Good morning, everyone. Good morning. This morning I would like to talk about sasana, this sitting practice that we do. So one of the names for the sitting practice is the samadhi of all beings. We settle and sit together with everything and everyone. Of course, you are on your seat right now, but you includes everyone you know and everyone you don't know and everything, all beings in space and all beings in time. So this is also the samadhi of all space and the samadhi of all time.

[01:03]

So I want to talk today about karma and time also. And I want to refer to a teaching from the founder of our tradition, Ehe Dogen, in the 1200s in Japan, and a writing that he did called Being Time, Uji in Japanese. So I'm going to refer to that a little bit as a way of talking about Arzazen and a way of talking about right now and what it means to be present. and what's included in truly being present. So some of us are sitting here all day. How do we occupy this time, this space, all beings? How does time move? In the next breath, in the inhale and in the exhale,

[02:17]

How do we enjoy and appreciate and explore this time? So Matt is keeping time for us today. And each period of Zazen has its allotted time in terms of clock time. And yet, each period of Zazen is unique. And our experience of this time right now may change as time moves in many directions. And I also want to talk about this particular time, this month, this important, poignant month in our history. and what's going on this month and the karma of our world and our country.

[03:32]

So I also want to talk about Black Lives Matter and race and racism, which I feel like we all need to talk about now and how we're all affected and how that interfolds in time. So this is a lot to talk about. Last week, somebody came here and filmmaker came here and interviewed me on film about some events I was involved with in April of 1968. It's almost 50 years ago when I was involved in the occupation of some buildings in a college in New York. So people are still talking about things that happened in April 1968 and many other things that happened that year.

[04:41]

In 50 years, I think people will be talking about July 2016. where today is July 17th. We're just past the middle of this month. And a lot has already happened. We did a memorial service Monday for the murder of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two African-American men murdered by police, caught on video. There have been others this month. And then there was the horrible murder of Dallas policemen by an African-American veteran of the Afghan war who came back from that war mentally disturbed. But if that wasn't enough, this week in Cleveland, there's a convention of the Republican Party.

[05:47]

So Andy was going to go to that But decided couldn't do it, so he's here with us today. I'm glad. But there will be lots of other people in Cleveland this week, and things will happen. Who knows? We'll find out. The week after that, the other party... The other mainstream party, the Democratic Party, will be in Philadelphia. And I really wanted to go because the first day there's going to be a big climate march. But too many things I have to do here. So anyway, we're not finished with this month yet. And 50 years from now, the world might be very different with climate damage. Who knows? which cities will be underwater, but I think they may still be talking about July 2016. Time moves in various ways.

[06:51]

Some times are more intense than others, but all times are intense in some way. This is what our Zazen is about. Inhale. Exhale. As we settle into being presence on our seat, enjoying our breath, feeling the graciousness and gratefulness for all that we can enjoy in our life and feeling the sadness of the difficulties in our world and all the sadness and the difficulties in our own lives. There's an intensity to this time and a connectedness to this time with all times.

[08:02]

How do we meet this time? How do we meet the next breath? So one thing to say is that the painfulness of this situation of African-American people being murdered by police for just, you know, For no reason than being African American, it seems. Maybe this has been going on since the first slaves came to this country. But now we see it documented on video. In the 60s, the media filmed it when black people were beaten and sitting in lunch counters and that

[09:06]

stirred a lot of change and now the Black Lives Matter movement is marching in the streets and David and I and Alex were in the streets on Monday and there's so much pain and anger that black people feel. African American mothers who have to see their sons go out and not know what will happen. And the pain of policemen who are involved in this and this system of injustice. And they may be involved in this. We're all involved in this legacy of racism. In some ways, maybe we're all more or less recovering racists. This is part of all of us. in this country, maybe in the world, I don't know.

[10:10]

I won't speak for the world. So this is something that's happening now, and then there's so many other things that are happening in our country now. And of course, this sadness about this situation is part of something that is fundamental. This is the beginning of our practice, and the Buddha called it the first noble truth. Things are out of line. This zazen we are doing today can give us the power to settle and face the sadness. And some of it is not so dramatic. Some of it is just frustration at things we might have done and said that we wish we had.

[11:18]

But there's also the loss of, I don't know. The loss of loved ones, people passing away, or the loss of jobs, or the loss of, you know. Anyway, there's a sadness. And then the sadness can turn into anger or fear, and it can be manipulated by politicians who can blame, you know, whatever, Mexicans or Muslims or whoever. If it wasn't for those people, we wouldn't have any way. Our zazen gives us the power to face this sadness. But I want to come back to time and how time moves, because this is a way of actually settling into the depths of our zazen. And part of our practice is to see the texture of our reality. the texture of each breath, the texture of how it is to be present here.

[12:26]

So I'm just going to read a few passages from Dogen's writing about being time, being in time, how time is being in us and for us and with us right now. So he says, as the time right now is all there ever is, each being time is without exception entire time. So all we know about the history of slavery and racism, for example, our political conventions, for example, is what we know right now. And of course, things will unfold this week. But each being time is, without exception, entire time. All time is right here. This is a strange way of thinking. It's not how we usually think.

[13:31]

We usually think in terms of January, February, July, August. But when we settle into our zazen and experience the fullness of this next breath, we can occupy time. We can be present in all time. So he says, a grass being and a form being are both times, entire being. The whole world exists in the time of each and every now. Just reflect right now, is there an entire being or an entire world missing from your present time or not? Everything that ever happened is what we say about it now. I mean, there are history books. So there's this film about something that happened in April 1968. But anything I can say about it is what I say about it now. My memory of it now.

[14:34]

Yes, something happened. But time is moving in many directions. So this is part of the mystery of time that Dogen is pointing out to us. He doesn't say we should ignore, you know, 1035, 1036, 1037. We have to be aware of conventional time. Vincenzo has to be aware of the time of the cooking of lunch or else we won't have anything to eat. And yet, From the point of view of Zazen, from the point of view of this deepest reality, here we are. The true state of things is not found in one direction alone. At the time the mountain was being climbed and the river being crossed, Dogen says, I was there.

[15:38]

The time has to be in me. And as much as I am there, it cannot be that time just passes away. You're here right now. So when he talks about being time, he's talking about our experience. Time is not some objective external container. Time doesn't exist except as our experience. So we all have memories of things that happened in the past. We all have memories of things that will happen in the future. Or we call them expectations. But really it's just our idea of something that happened in the past or something that happened or will happen in the future. As long as time is not a modality of going and coming, that time on the mountain is the immediate present right now of the being time. Yet as long as time takes upon itself a modality of going and coming, the being in me in the immediate now of the time being is being time.

[16:48]

So does not the time climbing the mountain or crossing the river swallow up the time of the splendid Vermilion Palace? Does not that time spit out this time? So what Dogen is saying is many philosophers have talked about this teaching of being time. It's intricate, and I'm just introducing it here in this context. But I'm bringing it in to talk about Arsazen. How is it? that we are fully present. And what does it mean, this fully present? How does our time of seeing the confusion and fear and pain of what's happening in our society now of race and racism, how does that relate to the time of slavery, the time of emancipation, the time of Jim Crow, the time, you know, all those times.

[17:53]

The time of lynching, the time of the new lynching. As for example, how is it that we is In, of, for, by. This time, this breath. So our zazen gives us this opportunity to experience, to settle, to open up. The next inhale, the next exhale. How do we be time? How do we see time moving? So Dogen again says, you should not come to understand that time is only flying past. You should not only learn that flying past is the virtue inherent in time.

[18:58]

So he says some strange things in this essay. It's, you know, I'm reading it through parts of it, and one could spend a lot of time chewing on each sentence. If time were to give itself to merely flying past, it would have to leave gaps. You fail to experience the passage of being time and hear the utterance of its truth because you learn only that time is something that goes past. So if time is going past, then you're not there. What is the time that we are here? What does it mean to be present now? What is this present? It's passing. The past is gone. It's not really here. The future isn't here either. We can talk about what's going to happen next week, but that's not now.

[20:05]

But what's now? What's the present? Well, it's gone before I even start to talk about it. But in sasen, what does it mean to actually occupy our dharma position as Dogen talks about? What does it mean to be here, to be present, to be time? How do we, how can we appreciate that we are alive, that we can breathe, that we can feel the heat. The essential point is, Dogen says, every entire being in the entire world is each time an independent time, even while it makes a continuous series. Inasmuch as they are being time, they are my being time.

[21:10]

So both, this independent time and this movement, this series of times, Being time has the virtue of passage. It passes from today to tomorrow. It passes from today to yesterday. It passes from yesterday to today. It passes from today to today. It passes from tomorrow to tomorrow. This because passing is a virtue of time. Past time and present time do not overlap or pile up in a row. So, We can't get a hold of this, and yet we have these words, past time, present time, and we pass time. What does it mean that we are here?

[22:12]

How do we occupy this time? How do we take care of this time? This isn't just some philosophical investigation. Maybe it is that, but... How do we give ourselves to this time? How do we take care of this time? How do we support the lives of people in trouble? How do we support our own lives when we're in trouble? How do we take care of ourselves and our friends here in this time and yesterday and tomorrow? So our Zazen practice has these different dimensions.

[23:21]

How do we look into the reality of our experience? And how do we take care of it? It's not just a dry theoretical investigation. It's what do we do to help the world and our lives? in this time and tomorrow and yesterday. So I've talked sometimes about how we can change the past. How do we tell the story of some past event as a way of changing its meaning? That changes the present and changes the future. I would suggest that we could see the Black Lives Matter movement as a way of changing the past, changing the history of slavery to make it part of something that actually can change the way we see racism in our own lives and in the future, that we can support each other.

[24:41]

That's an example. We can do this in our own lives too. How do we see something in our own lives that we regret, some failed opportunity, and see it as part of some process that we're now part of that we can learn from, that we can change who and how we are to be more helpful to ourselves and others. Time is not stuck. Time is alive, just like we're alive and the world is alive. We don't have to be caught in being time.

[25:43]

Being time is alive. Sadokan again says there is nothing left over because any dharma left over is as such a left over dharma. Even the being time of a partial exhaustive penetrating study is an exhaustive penetration of a partial being time. You don't have to feel like you have failed to perfectly understand being time. Even a form of understanding that appears to be blundering is being. On a still broader plane, Dogen says, the times before and after one immediately manifests the blunder are both, along with it, dwelling positions of being time. So this isn't about, you know, some perfect vision of time, some perfect expression of time, or some perfect expression of your being. The sharp, vital quirk of dharmas dwelling in their dharma positions is itself being time.

[26:51]

So Dogen talks about dwelling in your dharma position, in your karmic situation. And the sharp, vital, quick is literally a word that describes a fish flopping around when it jumps onto the earth from the water. The sharp, vital, quick of dharmas dwelling in their dharma positions. So he says to abide in your dharma position like the dude who abides. Just abide in your dharma position. It's alive. It's not about being perfect. We're wandering around all the time maybe. But how do you be present in this time of being? You must not by your own maneuvering make it into nothingness. You must not force it into being. You reckon time only as something that does nothing but pass by.

[27:56]

You do not understand it, Dogen says, as something not yet arrived. Although our various understandings are time, there is no chance for them to be drawn in by time. There has never yet been anyone who supposed time to be coming and going who has penetrated to see it as being time dwelling in its Dharma position. So this being time itself has its own Dharma position. What chance is there then for a time to arrive when you will break through the barrier into total emancipation? So, how do we become free? This freedom is here to be time as we are. How is it that we can see Enjoy this time. Use this time to help ourselves and all beings.

[29:02]

So one more little bit from Dogen. Mountains are time and seas are time. If they were not time, there would be no mountains and oceans. So you must not say there is no time in the immediate now of mountains and oceans. If time is destroyed, mountains and oceans are destroyed. So there is this time. It's not that there's no time. We are being time. Mountains are being time. Oceans are being time. we must hope that there will continue to be time, so that the mountains and oceans will continue. If time is indestructible, mountains and oceans are indestructible. Within this true dharma, the morning star appears and the Buddha appears, holding up a flower. Okay, so that's very kind of flowery language, maybe. How do we, how does our time overlap with You know, the time of slavery, since I'm using that example.

[30:08]

Well, clearly, that time affects our time. How does our time overlap with the time of emancipation? There's a statue of Abraham Lincoln near where I live. How does our time overlap with cruelty of slavery? We did a service for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile earlier this week. How do we give ourselves to be time in a way that's helpful? How do we give ourselves to being time in a way that enjoys being time? This isn't about fixing things, you know. That's not something that, you know, the problems in our lives aren't things that we can just, you know, figure out how to fix them.

[31:14]

Again, part of this is just actually acknowledging our ancient twisted karma, individually and collectively. Seeing the first noble truth, being willing to sit in the middle of sadness. Being willing to be grateful for all the things that we do have that we can be grateful for. Being willing to act when we can. So I was very grateful to be able to go to a Black Lives Matter march on Monday. Thank you, David, for coming with me. And there's so many, you know, that's one example. There's so many things in our lives that are difficult. And there's so many things in our lives that are wonderful. Like the tens are going out to take care of our lunch. Thank you. So we have this day today where some of us are just sitting here and feeling what it feels like to be time, to be present, to see time passing in different directions.

[32:42]

As we're sitting, of course, we're right here. But as thoughts arise... Our time moves from today to yesterday, from yesterday to tomorrow, from tomorrow to tomorrow. Time moves in various directions. And then we take another breath. How do we take on this time of being? What does it mean to truly be present in all of this time, which is right here? So, there's so much more to say, but I don't know that I have any more words. Does anyone have any comments, responses, questions, things to add?

[33:45]

Please feel free Yes, Dave. Ah. Well, sure. Time... There'd be no Buddha nature without time. But there... Time is... Time is the movement of everything, so of course there... There has to be Buddha nature in time. There has to be time in Buddha nature. Time and Buddha nature are kind of related in some way. I don't know. Yozhan, do you have any thoughts about that? Okay.

[34:46]

Yeah. Change. Changes. Changes is Buddha nature. Yes, Miriam. I was thinking of how music in the sense of precision, but also in the sense of unity. Because everybody caught up in the same sense of time.

[35:53]

I mean, it's a little different from what you're actually talking about, but sometimes it's most difficult to really understand the answer to music, but by calling it to me, it gives a certain insight into it. That'll make it easier. Thank you. So when you talk about time and music, what that brings up for me is the part of being time that is harmony. or communion, that we share being time.

[36:56]

We are being time together. So we each have our individual struggles of being time. But really, when I bring up racism and so forth, I'm talking about the harmony of being time or the communion of being time or how we are collectively being time, each in our own course, each from our own place, our own Dharma position, but there is a harmony to being time, which I don't know that Dogen gets to that, but I would say that, that being time in some ways has to do with especially when we talk about karma and collective karma, and when we think about zendo and sangha and the communion of zazen, doing it together, it's that time as harmony.

[38:04]

So thank you. Yes, sir. And his answer was, well, it's too early to tell. And, you know, this later word. And, you know, this was talking about, you know, when I said that, whether there is some language that disagrees with fascism in Europe, in some sense, by what comes in the future. In the same way, you talked about that you may be through. As things play out, there's a sense in which you can still make something positive come out of this terrible, painful legacy that exists.

[39:09]

Yes. Not enough that it would, you know, it breaks the retaliation off of us. So all that I get, you know, it's very consistent with the, you know, the sort of long and impregnated view of Buddhism. Where I have a little bit of a problem is when we talk about changing the past. Yeah, I mean, there is this idea. But usually our problem, you know, in a changing context, is thinking about it differently. You know, in some sense, you write a history. But that's been our problem. Part of our problem is we haven't faced up to it. Yes. We don't want to look at it the way it is. And so it becomes possible for people in 2000s to... They sort of say, well, what, you know, all you black, black, and black people, what's your problem, you know? Rather than actually seeing, you know, all of these things just sort of continuing.

[40:13]

You know, it's common. It's playing out as a well-established policy that comes with it. This all is early on in my understanding that This language is saying, well, we can change the past. It really makes me uncomfortable, because that's usually, in my experience, a bit of a pernicious thing. It's been an ideological obstacle. Yeah, I hear you. And so I need to... I hear you. When I say that I need to... Maybe I should say we can redeem the meaning of the past, but we do. You're right. We need to acknowledge... We need to acknowledge history. So that's the part of facing the suffering, facing the sadness, facing our ancient twisted karma and acknowledging that. And if we don't acknowledge the history and...

[41:14]

And how that affects us now, then we can just cover it up instead of actually getting into what I'm calling the first noble truth of facing the sadness, facing the reality, facing the history that has led to the difficulties we have now. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the relief point about the issue with karma, because, you know, we are called upon to really confront our issue with karma. And sometimes we need to remind ourselves that's more than just sort of saying, well, that was bad. Right. It affects us. It's... Yeah, our being time now includes all of that stuff and all of that pain that is... Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Andy. I read this several weeks ago and was reminded of this episode of the original Cosmos series.

[42:26]

There's a part where he tries to Yes. Yes. the way that I thought about it relating to this is like, I would say that was one instant in time. A lot of the integrity works with like a single frame and a film.

[43:31]

And kind of one after the other. The experience of the dimension of time. If we could step beyond that dimension and be in a different dimension, which I can't really characterize it, but if we could stand outside in that traditional space, you would see like all of the space and time in the past and future as one object. Yes. Yes. And so this kind of concept, just maybe that is a way to think about time and, you know, that a moment in time passes, but it always happens.

[44:34]

Yes. And I don't know how much... But in some ways, it helps me get access to information about that. And how reality takes the right to pass away. But perhaps in the ultimate reality, we're part of one world. And while past and future is hopeless, Thank you. Yeah, I think that's at least part of what Dogen is saying, that all of it is here. Well, for the people who are here all day, we'll have a chance to talk about that more this afternoon.

[45:30]

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