Uji
A transcript of a talk given during a meditation period at the Segaki retreat at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in October 2019.
Today, I invite you all to sit together with me and all beings, forget time as we conventionally know it and enter Dōgen’s world of timelessness.
Please do not doubt that you are sitting with all beings in all worlds. Dōgen says: “Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment”. It is just not possible. Not only are you sitting with all beings – you are all beings. When I sit, I am the Universe. When you sit, you are the Universe! I am not referring to the I of the ego here. This is the I that Shakyamuni referred to when he said “I was, am and will be enlightened instantaneously with the Universe and all sentient beings.” This is the I that Uji is about.
So much of our daily life is ruled by time. Our days are planned according to the clock. Even here at the monastery we follow a schedule largely dictated by the clock. It’s not surprising therefore that we have come to believe that time is real but actually it has no substance. It is just a measurement that we use for convenience. It helps us organise our day, work together, socialise together but it has no substance.
It is not surprising since time is so important to us that we think it a real substantial thing that stands by itself. We see time as linear, sequential, irreversible and something separate from and independent of events in it. We see time as passing us by. We think of ourselves as being born, living and dying in a stream of time that flows from past to present to future but Dōgen says that this is not the only way to view time. Dōgen constantly encourages us to go beyond our usual understanding of time and see real time. Real time is the harmony of the 24 hours of everyday life and the source of the 24 hours which is timelessness.
Time and its relation to us and all beings is expressed in many of Dōgen’s writings but his main treatise on time is Uji. Uji is translated as being-time or sometimes existence-time and is basically about no-self, impermanence and totality. Obviously, we cannot discuss the whole scripture here in one sitting so I have selected some pieces which have helped me, particularly in relation to the death of a much-loved being. It seems appropriate at this time of Segaki to share them with you. I hope it will encourage you to look at the scripture again.
Uji starts with a verse:
An ancient Buddha said:
For the time being stand on top of the highest peak.
For the time being proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean.
For the time being three heads and eight arms.
For the time being an eight or sixteen foot body.
For the time being a staff or a whisk.
For the time being a pillar or a lantern.
For the time being the sons of Zhang and Li
For the time being the earth and sky1
The three heads and eight arms refers to an asura or demon. The eight or sixteen foot body refers to a Buddha. The staff and whisk are implements of the zen master – special things. The pillar and lantern are everyday things. The sons of Zhang and Li are the common people.
Do not think that Dōgen means what we conventionally think of as ‘for the time being’, i.e. ‘for a time’ or ‘for now’.
To clarify his use of the phrase Dōgen continues: “For the time-being here means time itself is being and all being is time.”1
Basically this verse states that everything is time-being. All that exists is time-being and Uji is each of these events. Dōgen is saying that whatever happens or ‘is’ is not in time but is time.
All of the things mentioned in the verse, i.e. three heads and eight arms, an eight or sixteen-foot buddha, a staff, a whisk etc are all what we call dharma positions. A dharma position is a moment, thing or event of being-time that is also definable as transient and impermanent. A person is a dharma position.
Since nothing ever stays the same and all things are in flux due to their interactive, interpenetrating nature, it would be impossible to say that a dharma position or moment of being-time begins here and ends there. Dharma positions are not finite in this sense, nor are they sequential way stations along a continuum of past present and future. A dharma position has a past, present and future but is freed from being defined by them. Each dharma position is particular and independent.
Dōgen expresses this clearly in Genjōkōan where he compares life and death to firewood and ash:
Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash with its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies.2
Each statement is true and equally important to our understanding of a dharma position or being time. We do have a past and a future but we are not bound by a fossilised past or future. We can use our past experiences and future desires as tools for discernment, thus we can respond to the moment unobstructed by motivations that may hinder a skilful response.
Seen from our usual point of view, an acorn sprouts and grows gradually over a period of time until it becomes a big tree. When firewood is needed, the tree is cut down, split into pieces, stacked and dried. When the pieces are dry, we call them firewood and when we burn the firewood it becomes ash. We think of human life and death in the same way. I was a baby, I grew up into a teenager then became an adult. I will live as an adult for some time and then continue to get older and older until I finally die.
We think of time as a stream that flows like a river from the beginningless past to the endless future. We think that individuals are born and appear in the stream and later die and disappear from the stream. We think that the stream of time has been flowing before my birth and will continue after my death. This is not the true nature of life and death.
Time is being and being is time. According to Dōgen, a tree, firewood, ash and all things have their own time or dharma position. At each dharma position, the thing or being has its own past and future. The dharma position of a tree has its own past as a seed and its own future as firewood. The dharma position of firewood has its own past as a tree and its own future as ash. The dharma position of ash has its own past as firewood and its future as something else – perhaps scattered on the garden to help things grow.
The dharma positions of tree, firewood and ash are all independent of one another.
A dharma position holds all being-time, i.e. a being’s time and time’s being in this very moment. This is the complete non-duality of things, existence and time.
Since a dharma position is interconnecting, interpenetrating, impermanent and fleeting, it functions within the context of all other dharma positions. In concert, these dharmas practice together and make the world.
Katagiri offers a beautiful description in his book Each Moment is the Universe. He says:
Time seems to be separate from beings but actually there is no separation. From moment to moment all things exist together as a completely independent moment of time. When the moment begins, all sentient beings appear as particular beings in the stream of time and seem to have their own separate existences. When the moment ceases, all sentient beings disappear but they do not go away; they are interconnected smoothly and quietly in timelessness.3
Dōgen says:
The way the self arrays itself is the form of the entire world. See each thing in this entire world as a moment of time. Things do not hinder one another, just as moments do not hinder one another. The way-seeking mind arises in this moment. A way-seeking moment arises in this mind. It is the same with practice and with attaining the way. Thus the self setting itself out in array sees itself. This is the understanding that self is time.1
The egoless self sets itself in array and brings forth the world moment-to-moment.
Setting the self out in array constitutes the mode of being-of-self in the world. Dōgen uses the parable of a boat to exemplify this mode of being. He says:
Birth is just like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and you steer. Although you maneuver the sail and the pole, the boat gives you a ride, and without the boat you couldn’t ride. But you ride in the boat, and your riding makes the boat what it is. Investigate a moment such as this. At just such a moment, there is nothing but the world of the boat. The sky, the water, and the shore are all the boat’s world, which is not the same as a world that is not the boat’s. Thus, you make birth what it is, you make birth your birth.4
Here Dōgen likens the self to riding in a boat. The life of the boat is the self that rides in it. The man makes the boat what it is; without him it would just be a piece of wood floating downstream, without direction. Likewise, without the boat, the boatman is unrealised. In this case the boat is absolutely crucial to his existence.
Not only are the man and boat mutually interdependent but the heavens, the water and the shore all belong inextricably to the total situation. If we study assiduously this very time, as Dōgen says, there is nothing but the world of the boat. The world of the boat is the boat’s time, which is not the same as the time that is not of the boat. Of course this is not the only situation in the world but in this situation, the totality is present with nothing left out.
Setting the self out in array allows each being and each thing to become manifest in the entire world as time’s occurrence at every moment. Since everything is impermanent, there is no substance therefore no thing or being obstructs any other being and every moment is a total manifestation of the entire world.
Katagiri says:
All beings in the Universe appear and disappear in a moment. The term impermanence expresses the functioning of a moment or the appearance and disappearance of all beings as a moment. It means that all life is transient, constantly appearing and disappearing, constantly changing. You are transient, I am transient and Buddha is transient. Everything is transient. Wherever you may go, transiency follows you. Transiency is the naked nature of time.5
I’d like to talk a bit about “things do not hinder one another.” Sometimes the word ‘obstruct’ is used and perhaps it is better.
We talked during tea the other day about delusion and sitting with it rather than trying to get rid of it. I quoted Dōgen with regard to it sometimes being the three-headed, eight-armed demon presencing and other times the Buddha, but both exist together. They do not obstruct each other – delusion and enlightenment do not obstruct each other. Also, delusion does not become enlightenment. Both are present at the same time.
Similarly, life does not become death.
Dōgen continues:
Know that in this way there are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses (things) throughout the entire earth and yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth. The study of this is the beginning of practice.1
In this way he refers again to setting the self out in array to form the entire world. Each thing is contained in every other thing. Each thing is both itself and the entire world. It does not represent the whole world or is a symbol of the whole world. Looked at by the way-seeking mind, it is the whole world.
Perhaps it is better explained in Genjōkōan where Dōgen says:
To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be experienced by myriad dharmas. To be experienced by the myriad dharmas is to let our own body and mind and the body and mind of the external world drop away.2
Practising with the self-of-the whole world is the beginning of Buddhist practice.
When you are at this place, there is just one grass, there is just one form; there is understanding of form and no-understanding of form; there is understanding of grass and no-understanding of grass.1
This place is the place of ‘suchness’ or truth, when the self practises in concert with the whole world and all dharmas are seen and realised in their true aspect as being-times. Understanding and not understanding this both belong to man’s discrimination; they are separate but equally manifestations of being-time.
Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. Grass-being, form being are both time.1
There is only the immediate present in which all time and being is encompassed. This is true of me, you and all dharmas.
Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.1
This is Dōgen wanting us to make the truth of being-time our own realisation. Without this realisation, being-time is a hollow phrase and we are cut off from the whole world and all time.
Katagiri says:
In the human world, we see things as separate from us. In Buddha’s world, all things come together and melt into one. So, very naturally, when we set ourselves out in array in Buddha’s world, we can see all other beings. Then we know that we have to live with others in peace and harmony because we are intimately related with no gap between. This is Buddha’s world.6
I would like to describe a personal experience of being—time:
Several years ago, I was caring for a very sick dog. Shep had a neurological condition which, with the help of my brilliant vet, we had managed for about three years before he started to deteriorate quite rapidly. I won’t go into detail but basically he was suffering and in pain. Normally I would not consider euthanasia but one day as we sat in the garden he looked at me as though begging me to let him go. I phoned my vet and explained the situation whereupon he came straight out to see Shep. He knows well my views on euthanasia and therefore realised that Shep must be extremely ill if I was considering this.
When the vet arrived, he asked me to let him sit in the garden and observe Shep for a while to determine his pain level. We sat in the garden for about 20 minutes and then he said “I think Shep is in pain and it would be best to end his life. I could take him in and open him up but it would just be euthanasia by surgery. He is too weak to survive.”
It was a lovely sunny day so we decided that it would be best to give him the injection in the garden. I sat holding Shep telling him how much he was loved whilst the vet gave him the injection. After the injection, the vet stroked him too. As Shep gently slipped away, a great peace and stillness seemed to descend upon us all. The light seemed to change to a golden glow. It was as though we all dissolved and were held in timelessness. There was no time here – just “this” – nothing outside of the moment.
It’s interesting that it was not only me who felt this. My vet who has no formal religious practice experienced it too. We must have sat in silence for about 10 minutes then he asked quite simply “What happened? I’ve never experienced a death like that before.”
All came together as one in timelessness.
Zazen is a direct experience of being-time. When we meditate, fully presencing ourselves, we are experiencing our life as gapless intimacy.
When you truly sit, where is time? Where are you? Life and death really do not exist here. There is just this.
Notes
1. The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye; Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo. The Time Being. Kazuaki Tanahashi, ed. Shambhala Publications, Inc. 2012, p. 104-111.
2. Okumura, Shohaku, Realising Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications, 2010, p. 2.
3. Katagiri, Dainin, Each Moment is the Universe; Zen and the Way of Being Time. Shambhala Publications Inc., 2007, p. 73.
4. The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye; Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo. Undivided Activity. Kazuaki Tanahashi, ed. Shambhala Publications, Inc. 2012, p.526.
5. Katagiri, Dainin, Each Moment is the Universe; Zen and the Way of Being Time, p. 4.
6. Katagiri, Dainin, Each Moment is the Universe; Zen and the Way of Being Time, p. 100.
