that person, what was the mistake and what was right. I noticed lately that that urge looses its "urge-ness" the more time passes and the more I practice. It's not that I don't care for people, it's just I feel less and less responsible for their happiness.

gassho
satlah

[Jundo]

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[Furyu]

The water draining under my feet in the shower is the same water pouring out over my head, with no distinction of now and then, clean or dirty. All the fish in the ocean swim with this water now, all the rains past and future are included within it, all the oceans in all directions are always part of this water. I shower with the clouds, the rain and the fog. Thus there is no clean water pouring down in the present and dirty water draining out in the future. The time of the dirty water is past, present and future. The time of the clean water is when it has drained out under my feet. All these are simply time being seen as being-time.


After we immigrated to Canada, when I was growing up I often felt that my father was just grumpy and unreasonable; he was moody and did not seem to understand what his children needed to adapt in their new country. It’s much later, growing up, that I started to understand his perspective and his great feeling of loss, as well as coming to realize that he was probably dealing with depression much of his life. Looking back, it does change the interpretation of my own history.


Gasshō
sat-lah
Fūryū

[Jundo]

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