BEING-TIME

Let's get existential!

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I'm not going to pretend that I completely understand everything I'm reading from Dogen's masterwork the Shobogenzo. I don't! But I have Shinshu Roberts to help guide me through one of its ninety-five fascicles/essay, "Uji."

I first encountered her initial thoughts on "Uji" in Receiving the Marrow: Teachings on Dogen by Soto Zen Women Priests, edited by Eido Frances Carney. I found her teaching compelling enough that I wanted more. And here it is.

Shinshu Roberts breaks down "Uji" into manageable parts and comments upon them. She defines terms. She explores what Dogen is doing in this essay and how it connects to other essays in the Shobogenzo, which I find extremely helpful to my current "cutting in" project.

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It was interesting to learn that Dogen took a term consisting of two kanji, 有時, and transformed it. When they are combined, they read as aru-toki, "for the time being." When they stand alone, they read as u, "being," and ji, "time." So he takes the characters, figuratively breaks them apart, and then stitches them back together.

So the notion of uji, "being-time," is not only philosophically dense, but also linguistically rich. And bent like a reed by Dogen.

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"When we realize the nondual nature of a dharma position or particular being-time, we can include everything and avoid getting caught in a constricting story about our current situation. Making up a defining story line takes us further away from the true state of our experience." 

—page 45

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"When Dogen equates time and being, he shifts our erroneous notions of time from time outside the person to time as the person. The dharma position "person" is time. This being-time also includes everything at this time."

—page 50

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"The fact that we are buddha-nature does not mean we will act according to that nature. Expressing buddha-nature (realization) is dependent upon practice, which is the enactment of our true nature."

—page 69

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Did I mention notions of nonduality, nonsequential time, suchness, and the like? No? And I'm only a third of the way through this commentary.

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This is a wild ride and I am glad to have a teacher that is able to dissect Dogen's phrases and wordplay and philosophy and serve up (mostly) digestible nibbles and bites.