Good morning, everybody. We have a special guest this morning. And before I introduce Teigen, I would like to say the names of everybody who is here. Stop in the room. Eric. Mary. Brian. Aaron. Susan. Eric. Peter. Raren. And on the screen, I see Gabriella. and Tom, Cornelia, Alan, Ren, Jim, Noah, and Roberto. Welcome everybody. So today we have Taigen Leighton, who is a scholar, Buddhist scholar, author of many books about Soto Zen especially, and a teacher at many universities internationally, and he is retired as a guiding teacher at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago.

[01:16]

And so now he is lecturing around the world and also here in Milwaukee. And we are so happy that we have this opportunity electronically to have him in our temple, even if it's only virtually. So let me get the speaker view. And then, Taigen, please go ahead. Thank you so much, Raven. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Great. Okay, so this morning I'm going to speak about Hua Yan and Dogen. And so there's a lot of material and I want to leave time for discussion. I'm going to end up focusing on time and temporality in terms of the Kuayan ten times. Excuse me?

[02:17]

Can I please interrupt you? I don't think everybody knows what Kuayan is. If you could just give a very quick explanation. Yes, I will. So Kuayan Buddhism is the branch of Buddhism that developed in China that comes from the Flower Ornament or Avatamsaka Sutra, translated as Kegon in Japanese. And So I want to talk about the relationship between Huayen Buddhism and Soto Zen and Dogen in particular. Dogen, the founder of Japanese Soto Zen. I'm going to go back into China. So there's a lot of material I want to touch on. And I know in Milwaukee, some of you have been studying Huayen Buddhism. But I will try to leave some time for discussion. So... Why in Buddhism, again, developing from the amazing

[03:18]

huge flower ornament sutra, the Tamsaka Sutra in Sanskrit. Hwayan Buddhism has many different aspects as a school of Buddhism, which is very important in all of East Asian Buddhism, even though it has not maintained much of an institutional presence. It still exists as a school in Japan at the Todaiji Temple on Nara and elsewhere. At any rate, one of the main teachings of Hua Yen, which is very influential to Soto Zen, is the Fourfold Dharma Datu, it's called. And this is about the relationship and interaction between, in Chinese it's called Li and She, principle and phenomena. But this is basically the interaction between the ultimate or universal reality which we get some sense of, get some bit of communion with, more or less, in our zazen, and the phenomenal world, and our participation in the particulars of the phenomenal world.

[04:29]

So, this wayan system, very influential, the fourfold dharmadhatu, or reality realm, is the four are the phenomenal realm, this is our everyday world of phenomena, the principle or the universal or ultimate reality. And then the unobstructed interaction of phenomena and principle. or the ultimate reality in the phenomenal world. Very important. And lots of examples of that. And in some ways, the heart of our practice. And then, of course, the fourth bowl of Dharmadhatu is the unobstructed interaction and interconnection of phenomena and phenomena. So each particular... entity or being or reality interacts unobstructedly with each.

[05:31]

This is the fourth of the portal Dhammadhatu. OK. I'll just say now that this Huayen understanding is deeply embedded in all of East Asian Buddhism. And I'll come back to that. Particularly in Soto Zen, in the tradition that we're practicing in Milwaukee and here in Chicago and elsewhere, all in Suzuki-Roshi lineage, and also to Zen, has as a basis from the Chinese Soto founder Dongshan, or Tosan. Soudong is how you pronounce Soto in Chinese. Sorry, I'm going to give a lot of information that will not be a test. This is just background for all of us and very important to our actual practice. So in Dongshan's Song of the Jewel-Mirror Samadhi, Tokyo Zanmai, probably you've shared that in Milwaukee. there is embedded in that the Soto five ranks or five positions or five degrees of fundamental Soto philosophical teaching.

[06:45]

And this actually goes back to Shito or Sekito's Sando Kai, Harmony of Difference and Sameness, about the interactivity of Sameness and difference is the way it's put in sadhakāya, oneness and men. So this is key to our practice. And so I want to just name the five degrees or five positions that is in Soto Zen that are first expressed explicitly by Dongshan. Dongshan in Japanese, he lived in the 800s. So these five positions are... And these are five aspects of the way that the phenomenal world and the ultimate or universal reality interact. So these five are the phenomenal within the real. The real is a way of talking about the ultimate, the universal.

[07:52]

The real within phenomena. then emerging from, springing forth from the ultimate reality, then moving within both, and then the fifth of these five positions in Sota Zen is arriving within both. No separation at all between the universal reality and the phenomenal reality. So these five degrees or five positions go back to Dongshan that I mentioned earlier. or implicit in the Song of the Zhoumier Samadhi. So my teacher, Tenjin Rivendishen, has said that Dongshan is actually the sixth ancestor of Huayen. There were historically five ancestors, patriarchs of the Huayen school in China going back to the 500s. But Reb says that Dongshan is the sixth Wanyan ancestor, and I very much agree with him.

[08:53]

And also, my friend Stephen Hind, who's one of the most American academic scholar of Dogen and of Zen and so on, agrees with this, that Dongshan, the founder of Soto Zen, is actually in many ways, the sixth ancestor of the Huayan tradition, not formally a school. And actually, there's been recently an academic conference of many academic scholars of East Asian Buddhism, and they were all surprised to come to the consensus that Huayan Buddhism is deeply, deeply important vetted in all East Asian Buddhist schools, even the Pure Land schools, which seek to be separate. So, how does this apply to our practice?

[09:58]

Well, first I want to say that Dogen discourages explicit study of the five degrees, and I'll come back to that, but in Chinese and Japanese Soto Zen, Sao Dong, called Sao Dong in Chinese, historically there's been extensive study by Soto Zen teachers of these five degrees and of Hua Yen. So in a way that's not so explicit in Soto Zen, Huayen is very, very important. And these five degrees in Soto Zen come out of the Fourfold Dhammadatta from Huayen. So just some examples of important Soto teachers who focused on the five degrees, and therefore also on Huayen, Houzu Yiching, in China, 1032 to 1083, before he became a Soto ancestor, or Chaodong ancestor, was a student of Hua Yan and very much studied the Five Degrees, one example.

[11:13]

Hongzhe Zhangzhui, 1091 to 1157, some of whose work whose writing I translated in the book Cultivating the Empty Field, also talked about the five degrees and was aware of why in In Japan, Gassan Joseki, 1277 to 1350, 1350 or 53, he was a successor of Keizan, the second founder of Soto Zen in Japan. Gassan Joseki is very important, and he very much emphasized the five degrees or five ranks, and also Yen. So these are just a few examples. Japanese Soto Zen teachers continued studying the five degrees, some of them intently, into more modern times. So that's background. Dogen, who I'm going to focus on, who you've probably all heard of, the founder of Japanese Soto Zen, discourages focus on the five degrees.

[12:24]

He doesn't talk about it explicitly because he thought it was too much of a... Is that a question, Tom? No? Okay. Yeah. So we'll have time for discussion and questions. But Dogen discouraged this five-degree teaching because it was too appealing as a system of understanding the teaching in reality. So he thought, you know, that, that it became too much of a, of a systematic understanding. And so he, he, he, you know, mentions, he, he explicitly discourages study of, of five degrees or five regs. However, uh, like all of East Asian Buddhism, Hua Yen's teaching very much is an underpinning of Dogen's teaching, and I'm going to talk more about that. So, again, this recent academic scholars conference of East Asian Buddhist scholars agreed that, had a consensus that Hua Yen is

[13:38]

kind of embedded in the foundations of all of East Asian Buddhism. Okay, one example in Dogen, maybe not such an obvious example, but Genjo Koan, one of Dogen's most famous teachings, He talks about the many and the one. And this, again, is the basic point of these fourfold Dharmadhatus and the Dharmadhatu system in Huayen and the five degrees of ranks in Soto Zen is this interaction. This is the point that whether it's not important to memorize or understand these five degrees or fourfold dhammadhatu, what's important is to understand that there is this interactivity in our practice of ultimate reality, universal reality, which we get a taste of in Zazen at least, which we can commune with in Zazen and in our everyday practice. The interaction of that with our ordinary phenomenal world, the everyday reality we deal with, the world of the particulars, all the particulars in our experience.

[14:55]

So one example of that in Genjo Koan is Dogen defines delusion as carrying the self forward to experience all the myriad things. So projecting ourself onto the myriad things. That's delusion. And that awakening, or enlightenment, is that the myriad things arise and experience themselves together, which includes, of course, each of us. So there's a lot of things in Genjakan that are really very useful, but that definition of awakening and delusion is central, and it does call back to the five degrees and the fourfold Dhammadhatu. So Dogen very much emphasizes expression in the phenomenal world. Again, based on our communion with ultimate reality or the universal reality, or I call it wholeness, the sense of wholeness that we at least get a glimmer of in Zazen sometimes when our knees aren't hurting too much or whatever.

[15:59]

So the sense of the ultimate, but then Dogen emphasizes how do we express this inner everyday activity. So Dogen talks a lot about everyday activity. So, okay, I'm going over this material somewhat quickly or scheduling. So please feel free to, you know, there will be time for questions and discussions. I want to give a couple of examples of this Guayan teaching, this Blower Ornament Sutra teaching in Dogen's Shogogenzo. So one of them is a Shogogenzo essay or fascicle called Kayin Zambai, the Ocean Seal Samadhi, or the Ocean Seal Samadhi. the Ocean Mudra Samadhi, which Dogen wrote in 1242. And I'm just going to read a little bit about that particular Dogen essay from Tom Cleary, who says about this, the Ocean Seal Samadhi, or as it is sometimes rendered, the Oceanic Reflection Samadhi, is said to be the Samadhi from which the Flower of the Sutra emerged.

[17:19]

So Shakyamuni Buddha was in that samadhi, the ocean seal samadhi, and that's where his presentation of the whole flower ornament sutra, 1,600 pages long in Cleary's translation, emerged from, this samadhi. So Cleary says that the Hua Yan essay, the return to the source contemplation was popular in Chinese Zen. And he says, the ocean seal or ocean mudra is fundamental awareness of true suchness. When delusion ends, the mind is clear and myriad forms simultaneously appear. It is like the ocean when the wind arises and waves appear. If the wind stops the ocean, water is calm and clear and all images can reflect in it.

[18:23]

So again, this is a common image in Buddhism that the ocean has these waves the waves of suffering, we might say. But when they calm down, we can look into the ocean and see our reflection and the reflection of the sky and everything. So in terms of mind, the ocean seal samadhi may be said to refer to this holistic, impartial awareness where we can see the reflection of everything. And I'll just read the first sentence or so of the actual text of the Ocean Seal Samadhi. This is Cleary's translation, which I'll amplify. He says, Dogen says, In being Buddha and Zen addicts, it is necessary to be the Ocean Seal Samadhi. In swimming in this Samadhi, there is a time of speaking, a time of meditation,

[19:25]

of awakening or experience, and the time of acting. So this is one example of Dogen and Shogo Genzo referring to something that's directly from the Flower Ornament Sutra or Hoi An Buddhism. Another Shogo Genzo essay That is a quote from the Flower Ornament Sutra is in Japanese, ,, the triple world is one mind only. This is also a saying from Buddha in the of Flower Ornament Sutra. So the triple world, the three realms, or we could say the three times, past, present, and future, are not separate from the single mind. the single awareness that that is the whole world. That's the subject of that Shobo Genzo essay. There are also references to the Flower Ornament Sutra and Dogen's extensive record, or Ehe Koloku, which I translated with Shobo Kokumura.

[20:37]

One part, one place in there, Dogen says that the Lotus Sutra, the Avatamsaka Sutra, are all simply Buddha Dharma, all included. They're not separate from Zazen. So Dogen, this is in a passage where Dogen says there's no such thing as the Zen school. It's all just the Buddha way, the Buddha teaching. And all the sutras, including the, he mentioned specifically, the Palau Ornament Sutra, are part of that. a part of our teaching practice. He mentions the Flow Ornament Sutra a number of places. One example is from the final chapter of entry into realm of reality which tells the story of a pilgrim Sudhana who goes to 53 different great bodhisattva figures and gets various different teachings from them in Dogen's extensive record he talks about he has a passage where he tells a story about Sudhana going to Manjushri and Manjushri asks him to

[21:58]

find an herb that is medicinal, find a medicinal herb. And Sudhana goes out. This is not in the Amatamsaka Sutra, but it's a story that's related to it because it's about Sudhana. And it also appears in some koans. But Sudhana goes out and comes back and says that in the whole earth there is no... herb or grass or plant that is not medicinal. The whole earth is medicine. This is a very way of seeing things. And again, everything in the phenomenal world, all the particulars of the phenomenal world are not just expressions of wholeness, but actually teachings and medicine to find peace and wholeness. So this is a very kind of lofty perspective, but that's what the Flower and Matsudra is.

[23:05]

It's this amazing compendium of Bodhisattva teachings, very flowery, very psychedelic, really. Anyway, in Dogen's extensive record, there's one place where he says, the Buddha field of the Dharmakaya, of the Buddha that is the whole of reality, that he's there. This Buddha Vairacchana, who's the central Buddha of the Theravada Sutra, this Buddha field of Dramakaya, exists in our eyebrows and in our eyelashes. It's also said in the Flower Ornament Sutra that this Buddha field of the whole universe exists in each particular, in each grass tip, in each hair tip, everywhere in the universe. So the Flower Ornament Sutra says that in every atom there are assemblies of Buddhas and Nibodhisattvas. So this is a very kind of amazing and lofty perspective in the flower and in the sutra. And it's really integral to our Shoujo Zen practice.

[24:08]

Oh, another place in Dogen's extensive record he's, this is, he says, um, The beginning and advanced stages, which are expressed, for example, in the Flower Ornament Sutra, in the Ten Stages or Dasa Bhumika chapter, and in the Ganda-Vuha chapter about Sudhana, which are considered separate sutras as well. All these stages, Dogen says, are like, quote, bamboo on the mountains and the cypress tree in the gardens. The incomplete and ultimate stages are like spring flowers and the autumn moon. So this is referring to these systems of stages of development, which are expressed explicitly in the Hawaiian flower ornament of the Tamsaka Sutra.

[25:16]

And Dogen doesn't... He recognizes these phases, but without judgment about trying to get higher. This is also like Dongshan, who very much de-emphasizes stages of development. He has one system of five degrees, which is systems of achievement. all Dongshan's koans I talk about in my book, Just This Is It, Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness, all of Dongshan's teachings, he talks about this immediate present we're in, and he emphasizes stages of achievement, and Dogen does too. So, that brings us to the study of time in Huayen and in the Dogesh. So in the flower ornament sutra and in Hawaiian Buddhism, it is said that there are 10 times

[26:22]

There's the past, future, and present of the past. There's the past, future, and present of the future. And there's the past, future, and the present of this present. And all nine of those together are the tenth. So the number ten is used all through the Flower Ornament Sutra. But I'm going to take the liberty of reading the passage about this in the Flower Ornament Sutra. It's a very great book. so let's see this is in the chapter on detachment from the world page 1029 for those of you who have been looking at the sutra and okay so the sutra says great bodhisattvas have ten kinds of explanation of past present and future They speak of the past of the past, the future of the past, and the present of the past.

[27:26]

They speak of the past of the future, the present of the future, and the endlessness of the future, so the future of the future. They speak of the past of the present, the future of the present, and the equality of the present. They speak of the past, present, and future being the one instant of the present, so that's the 10th. These are the 10 ways by which bodhisattvas explain all past, present, and futures. It goes on to say to get 10 ways of knowing the worlds of these 10. But anyway, it's on page 1029 for anyone who wants to look that up later. OK. So these 10 times in the Flower Ornament Sutra involve inhabiting time. Uh, I'm going to read, um, from my book on awakening space and time, uh, just a little bit.

[28:34]

Um, uh, so yeah, um, This understanding of time in the Fleur-Herneman Sutra is very relevant to Dogen's essay, which you may have heard of, called Uji, or Being Time. So I want to talk about Abhatamsaka, or Hawaiian Buddhism, in relationship to this idea of the ten times, this teaching of the ten times, in relationship to Dogen's presentation of being time. And I hope I'm not going too fast. I'm trying to cover a lot of material. And I want to hear your comments and reflections and questions later. We'll have some time for that. First of all, The point of time and its duration for Bodhisattvas, according to the Flower Naman Sutra, is to enter into and inhabit time in all temporal aspects and not to escape into some timeless state.

[29:43]

This is important in our practice. So you may have heard of the phrase, be here now, which Ram Dass popularized way back. when I was starting to practice Zen back in the previous millennium. Anyway, be here now and be in the present is something that we talk about in Zen practice, but it doesn't mean, and it can be thought of as trying to escape from past and future. Let me read a little more. Dogen, in Being Time, encourages questioning and engagement with time when he says, quote, people do not doubt the duration of daily time, but even though they do not doubt it, this does not mean that they know what it really is.

[30:45]

Their doubting is so inconsistent that the doubts at the previous moment do not necessarily correspond to our doubts at the present moment. So that's from Dogen's Being-Time essay. He also says in this essay, people only see times coming and going and do not thoroughly understand that the being-time or time-being abides in each moment closely examine this flowing without your complete effort right now, nothing would be actualized. Nothing would flow. So time is not some external. So one major point of the Uji or being time essay by Dogen is that time is not some external objective and dependent entity, but requires a practitioner's complete effort. So time, This teaching about time in both Flower and Sutra and in Dogen is, I think, very important to our practice.

[31:49]

So a basic... Well, I'll read a little more and then say some more about it. The second... Chinese ancestor of the Huayan school, Zhiyuan, who lived 602 to 668, based on the Flower Ornament Sutra, wrote an essay called Ten Mysterious Gates of the Unitary Vehicle of Huayan. Julian in that essay spoke of the ten time frames he says the ten time frames by virtue of their interdependent origination dependent co-arising mutually identify and even mutually interpenetrate yet without losing the three time frames it is like the ten fingers making a fist yet not losing a finger the ten time frames interpenetrate and inter-identify it without losing the characteristics of succession and duration.

[32:57]

Therefore, it is said that separate things variously become. So this is from a Hawaiian essay. Tom Cleary says about this, the universe, or in Hawaiian terms, the universe of interdependent origination, is that once the totality of causes and the totality of its effects, hence its total present at once, contains its total past and total future. This is the basis for the Buddha's knowledge of past and future in the present. So the point of this is that all times are included in each time. This is what Dogen is saying in Being Time. This is what the Flower Ornament Sutra says in terms of these end times. And I want to try and talk about the relevance of this for us. So in Mahayana, and particularly in Japanese culture, appreciation of impermanence is important.

[34:08]

Nirvana is right in samsara. We're not... We don't... This idea of the ultimate reality or universal reality, in some spiritual traditions, there is this idea of trying to transcend and escape from the suffering of samsara. It's very tempting to try and get higher, to try and reach into the ultimate realm and hang out there in some bliss realm. But The point of our practice in sotas, and very much so, and very much so in the Flower Ornament Sutra, is how do we express that in our everyday activity? This is the interaction of harmony, of difference and sameness. This is the interaction of principle and phenomena. This is the interaction of our practice. particular phenomenal experience and this sense of ultimate reality, which we can glimpse.

[35:11]

Or even, you know, I teach academically as well, as Raymond said, and it's possible to have some understanding of all this, but that's not the point. The point is, how do we, whatever your understanding, whatever your, you know, experience of all this, however deep that is or however ephemeral that is, how do That zazen awareness, to put it that way, is expressed in our everyday activity as the point. And so this is very important to our practice. And again, as in that passage from Huyen that I just read, knowledge of past and future is in the present. And it is because of this that... that Buddhas can see past and future. And we can see past and future also. So for Dogen, this idea, this sense of the 10 times is very important to Dogen's teaching of being time.

[36:20]

Again, time is not just some external container. Time is being, and our being is the being of time. And Dogen encourages us to study the time flowing, but it's flowing in all 10 directions in all time. It's not just being present does not mean cutting off the past and cutting off the future. I think it's very much misunderstood. And sometimes mindfulness is understood as just, in our culture, as just being present now and trying to get rid of all of our all of our regrets about the past and all of our fears of the future, all of that's right here, right now. And right now is not just right now. It includes all these times and the past of the past and the future of the past and the future of the future and so forth. So practically speaking, uh, history is very important.

[37:24]

Um, need a little bit more um maybe nobody got this no um um again this is from my book on awakening space and time and again um so in um Again, in his Being Time essay, Dogen clarifies that time does not flow only from past to present to future. Time moves in mysterious ways, passing dynamically and multi-directionally between all ten times and beyond. Dogen says, quote, in his Being Time essay, in Being Time there is the distinctive function of totalistic passage. There is passage from today to tomorrow, passage from today to yesterday, passage from yesterday to today, passage from today to today, and passage from tomorrow to tomorrow, Pilgrim says.

[38:25]

This transpires because passage itself is the distinctive passage, or we could say flowing is the distinctive passage. function of time. So this multi-directional passage makes it possible for beings to realize how they fully inhabit all times at the present time rather than seeking for some present as a restrictive escape from a threat for the past or anxiety over the future. This is very important and practical for us right now. So OK, yeah, we are going to have time for discussion. Good. So this is the study of time flowing in all directions. So Zazen gives us a teaching about this flowing of time. So in Zazen, time shifts.

[39:29]

Some periods of zazen, whether they're by the clock, 30 or 40 minutes or whatever, some time periods, you all probably know, go by very quickly. And some periods of zazen go on forever, it seems. We're waiting for the doan to hit the bell and, oh my God, when is this period going to end? And, you know, this becomes even clearer during zazen. So our sense, our being of time, our time being is flexible. It's not some objective external clock time. Of course, we need in the phenomenal world and practically, we need to use clock time to function. It's important. In the Shogun Gen's essay, Being Time, Uji, Dogen also says, obstruction obstructs obstruction. So that goes back to the fourfold Dharma doctor with Wang Yang. Okay, so for us in our time of being time, again, all times are present in our time.

[40:34]

This includes the time of slavery, the time of the abolition of slavery, although there is still slavery in our world. Times of oppression and times of resistance are all present in our time. Dongshan and Dogen lived during times of imperial rule, authoritarian rulers. This was the way society was organized in Dongshan's time and in Jögen's time. So time includes our way of being. That's what Jögen is saying in Being Time. It includes how we are being, with kindness, with caring, with appropriate response, which is very important in Zen, helping when possible. Trying to find skillful means to be helpful in our world. So I think for us, resilience and resistance are important now in our world, in our society.

[41:40]

And resilience, you know, we have this whole tradition of ancestral Zen. You know, I've been talking about, you know, these people in the past, Dongshan in the 800s and Dogen in the 1200s. so forth um so our teaching and and our tradition and our zen study is is not for the purpose of getting some understanding but it's to be aware of this long range of time this is helpful now especially now in terms of resilience and in terms of seeing long perspectives of time Things change, things move. There are different periods of time and we have ancestors You know, when we see this, seeing this long sense of ancestral time from Flower and Sutra and from Dogen and from all the sotas and teachings, we can also see ancestors, not just of our tradition, but ancestors in resistance.

[42:50]

So Harriet Tubman, for example, resisting slavery and liberating people. Susan B. Anthony and many other subprojects. who brought women the vote just a century ago, even though it's now at risk. Many beings are at risk now, and there may be various kinds of oppression in our society. We don't know yet how we will resist that, but it's possible. And we have ancestors of resistance. And our society is complicated. So the colonial times when only rich white men could vote is part of our present. The times of the Confederacy and of slavery, both in North and South, are present in our time. And there's also the times of resistance and the times of liberation.

[43:52]

And this is all part of our practice. And this study of time that Flower and Sutra gives us, and the Hawaiian school gives us, and Dogen and Soto Zen, in many ways, give us, are important now, very important now. So it's important to, you know, practice Zazen and find some sense of wholeness, ultimate, universal reality. And it's important to express that as we can, as we may, in terms of the everyday reality in our phenomenal world. So, I could keep babbling, but I'll stop now. And there is some time, I believe, for comments, questions, perspectives. So, I can see the people on Zoom. Rehren, would you please help out and call on people in the Zengo there? So, comments, questions, perspectives, please. I will try to monitor them.

[44:58]

the screen and also here in the room. So if you would like to pose a question or say a comment, please raise your hand on screen. It would be helpful. Okay. I see Noah already. Please, Noah, go ahead. Hi. Thanks for that talk. Very interesting. At the university, we sort of studied this work by Hayden White called Metahistories, where he was talking about how if you have like a philosophical work, you often want this sort of rhetorical strategy or the sort of discourse to sort of match what the philosophy is. And it strikes me that Like if you go into older kind of Zen works where they're sort of talking about you shouldn't sort of compartmentalize time, you sort of find weird anecdotes, you find sort of stream of consciousness type of writing, which sort of makes sense. And if you're trying to express that time shouldn't be compartmentalized. But it sort of often strikes me that in kind of like modern American Zen,

[46:02]

And just Buddhism more generally in this country, there's a very sort of linear sense of time, a favor for sort of like these abstract kind of arguments, which sort of seems at odds with kind of these sort of teachings we're getting at. And even if you're talking about like everyday life, Yeah, I totally agree that we should try to integrate this in everyday life, but it seems we try to avoid talking about everyday life sort of in our discussions. I was sort of wondering if you could talk a little about maybe like the older texts, how they're sort of the way the texts are sort of written, how it sort of reflects kind of what they're going for or something like that. Yeah, well, that's what I've been trying to speak about, and thank you very much for that. So, yes, I think in our culture there is a linear sense of time, past, present, future. But that's just one limited way of seeing all the dynamics of time and temporality that Dogen talks about, that Boyan Buddhism talks about very much. And I think that is the reality.

[47:03]

And I don't think our culture... I think our culture does have a sense of... The dynamics of time moving from past to future to present, as Dogen says, from tomorrow to tomorrow, from tomorrow to today. One example of that, well, just the whole sense of narrative structure. And I think modern cinema is a very good example. So flashbacks, flash forwards. I think of the movie Memento as a pioneer in this. I don't know if you remember that movie, but this guy goes from the present to the past. Anyway, this guy can't remember anything, so he writes down notes to himself so he can remember things. Anyway, but in lots of modern cinema, There's not any... Hollywood movies, too, of course. There's, you know, intercutting of different times.

[48:05]

So we see flashbacks. We see flash-forwards. I think that's more in tune with the reality of time and temporality in Buddhism. So I think it is in our culture. And to see time just as a linear chronology misses the point because where history... I've always enjoyed studying history of various kinds, and it's very informative to what is in our present, to see the reality of the Confederacy and how that applies to our reality today. For example, in terms of American history, we can look at the reality of the rise and fall of empires going back to Rome or whatever, the British Empire or the current American Empire. So things move in many directions. And it's not some, you know, we have some, I think there's some idea in our culture of this progress, you know, that we're going to make this linear progress over time.

[49:13]

But things move back and forth. There's a pendulum of progress and regress. And you can see progress and regress in many different terms. And many people have different perspectives on that. So we have to honor all the different perspectives of all the different people to see our time in various different ways. So I think, to your point, I think that this linear sense of history and of time is not the predominant one, even in our culture. And traditional Buddhist teachings are very informative and helpful in terms of understanding this. So thank you for that. Other comments, questions, perspectives? I can see Zoom, Reiran, if you can look at the room and see if there's anybody there. Yes, I am looking. Well, I have a comment.

[50:14]

I was wondering if you could also speak about that there is actually no time. I don't agree with that. I don't agree. I think timelessness is not so useful. That I think there is time, but how we understand time. I think this is what Dogen is saying. Right. That there's this time of our being. And our idea of timelessness is also part of the present. We do have some idea of eternity or timelessness. But I don't think that's part of the reality of time, that time is our being and time moves in all these directions. So trying to escape time, I think it's like trying to escape from the phenomenal world. And that's not our practice. Our practice is to inhabit time, to actually be in time in all of its complexity and see how it's moving in all these directions.

[51:16]

Yeah, but I think we're also free of time because we are time as being. We are being time, but there is also that going beyond. I think going beyond time is one aspect of how we can study time. So to actually inhabit time, The complexity of being time and all the ten times is to not be caught by it or to be free of it. But that happens in time also. And it happens in various dimensions and movements of time. So I don't like the idea of timelessness as being outside of time. But how do we bring that which is ultimate and universal and the wholeness of all things into our experience and our practice of time, our appropriate response to whatever is going on.

[52:23]

I was thinking of time as presence only, as being completely present, and then there is no more time. Well, no, that's the point. I'm sorry, I had to disagree with you, Ray. Being completely present means to be, that's what being time is about, that being completely present is not an escape from past and future and the future of the past and the past of the future and so forth. Being fully present includes all ten times. Right, exactly. And that's why there is no separation between those times. I mean, it just depends how we're talking about it. I think we probably mean the same thing. Thank you very much. Okay, yeah, so that idea of be here now, I think people have understood as cutting off the past. I don't want to hear about the past. I don't want to know about history. Being here now means, I don't want to think about the future because there's too much to be afraid of, but being here now means that all those times are present because we are affected by the past.

[53:33]

Where you're sitting right now, your seat right now, on your seat right now includes everybody you've ever known. Right, exactly. Your teachers, your childhood friends or pets, your family. past lovers, whatever, you know, and it includes the future. So be here now doesn't mean to cut off the 10 times. It means to fully inhabit time. And then we're not caught by some limited idea of the present. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Other comments? Les would like to say something. No? Okay. No, no. Okay. Erin. Yes. I was thinking about your conversation of time and I don't, it's really interesting just hearing both of you talk about it. And it reminds, I spent a lot of time with my father who has dementia and he is very much in some realm of time that is very present in the moment.

[54:42]

And there's no intellectualizing his experience right now. He is just, where he is right now. If he's angry, he's angry. If he's sad, if he's thinking about the past, and he does suffer a lot from thinking about the past, but it made me kind of think about how this conversation is like how much we can, it almost felt like how much we can cognitively fathom to think about our past and Or just even think about all the realms of existence, what you were talking about with past, present, future, in the past. past, present, future in the present and past, present, future in the future, which is a really interesting idea. And I like that kind of conflation of all of those beings. And I think that's sort of this like eddy of timelessness or something. But it does make me think about how much that person is cognitively able to hold might not even matter based on what I'm seeing with the dementia group also that I attend with.

[55:54]

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you very much for that. Yeah, you know, part of the point of this is also to understand you know, there's an important Zen koan about not knowing being most intimate and nearest. And We have to honor our limitations. We cannot see all of the past in the present or all of the future in the present or all of the past in the future and so forth. We have limited cognitive abilities. We have limited perceptual abilities as human beings in terms of human consciousness. This is just a fact. And so how do we recognize that? And talking about dementia and Alzheimer's and problems with perception of time past and time future and so forth, I'm aware that people with Alzheimer's or maybe dementia, sometimes they can't see the past or the future and they're stuck in the present.

[56:58]

Some of those people are very miserable and upset about that. And some of those people who can only see the present remain joyful and are happy. And, you know, they may even be aware that they can't see all of the past or the future or whatever. But still, so how do we support kindness and Joyfulness and wholeness in all of those realities. So, Cornelia has her hand up and resume. Please go ahead. Thank you, Tegan. and hanging on every word. And, you know, I'm also not able to remember all of it. And then I realized I don't have to, but I just wanted to ask you again to explain what the 10th time was. Yes, that's very challenging. I think I have trouble with that too.

[57:59]

But the 10th is that All those nine times, past, present, future, past, present, and future, exist together. As a whole? Yes, that's the wholeness of all times. So, yeah, that's what the Huaian Flower Ornament Sutra says anyway. So, it's, and, I don't, is this being recorded, Ray Wren? Yes, yes. Okay, so you can go back and listen to the recording and still you won't remember everything. But, you know, so it's important to realize the limitations of time and that we can't know all times. Supposedly, a fully awakened Buddha who's had unsurpassed complete perfect awakening can know all times omnisciently. But for us as bodhisattva practitioners, we have limitations. And that's okay.

[59:00]

We can honor our limitations and explore our limitations. And maybe we can't see very well the future of the past, even if we're in it, or the past of the present or whatever. Anyway, I think studying history is very helpful in terms of all this. But of course, there are various versions of history. And the cliche is that the victors write the histories anyway. We'll see what the history in the future will be of our present difficult, challenging time. But thank you all. I don't know. Rayron, is there time for one further comment or question? Frank. I'm just going to return back to something that Raven said about no time. I think the thing I would add to that is no, not time either.

[60:05]

That is both. That you have to have a sense of both of those things. If it's just no time, that sort of invalidates change, because when you have a change, you have a time. So I don't think you can have just that. But if you also have known that time, it means that time that we think we know time is, isn't necessarily what it is. And so I think having both of those perspectives helps. Okay. Yeah. That may be helpful. But talking about no time as trying to escape from time means escaping from the phenomenal world.

[61:11]

So escapism isn't our practice. We are rooted in you know, are on our seat in our time. And we, you know, the great old Chan master, a young man was asked, what is the teaching of a Buddhist whole lifetime? And he said, an appropriate response. So to find an appropriate response, we have to be willing to face the difficulties and challenges of this time, not to try and run away into some lofty realm of transcendence or non-existence or emptiness. Emptiness is here, is everywhere. I think it is impossible to escape, actually. Right. But people try to do that. Because German also says time is being. I mean, as long as we are being, we are time. At least in this earthly existence.

[62:12]

In this dimension, but also in all the other solar systems and galaxies and different weird dimensions, there is Being time. Because it changed. Because, as Frank says, there is always change. It's always. Yes, and that is permanent. So this is a whole other wrap, but the Arnavada Sutra talks about. Do you chant the Kansayon Jorakuka? Yes. Yes. I hesitate to mention this because this is a whole other study, but in the Mahāpārāṇā-rāṇā-sūtra, Buddha says, joraku gajo, in Sino-Japanese, which is permanence, bliss, self, and purity, as opposed to impermanence. And He says that he teaches impermanence because we don't understand what real permanence is.

[63:15]

The permanence includes that everything is changing and that we have to be in time. Anyway, I'm sorry for mentioning that at the end. No, but that is important, I think, because it's form and emptiness. Right? In the Heart Sutra. It's the same as what you were talking about. Yes. Emptiness is always form. It cannot be not form. It always appears as form. Otherwise, there would be no emptiness. Right. Emptiness is not nihilism. It's how are we dealing with forms here. Great. Thank you all very much for listening. Yeah, thank you very much for gracing our Zendo today. And we will be ending. We will end with the four hours. So I'll turn on the original sound again. So please stand.

[64:12]

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