No time like the present

[Hosui]

Inspired by Layzie’s asking for guidance on the Lotus Sutra (thanks Layzie ) I’d like to take this opportunity - my first since joining the Treeleaf sangha - for shosan with all the Buddhas here.

My question is on being-time. In the ‘Uji’ chapter of Shobogenzo Master Dogen explains how we’re fooled into believing sequential time, for instance, into thinking that our crossing of rivers and mountains, and then arriving at the vermilion palace (Tanahashi translation, p106) is a sequence. When, in fact, the present moment of practice is the entirety of time, that all of this mental activity is in the present being-time, which lacks for nothing. How so?

Who has time to answer this?

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[Kokuu]

Hi Hosui

I will attempt an answer which comprises several parts of this.

Firstly, I do not think that Zen and Buddhism deny sequential time in its relative sense, otherwise how would karma work? Also, we can see that certain things happen in a sequence. We are born, grow old and die. The cherry blossoms bloom, fall, and, later in the year, cherries form.

In this moment we are in now, just this one, we can call it the present. However, when we say the present we are grasping onto a concept. This week, in our study of The Platform Sutra, the sixth patriarch says that prajna is outside of notions of past, present and future and if we approach this moment without holding onto the past, worrying about the future, or even being in the present, I find that time no longer exists as an idea. There is just this, here and now, which transcends ideas of time and space, and contains everything in a vast expanse. The limits we place on it are conceptual.

In Genjokoan, Dogen says:

Firewood becomes ash, it can never go back to being firewood. Nevertheless, we should not take the view that ash is its future and firewood is its past. Remember, firewood abides in the place of firewood in the Dharma. Although it has a past and a future, the past and future are cut off. Ash exists in the place of ash in the Dharma.

So, clearly Dogen is not denying that time is sequential, otherwise ash could become firewood. However, in just this moment there is only firewood and neither its past nor future. Past, future, and even the present are just ideas in our head. There is only this.

But, on the flip side, if we want to have a fire, we gather firewood because we know it will burn and keep us warm, eventually becoming ash.

In this moment, though, there is just the firewood as it is, with this moment containing all other moments, past and future, and lacking for nothing.

The crossing of rivers and mountains and arriving at the vermiilion palace are the same as this. Each moment of our journey is just this, with no past or future, and lacking for nothing. But if we want to reach the vermillion palace, how do we do it? By crossing rivers and mountains.


Another aspect of time in Zen, which Dogen talks about in Uji, is that we often talk of time passing, as if we are a fixed point and time is moving past us. However, we are also part of that time passing with all other things and not a fixed point. in Genjokoan again, Dogen says:

When a man is moving along in a boat and he moves his eyes to the shore, he misapprehends that the shore is moving. If he keeps his eyes fixed on the boat, he knows that it is the boat which is moving forward.

This is similar to our apprehension of time, although it might be said that both the boat and shore are moving in that instance!

I hope that helps, and doubtless others will put this better than myself. I find Katagiri Roshi's book Each Moment is the Universe to be really helpful in clarifying this subject, and he definitely explains thinks better than me. Shinshu Robert's Being Time is, for me, not as clear and often confusing.

My apologies for such a lengthy response.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Hosui]

My apologies for such a lengthy response.

Many thanks for your time, Kokuu - yours and mine both.

It would seem that your response was in the initial question, and the comments of future responders likewise, despite being ash to my firewood. There seems to be a tremendous freedom that comes with Indra's Net, especially when it isn't conceptual.

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[Kokuu]

It would seem that your response was in the initial question, and the comments of future responders likewise, despite being ash to my firewood. There seems to be a tremendous freedom that comes with Indra's Net, especially when it isn't conceptual.

In annoying Zen terms I might say that it is not exactly in the original question but it is also not separate from it! In an Indra's Net way, maybe it can be said to contain it. I must admit I just don't know.

I 100% agree with the freedom that comes from just being at this point, without trying to demarcate it from everything else and, yes, seeing it conceptually can be helpful but doesn't give the same sense of freedom and vastness.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Bion]

I look at it simply. The only reliable fact is this, here, now. This very moment has no discernible beginning or end. It is the entirety of time, cause it contains the ripened fruit of all of the causes and conditions and karma, memories of our previous positions of being, possibilities for the future, all within this moment. There is no way one can measure the current moment, find its starting point or end. There is just being which requires no measurement or boundaries.

That's my superficially worded take.

Gassho
sat lah

[Hosui]

That's my superficially worded take

There's nothing superficial here, Bion

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[WhiteLotus]

Greetings Hosui and friends!

My perspective may not be related to what Dogen said, I haven't read Dogen in a very long time. However my view comes from what I remembered from before I was born, which is a strange and difficult subject to navigate. It has taken me years to find the words to express it, and one of the first ways was through scientific terms to some degree.

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it just changes from one formation to another. In this sense energy is eternal. Since its timeline is infinite, any tiny piece of energy is all possible forms. Relatively, it is in the form of this post for just a moment as the light waves travel from your device to your eyes and is partially retained in your memory through sensory stimulation. The heat, photons, and electrical energy are already somewhere else by the time you read this. Doing their energy thing, transforming forms.

Now that specific set of energy will continue forever changing forms, and eventually it will become the thought in your mind right now. It will become the tip of your finger. It will become a piece of the moon. It will become a single drop of water on a single blade of grass. It will become the reflection on that drop of water from the illumination of the moon.

That is relatively speaking. From the point of view of the absolute, it is all those things at-onement. All occurring in an instant without time. Non-linear or sequential.

Now I will relatively quote Foyan Qingyuan who lived from 1067 to 1120, who quoted an ancient living some time before Foyan.

It is also said, “ I am you, you are me”— nothing is beyond this.

And here is a quote from Zhenjing Kewen's record:

In ancient India on the eighth day of the twelfth month when the morning star appeared Buddha saw his original self fully and suddenly understood the path. All sentient beings on Earth became Buddhas in that moment. How did a young monk named Kewen living East of Hunan province in Youyang County; at seeing sun rise on the thirteenth day of the sixth month also have this one realization?"

With the flick of a brush the Master drew a picture in a single stroke and said:

"I dare not take any of you for granted. Regard yourself as Buddhas."

The Master then stepped down from the seat.

[Hosui]

Beautiful and strangely comforting - thanks for sharing, Salem

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[Shui_Di]

Hi Hosui,

In my opinion, I like to mention an old phrase

"We never step into a river twice"

River is a moving water. There is "water before", "water right" on the spot under our foot, and the "water after."

Without the flowing water, there will be no river. But the real water on our feet is real. And the river in that moment is real. But don't grasp it. On a sudden time, it changes.

Saying that the time is sequence is like saying the water in the spot is the continuation of the water before, but the molecul and the presicion of the water is totally different. The water under my foot, and the water one meter away from where I stand is completely different water. Any molecul of the water is complete in itself. That's why the moment here and now is the only real thing we have.

But saying the time is not sequence, is like saying that the flow of the water before, is not effectting the water on the spot, and the water after. But in reality, the movement of one spot of water will effects the other spot of water. If the water don't effect eachother, the river won't flow, and it can't be called as river. So do with time. We are also have child moment, now, and future. But yet, we are not the one 10 years ago. We are what we are right now.

So, sequence or not, it deoends on the point of the view.

Sorry for a bit long, and also with broken English. I hope it won't bring more confusion :|

Gassho, Mujo
STLAH

[Jundo]

Awhile back in time, I wrote something on Dogen's many time(s) and timeless ...

The top of a river is only top because of the bottom, thus the bottom determines the top. The top would have no place to go. The bottom of the river is the bottom because of the top. The bottom would dry up. There would be no bottom without the top. Truly, the top is just the bottom at the top, and bottom is just the bottom at the top.

Also, each drop of the river is thoroughly the entire river flowing within the drop. Like each point of a hologram contains the entire picture, so each moment of time holds all time.

Really there is only the river beyond top or bottom ... not even some "river" ... only flowing, flowing, flowing ...

Where are you even standing in such a river? Where are you not standing in such a river? What "you" to be standing at all? Only flowing, flowing, flowing ...

So it is with flowing time.

For those folks unfamiliar with his writings, Master Dogen had some very interesting perspective(s) on time. And I emphasize the word "perspective(s)", because he wrote of an infinite variety of ways of looking and experiencing time (and "no time") ... some seemingly contradictory, each true in its own way. ...
...

- All time is so interconnected and whole, that ... not only does the past flow into the future ... but (like the top of a mountain that flows into the bottom, and the bottom of the mountain which flows into the top) the future flows into the past.

- All time is so interconnected and whole ... that each moment, from one perspective, contains and expresses all moments. ... like each single step of a ballerina holds and expresses the whole ballet she is dancing.

- All time is so interconnected to life, that it may be said that all things, each of us, lives in our own 'being-time' ... like our own picture which we are constantly painting, and which we make and remake with every step and choice, gesture, word and thought ("this moment is the start of the rest of your life" is just the tip of the iceberg!)

...
https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/tea...-on-dogen-time

It may just be coincidence, but some physicists these days speak of a "block universe" (in which past, present and future are already written, like a movie already set on a DVS) ...
.
eternalism-block-time.jpg



... and also of something like reverse causation through quantum mechanics "selecting" among a multiverse of possible causal paths in collapse of the universal wave function upon measurement/observation ...
.

The only reliable truth is this, here, now.

That is not the only reliable truth. "Here" is there just here, "there" is here just there As well, "there" is thoroughly there with no "here." All there is is "there." Likewise, "here" is just here with no there. All there is is here. Here is all there is. There is all here. ... And what is where when we drop all thoughts of "here vs. there?" Then not even need for those words and ideas. So it is with time as well. Even "now" is a silly word.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Bion]

The only reliable truth is this, here, now.

That is not the only reliable truth. "Here" is there just here, "there" is here just there As well, "there" is thoroughly there with no "here." All there is is "there." Likewise, "here" is just here with no there. All there is is here. Here is all there is. There is all here. ... And what is where when we drop all thoughts of "here vs. there?" Then not even need for those words and ideas. So it is with time as well. Even "now" is a silly word.

Gassho, J
stlah

I just realized that the expression I was trying to use is “reliable FACT”, to use Nishijima Roshi’s words, and what came out was TRUTH… Not that it means necessarily something else, or that your point there does not apply… I just wanted to correct a misquote on my part…

In his translation of Nagarjuna, Nishijima Roshi uses reliable FACTS and not TRUTH like I said :
“The four reliable facts are reason, the external world, the
present moment, and reality—this world. A fifth reliable fact never exists at all. ”

Gassho
sat lah

[Shui_Di]

.
........
Even "now" is a silly word.
.........
Gassho, J
stlah

Hi Jundo Roshi,

This reminds me on the Diamond Sutra where Buddha said, "past can't be grasp, now can't be grasp, future can't be grasp"

Well, that means here or there both can't be grasp.

Gassho, Mujo
StLah