I guess you can hear me, huh? So good evening, everybody, and thank you for being here when you could be out drinking green beer on St. Patrick's Day. Sorry to keep you waiting. There was a little mix-up upstairs, but actually, given the nature of tonight's talk, it's perhaps not so bad that you had to sit here and wait. So, you know, usually when I lecture here, which is not all that often, I lecture on Saturday mornings, and Saturday mornings is a fairly predictable crowd of newcomers, people whose experience of Buddhist practice and teaching is usually rather minimal. And so it's easy to lecture. It's easy to say things to such people, because pretty much anything that I say, no matter how basic, may well be new. So it's a little more of a challenge to speak to you all tonight, to a room full of experts. So be kind, or don't.

[01:07]

So Michael asked me if I would talk tonight a little bit about time, since that's the subject of the current practice period. And being an agreeable sort of person, I said, okay. You know, time itself, just considered by itself, is something that I haven't ever given a great deal of thought to, or about. It's not concerned me as a philosophical issue at all, other than the obvious things about trying to be on time, or what have you, the social conventions. So I have spent the past couple of weeks mulling over what time might be in terms of our practice, in terms of Buddhist understanding. And so what you'll get is the random outcome of these mullings, as opposed to a great theoretical,

[02:13]

well-worked-out philosophical system. So I'll ramble on for a while and toss out an idea or two here and there, and then I'll eventually sort of sputter to a stop, and then we can all go home and go to bed. And it will be just the right time to do that. So when I first started thinking about time, I wanted to think, what immediately occurred to me was how we perceive time in the cultural context in which we find ourselves. You know, in 21st century America. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that for us, time is essentially a commodity. It's spoken of as a product. We can waste time. We can buy time. We can keep time. We can lose time. Excuse me. I tried to time the cough medicine just right, but it hasn't kicked in yet. Time is money.

[03:15]

You can buy a timeshare, for example. Time is qualifiable and quantifiable. Lawyers have billable hours, and busy parents like to spend quality time with their otherwise neglected urchins. So, time has become a currency of greater or lesser value as it reflects the predominant concerns of the culture that experiences it as such. And one of the, I don't want to say corollary, but one of the, hmm, one of the other things that we perceive this way, or we have been taught to perceive in the same way that we have been taught to perceive time, is the self. The self has also become a commodity in our culture. So there was a time when Americans used to speak of themselves as citizens.

[04:21]

I bet you haven't heard that very much lately. I certainly haven't. Now we speak of ourselves as consumers, the American consumer. So the self is a unit designed for basically eating and excreting, and the value assigned to it is the quantity of stuff that passes through it, either producing or consuming. And so this idea of time as commodity and self as commodity having value only in its commercial sense, excuse me, I think come together in a couple of ways. First of all, since we are very young, I think, I can say this certainly myself and I would imagine for pretty much everybody in the room, I know a few of you come from other cultures but I don't know how different it is there, that we are urged from a very early age to make something of yourself.

[05:25]

It's rather as though you're handed a lump of wet clay at birth, which is you, and you are expected over the next several decades to turn it into something of value, and then when you die you get to hand it in for cash prizes, or not, or judgment, if you have indeed made something of yourself. So in this way, the self, the individual, the person, the citizen-consumer, becomes an object to be evaluated by standards which have little or nothing to do with the individual's own experience of his or her life. So it's this reduction of person to machine part that reflects and sustains and supports the idea of time as commodity as well. So something else I've noticed, and this is perhaps a little bit of a further reach,

[06:31]

but I also think that this idea of time and self as commodity, and that we must make something of ourself, and that we are judged only by the level and quality of our production, is also in many ways tied up with the idea of God in Western culture, who is watching, judging, and who sets objective standards to which we must adhere if we are to have worth or not. So this is the time God, who creates the world drama with a beginning and an end, in which we are all to be players of greater or lesser worth, depending. You know, God is the ultimate drama queen. So Buddhism, if we choose to use it as such, offers us freedom from God and freedom from absolute values. I was reading a book recently about the emptiness philosophies, and one of the things that it

[07:38]

said was that in Buddhism the only absolute is that there is no absolute. This is a hard thing to live with, but it's a freedom that we are offered if we care to accept it. So another corollary of self and time as value-producing and valued only as commodities is another idea of time, which is of aging as moral deficiency. So the information that we're given, or the message that we're given, is that if you had only eaten better, if you had only taken better care of yourself, if you had only done the right exercises, if you only bought the right cosmetic products, if you only had a little bit more backbone, you would not be getting old and useless. If you had spent your time in the right way, if you had spent your time in the right way,

[08:43]

you would be still able to be able to consume and produce in great quantities and you would still have value. This is a message that is so pervasive that it is almost unremarked upon, but it also is reflective of an idea of time and self as commodity, having value which is objectively determined rather than value which is subjectively determined. So let's move to the study of time in Buddhism. And of course, we can say, well, doesn't Buddhism have this same sense of time in a way? I mean, the Sandokai says, don't waste time. Downstairs on the Han, it's written, don't waste this life, or words to that effect. So what does that mean? Is that the same thing? I would somehow like to think that it's not quite the same thing, that Buddhism has a slightly different take on time than capitalist consumer culture.

[09:46]

So let's look a little bit at that, okay? So the Buddha spoke of the three marks of conditioned existence, impermanence, dis-ease, or suffering, and non-self, that all things lack ultimately coherent, integrated, and lasting essence or self. So all of these qualities are time-related qualities, and perhaps together they define our experience of time itself. Although I think it's a little bit, you know, we're sort of hampered by the language here. When we speak of time as an abstract noun, it's as though we're speaking of a thing separate from the products of time. You see, I can't even say it right. But time is not to be understood in this sense as something outside of our activity, but

[10:48]

rather the process of change itself, the process of transiency, the process of suffering, the process of no-self. And as we experience these three marks of existence more deeply by bringing our attention to them in zazen or in our daily life, we see that time is cause and effect, cause and effect is karma, karma is suffering, and of course suffering is the first noble truth of Buddhism. So Buddhism is in essence about time, how the causes and conditions that give rise to the person come together and fall away again and again and again. So time in this sense is suffering, or equal to suffering. So does that mean that the end of suffering is the end of time? The end of time is the end of suffering?

[11:49]

Yes and no. Let's consider this further. You know, we experience time in different ways. So there's objective time, the time that we all agree on. And you know, this is important. This is time, acknowledgement of this time is the gift that we give to each other. You know, and every once and again you'll hear somebody say, well you know man, time is just really an illusion. You know, try not paying your bills and see how much time is an illusion, you know. It doesn't really work that way. Or you know, parenthetically, consider the fate of Yakujo's fox, who in denying cause and effect ultimately denied time. He didn't get very far either. So time is the objective social contract that we have with each other.

[12:59]

And of course there's also subjective time. For example, if you're talking with a friend you haven't seen for a long time, somebody you really love and don't get to spend enough time with, at some point you may look at your watch and say, I can't believe we've been talking for two hours, it seems like you just got here. Or remember the last time you found yourself at a party, I'm cornered by a boar. You know, time has a different sense then. So there are different ways of subjectively experiencing time. In subjective time, time as we experience it, we have all the time there is. All the time there is in the world is our time. Because we can't remember or imagine time before we were conscious, and can't imagine time after our death. So experientially, we have all the time there is because we live in the eternal present. So that's one way that we experience time subjectively.

[14:03]

Another way is when we experience time as dream time, either awake or asleep, or after long periods of sitting zazen. This dream time is where we re-establish our erotic relationship to the world. And in my dictionary, eros is defined as love directed towards self-realization. So this re-establishment in time, in dream time, in subjective time, of our erotic relationship to the world, is one in which we experience ourselves as connected to so-called objects as we connect to our own skin. So when you stroke your hand with your fingers, for example, where is the sensation? It's both in the finger and in the hand, and yet in a way of course there's only one sensation. And it's like this in dream time, in the time that we make love to the world, which has

[15:09]

become the world, the object, has become subject rather than object. There's only one sensation, whether I'm touching my skin or I'm touching an object. There's also zazen time, which is body time and breath time, which is both an intense awareness of time as the present and an atemporal state in which the present denies the passage of time. Suzuki Roshi had something, I think, germane to say about this. He says, So when you practice zazen, there is no idea of time or space. You say, we started sitting at a quarter to six in this room.

[16:10]

Thus you have some idea of time, a quarter to six, and some idea of space in this room. Actually, what you are doing, however, is just sitting and being aware of the universal activity. That is all. This moment the swinging door is opening in one direction. The next moment the swinging door will be opening in the opposite direction. Moment after moment, each one of us repeats this activity. Here there is no idea of time or space. Time and space are one. You may say, I must do something this afternoon, but actually there is no this afternoon. We do things one after the other. That is all. There is no such time as this afternoon or one o'clock or two o'clock. At one o'clock you'll eat your lunch. To eat lunch is itself one o'clock. You will be somewhere, but that place cannot be separated from one o'clock. For someone who actually appreciates our life, they are the same.

[17:11]

That's Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi also spoke about the importance of repetition in our practice. Either small actions, such as the breath and the breath and the breath in Zazen, or the repetition of the schedule, day after day in the monastery, until a practice period of three months becomes one long day. I know some of you have experienced this. So in repetition, in doing the same thing over and over with close attention, we explore both time and timelessness. Time is also the experience of suffering, either as pain acute enough in itself or as the inevitable ending of pleasure, what the poet John Keats called aching pleasure, turning to poison while the bee mouth sips. Thank you.

[18:14]

And timelessness is the experience of pleasure, physical, emotional and meditative pleasure. In time, we practice the path of cultivation, the development of the precepts and the paramitas of practice as practice. This is the path of time. And in surrender to what is, we practice timelessness. So Buddhism, in this sense, does not transcend the human dilemma, which is time-based, but rather exemplifies it, particularly through the bodhisattva vows. The bodhisattva vows make a virtue of necessity in that as we give ourselves to them, we embrace time and the creatures of time, deliberately letting go of the timeless salvation of meditative bliss, the jhanas.

[19:17]

So let's look a little bit at these four vows. The first, as you know, is sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them. A couple of weeks ago, when it was still raining, I was walking down the street, and as I was walking down the street, I saw a little worm on the sidewalk. And whenever I see one, I like to pick them up and put them on the grass because I figure they'll get squished otherwise. So I picked him up and I said hello and I put him on the grass or her on the grass and sort of patted her wormy little head and went on. And then, of course, a couple of steps later, there was another worm and another worm and another worm, and there were like five or six of the little guys. And I didn't stop and pick each one of them up. I was in a hurry. I didn't have the time. But it's kind of like this, you know, this bodhisattva vow, to engage in time and in the heartbreaking endeavor to meet and try our best with each being in each moment. You know, this is the bodhisattva vow.

[20:20]

And it's impossible to live in this vow without at least some innate understanding of the emptiness of all beings and all time. In the Heart Sutra, we say, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing Pranayama Paramita, realized that all five skandhas are empty and thus relieved suffering. So the heart of compassion looks into being, finds it empty, and is able to remain in the world. Avalokiteshvara, I think most of you know, as the bodhisattva of compassion, has a name which means the one who hears the cries of the world. And there must be some standing back and some sense of the greater context to allow us to remain in the world of suffering. Suzuki Roshi talks about how all things lose balance constantly against a background of perfect balance. And this is our being in the world in time with our bodhisattva vow.

[21:26]

The second bodhisattva vow is delusions are numberless. No, delusions are boundless. I vow to end them. So they are endless and boundless because in each moment a new delusion arises. We are in each moment invited to join in the belief of separate existence and to encounter time on its own terms. And to end delusions is to meet each one of them, to meet time on time's own terms and not to fall on either side of time or timelessness. Either believing fully in the productions of time or seeking to escape. The third is dharma gates are endless, boundless. I vow to enter them. So it is said someplace that all inanimate creatures, all inanimate things, preach the dharma. And this is because each of them at each moment

[22:28]

realizes perfectly cause and effect. And at each moment we have the opportunity through inanimate objects to see the reality of cause and effect of karma. And so to vow to enter these gates is to vow to become thoroughly familiar with time and its workings and not to hide from time, from karma, from cause and effect, from suffering, in denial or in magical thinking. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. To become Buddha's way is not to get to someplace and stop. It's not like taking a plane to Connecticut and all of a sudden you're in Connecticut. It's to enter the stream of liberation and to encounter each thing as Buddha, each thing in its awakened form. It's to be willing to be changed ourselves without knowing or being able to control or predict the outcome of that change.

[23:31]

So this, I think, is really important. To give ourselves to the vow to become Buddha's way is to be willing to be changed by the vow without being able to control or predict where that vow will lead us. And it will lead us in time. And we accomplish this by trusting to our vow to guide us to be changed. It reminds me a little bit of, in one of the epistles of St. Paul, he says, I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me. So it's the same idea. We give ourselves over. We turn over our will and our lives to be changed. And we give ourselves over to become Buddha's way of refuge and liberation for all beings. So the core of our practice, bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment, is our willingness to remain in time for the sake of all beings.

[24:34]

And it does not matter if we believe that we are reborn again and again. And it doesn't matter if we are or not, actually. What matters is, in this moment, the willingness to undertake the effort to remain in a sort of radical presentness, to continue to show up again and again. So in this effort, our lives, this one or how many ever there might be, become just one long day. That's pretty much all I wanted to say, but I do, before we leave, want to read you a poem. And I picked this poem for a couple of reasons. One, because it's one of the most beautiful poems I know about time. And two, because it's St. Patrick's Day. And three, because just I love to hear it. And I'm really glad that Ingen is here tonight, and John.

[25:39]

So this is William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium. That is no country for old men, The young in one another's arms, Birds in the trees, Those dying generations at their song. The salmon falls the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, and fowl command all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music, All neglect the monuments of unaging intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, Unless soul clap its hands and sing, And louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress. Nor is there singing school but studying The monuments of its own magnificence. And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages, standing in God's holy fire,

[26:40]

As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the fire, pern and agire, And be the singing masters of my soul. Consume my heart away, sick with desire, And fastened to a dying animal, it knows not what it is, And gather me into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take my bodily form From any natural thing, But such a thing as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling, To keep a drowsy emperor awake, Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. Thank you, William Butler Yeats. Um, I think we have maybe just a few more minutes for a couple of brief questions or things,

[27:41]

if anybody has something they'd like to say or ask. I don't want to keep you up too late. Anything anybody would like to say, ask? Okay, thank you very much, good night. May our intentions...

[28:10]

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