So I talked about a group of things, unrelated, ungraspable mind, deep time, and our bodhisattva precepts. And I want to say a little bit about all of that, but focus tonight, again, on time and Buddhist view of time. So, first of all, I talked about an old, Zen is a story based on a saying in the Diamond Sutra, one of our Perfection of Wisdom or Insight Sutras, that says that past mind is ungraspable, present mind is ungraspable, and future mind is ungraspable. So actually, we can't get a hold of anything, really, completely. But the past is already gone. The future isn't here yet.

[01:02]

And the present is passing away very quickly. We can't get a hold of it. This is a basic fact of reality. So our practice is to sit being present and upright, enjoying our experience of inhale and exhale and posture, coming back to being present, and then experiencing the fullness of time as it passes, as it moves, to be present in the midst of impermanence, including the thoughts that sometimes it may be that some of you had a thought or two during this last period of meditation, or maybe more. how to be present with all of that. And this ungraspability of things we can talk about in various ways. Buddhism also talks about reality as inconceivable.

[02:05]

We can't conceptualize the whole of reality. Our conceptual intellectual faculties our perceptions as human beings, our capacity spiritually, can't fathom the whole of reality. So recognizing our limitations is part of meeting reality, recognizing the particularities of our situation, each of us, all of the various causes and conditions from past, present, and future that allow each of us to be here tonight. All of the many beings who contribute to who you are right now on your cushion or chair. We can't possibly, you know, write it up in an outline form or write it up, you know, we can't put it all together and, you know, put it up on the wall and bow down to it and say that's reality.

[03:13]

In traditional East Asian Buddhism, they talk about how in each thought moment in there, it's defined as 62 of those in one second. In each thought moment, there are 3,000 worlds, 3,000 realms. And there's a way they come to that number, but maybe there's 3,000 in each of those. We can't grasp how complicated all of the causes and conditions for being present here right now are. And yet, we have some responsibility and some ability to respond in the midst of that flux and change and inconceivable reality. We have the capacity to, as we sit, settle and recognize some sense of wholeness, of completion, of fullness, oneness of the way in which we are deeply, deeply interconnected with all beings, and with each other, and with all places and all times.

[04:31]

So one implication of this is the Bodhisattva precepts that we've been talking about for a little while now, starting with taking refuge in Buddha, turning towards Buddha, whoever she is, turning towards awakening, turning towards this possibility of meeting ourselves and expressing that in the world. Not as some exalted being on some mountain peak somewhere, or some heavenly realm somewhere, but right here, now, in Chicago, on your cushion or chair. How do we meet the fullness of reality, even though we can't get a hold of it? It's shifting all the time. Still, there's a way in which we can play with it. There's a way in which we can respond to it. There's a way in which we can recognize the suffering of the world and of the worlds within us and respond in some wholesome, helpful way.

[05:41]

Sometimes, well, always, often, this is very challenging, This is the challenge of our human life and of the Buddha work that we are all involved with, even those of you who are here for the first time. Just the fact that you're here, I know that in some way you are involved in the Buddha work in your life. So, maybe I'll come back to the precepts some more, but I want to talk about this complexity of time. and how we see time. And our 13th century founder of this tradition in Japan, Ehe Dogen, talks about being time. So he honors the complexity of time. Of course, there is the time of six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock.

[06:42]

815, whatever, we have clocks and timepieces and various cultures have had different versions of that. But actually in Dogen's time, or just before that in China, they used a water clock. Anyway, there are various ways of looking at time, but that includes just our experience sitting here. So some periods of meditation even though the Doan is timing it for 30 or 35 or 40 minutes, however long it's supposed to be, some go by very quickly, and some seem to take forever, and the Doan must have fallen asleep. Our experience of time is actually what time is. Time is not some external container. Time is our experience. Time is our activity. Time is our thought and awareness and expression and enjoyment and sadness.

[07:45]

All of that is time. So a little bit of what Dogen says about this being time. One should not understand time only as flying away, One should not only get the idea that flying away is the function of time. If time only were to fly away, there would be gaps. Not having heard of the path of being time is because of learning only that it has passed. To tell the gist of it, all existences in the whole world, being lined up, are individual times because it is being time. It is my being time. In being time, there is the quality of passage. That is, 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. He says, just in exhaustively investigating all time as all being, there's nothing left over.

[08:49]

Because leftovers are leftovers, even the being time of half exhaustive investigation is the exhaustive investigation of half of being time. So even if you feel like you're not fully present, even if you feel like you're, you know, some people think their zazen is no good because they feel sleepy or their mind is distracted or whatever, but even if you only are partially being time, that's completely partially being time. Anyway, this is how Dogen sees it. We are completely present in this experience of being time. But I want to add to this being time a teaching from another teacher of mine and friend, Joanna Macy, who talks about deep time. When we hear the idea in Zen of being present, we think that means being in, we can think, it's possible to think that that means being in the present as opposed to the past and future. There's this idea of being here now that is a very narrow kind of

[09:55]

idea that we have to be here now and be mindful of this moment, even though it's gone before I get to the end of the sentence or the end of the word, and try and get rid of the past, because that's just the realm of mistakes and regrets and all the things we could or should have or would have or whatever. Then there's the future, which is all the stuff we're afraid of might happen. And, you know, so okay, let's hang out in the present to just be That's not what this practice is about. Because actually, the present includes the past and future, and the past includes the present and future, and so forth. There's a teaching in one form of Buddhism about ten times that include the past and present and future of the past, the past and present and future of the present, and the past and present and future of the future, and then all of those together. Anyway, it's very complicated. how we are. But the point is that we recognize time.

[10:59]

Joanna talks about re-inhabiting time. Can we actually take on the past time and how it affects us now? Can we remember how we were when we were 8 or 10 or 12 or 16 and recognize that person as part of who you are sitting here now? Can you be friends with them? Can you recognize future beings walking by on Irving Park Road in 10 years, or 50 years, or whatever there is going to be out there in 250 years? How do we see our relationship to them right now, here tonight? All of them. So time in Buddhism, our practice is not about timelessness. or eternity. There is, as we sit here, we can become present and feel the interconnectedness of wholeness, and maybe see the vastness of time.

[12:13]

But our practice is actually to be rooted here. This situation, these causes and conditions, Spring in Chicago, is it spring? Anyway, Chicago has funny seasons, but it has real seasons, it's nice. How do we recognize the complexity of time and our responsibility to time? How do we re-inhabit all times now? How do we honor timefulness rather than timelessness? How do we acknowledge past and future? How do we see how everything we do has an effect in the future and in the present and maybe in the past? And everything that happens also has causes and conditions in the past and maybe in the future. We are deeply interrelated with all beings throughout space and time, as we say in the chapter.

[13:16]

So this reality is sometimes called karma, that we recognize cause and effect. We don't always need to be caught by it. We can sometimes see through some habit and let go of it. That happens. But we don't have to be caught by it. We can actually befriend the reality of this body and mind, this thought stream, this pattern of awarenesses and tendencies and ways of thinking and become intimate and friendly with ourselves and with each other and with the world. So we have a responsibility to being time. We have a capacity to actually respond to the suffering and the joys of the world. So there's an old said story about the importance of not ignoring cause and effect, not being blind to it.

[14:29]

But again, when we come here and just settle onto our sheets, we do have this sense of the possibility, you know, maybe we just catch it out of the corner of our eye or we just, you know, we hear a little bit of some buzzing that gives us some sense of, I don't know, for me it's, I think of it as wholeness mostly, but it's that which in a sense goes beyond time, but it's rooted in time at the same time. Our practice is about integrating that, integrating the realm of sameness and oneness and interconnectedness and the particular unique expressions of that on each of our cushions and chairs. and in each being in the world, and respecting the capacity for each being in the world. So our Bodhisattva precepts are about how we respond to that, how we acknowledge time, how we find our situation in time. So the practice we do here comes from Japanese and Buddhist tradition.

[15:38]

Particularly in Japanese Buddhism, there's this appreciation of nature and appreciation of seasons. And what is happening now in our world. So I was talking about this more yesterday in terms of our responsibility also to our society and to things that are happening in the world. It operates on many levels. Being aware of our rootedness in time and of causes and conditions helps us to be more open to ourself and our own confusion and grasping. frustration and fears and so forth. It also gives us the chance to be more responsive to our friends and family members. If we are involved with someone who's having a hard time, or who we perceive as having a hard time, maybe they don't, maybe we just disagree. But how do we respond to the people around us?

[16:39]

With patience, with a kind of respect, for all of the times involved and all the beings involved. This is the realm of precepts. How do we support awareness rather than intoxication, generosity rather than taking what is not given? So we have 16 of these, but basically they are about how to express this kind of sense of Buddha wholeness not as something that you need to acquire. It's not about reaching some other state or other understanding. It's possible for our awareness and our understanding to unfold and develop in our practice. But right now, the person on your cushion right now, this body and mind, how do we express our deepest wholeness. Well, we do this partly just by doing zazen. So this practice is a way of expressing that.

[17:43]

We sit up rightly. Gently, restfully, relaxedly, pay attention to what it's like to be present now in this body and mind. And thoughts and feelings come up, and we let them come up. But we don't try and do anything with them. We let go. We learn the art of letting go by just sitting. But at some point we get up from our cushion and do walking meditation or have tea and cookies or go out into the streets of Chicago. And then how do we, it's not that we have to figure out some way to, you know, take Zazen awareness into those situations, but how do we naturally start to express this sense of openness and possibility and kindness. First we have to do that with ourselves, and that's plenty challenging.

[18:45]

So this sense of deep time, being aware of our interconnectedness in time as well as our connectedness to all beings is an important part of this practice. And as some of you know, I could just keep babbling, but I think I'll stop now and see if anyone has any comments or questions or responses tonight. Please feel free. Yes, tell me your name again. John. John, hi. the past is one where he can't distinguish between what is a real memory of the past and what is a present imaginative recreation of the past.

[20:05]

And it makes me wonder what the role of imagination To what degree is that relationship a part of imagination as well? Good. Wonderful question. I might talk about that for the next week, but probably you want to go home and go to sleep eventually. But yeah, imagination is very important. I think it's a vital part of this practice, actually. But first, in terms of the past and memory, the past is just a word we have now for things that happened. History is the story we tell now of events that are so-called previous events.

[21:10]

So the data of what happened may be constant, but what it means totally changes based on the story we tell about it. So we can change the meaning of the past based on how we see it. the same event we can tell as some tragedy, or we can tell it as some inspiration to some change or some overcoming of some situation, for example. And memories, yes, memory is a funny thing, and there's collective as well as individual karma. We have collective memories of things that happen that may not fit with real experiences. I've participated in at least a couple of historical events that have been written up in history books of sorts and my experience of them and what was written, what's written down and the experience of other people involved are just, you know, have not much to do with what's written down.

[22:13]

And yet, you know, I like reading history. So part of the point about imagination is that it is, that reality itself is not only inconceivable but it's flexible. at least some aspects of it are flexible. So imagination is also important in terms of how we imagine the future. So I was talking yesterday about the environment and the pollution of Lake Michigan and other bodies of water, and can we imagine a positive future? That has an effect on our imagination of that. Our seeing of the possibilities for the future has an effect on real future beings. And then just within ourselves, as we're sitting, I think imagination is important to see an image of Buddha and imagine, oh, how does that feel to be Buddha? And so we take this position.

[23:14]

So in some ways, this practice is about being down to earth, being grounded. We sit on the ground, and yet, can we allow our mind to play with this ungraspable reality? So the Mahayana Sutras are filled with very imaginative, beautiful scenes of the activities of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The second part of your question is, what does imagination have to do with how we are interconnected with other beings or people? And I think that's trickier in some ways but also important, part of... So we make this reality together. And part of relating with each other, relating with a loved one, relating with somebody who's close to us, a friend or a family member, relating together in Sangha, is that there is the other. We need to listen to each other.

[24:20]

So Dogen has a very clear description of this that I think relates to your question, that delusion is when we carry ourselves forward and experience myriad things. And this is our usual human life. We project ourself out onto the world and onto things and onto other people. And maybe that's most of how we see everything. Studying that is important. Realizing that we are in this delusion is important. The other side, Dogen says, is that awakening is when the myriad things come forth and experience themselves together. So when we are willing to be part of everything arising right now, and that includes how other people see what is arising right now, and to listen to that, then we're not imposing ourselves, but we're part of the celebration and dance of this reality together. there's lots more to say about it. Do you have a follow-up? Somebody else?

[25:27]

Melody? Probably most of us do. Well, part of it is just to know that we don't know the future. We can see many things happening and feel many possibilities, and yet it's not determined yet. So whatever we feel negatively about the future, and we can see maybe many terrible possibilities, we don't really know. Things change. So science tells us that the environment is

[26:33]

in trouble and the climate is changing, but how that will happen and how that might be, the damage might be mitigated, we don't know yet. Our awareness makes a difference though, I would say. Our awareness is transformative, so how we pay attention to ourselves and other beings and other situations does make a difference. I don't know if that gets to what you were asking. Other responses? Yes, Serena. I just had a thought when you two were discussing the future, and I just had a thought that, like, in, like, traditionally in religion, there's like this, you know, this payback at the end, and this reason to do good, like, going to heaven and all that. And, but then,

[27:35]

When you break it down to, you know, like moment to moment or one day at a time, I feel like it's kind of natural to aspire to do good in order to, you know, it's sort of like hoping for the best. You know, even though there isn't any control over what happens, you know, you kind of plant the seed and hope for the best. And that is sort of the relationship between present and future. Yes, good, thank you. Because as we see our connectedness with other beings in the future and the present and the past, and right here, we realize that we just chanted, may all beings be happy. We start to feel that. So yes, he said it very well. We want to encourage our best expression and everybody else's best expression of how we can meet each other and the world together.

[28:42]

And we don't have control over what happens. And yet, what we do makes a difference. Thank you, yeah. That's right. about imagination and memory. In a lot of religions, it's very important that history be accurate so that we know that this religious leader was born at this particular time, that these things had this revelation from a divine being or whatever. I wonder if you were to, we were to discover Which Buddha are you talking about? I was thinking of the historical Buddha. The historical Buddha.

[29:44]

Oh, you mean Shakyamuni Buddha? Siddhartha Gautama? See, during just the few decades I've been practicing, when he lived changed. We used to think that he was born sometime in the mid 500s BC, and now it's probably maybe in the 400s BC. So we don't know who Buddha was. There was somebody named, there was somebody who became the Buddha, but it means, the Buddha just means an awakened one. So in all of Buddhism, even in the early Pali, Theravada Buddhism, there are many Buddhas, actually. There were Buddhas before Buddha, there will be Buddhas after Buddha. There are many dimensions in which all over the place there are Buddhas, and some sutras talk about there being Myriad Buddhas and Bodhisattvas on the tip of every blade of grass. So, you know, it doesn't really matter to me. We don't know exactly what Buddha said. There are many scriptures all claiming to be what he said, and I love all of them, pretty much.

[30:46]

But we don't have, you know, the videotape. We don't have the, we don't know exactly what he said. You know, but I think there are in some religious traditions, and it's possible in Buddhism too, a kind of sense of fundamentalism that we have to get back to the correct version of what somebody did at some point in some imagined history. And I think what Zen is about is saying, okay, well, what are we doing now? Dogen says, don't judge different schools or doctrines based on the beauty or the rightness of their philosophy. Just look at what the practice is. So how do we take care of this? How do we take care of Buddha's life and practice here today? That's what's important. And going back to something you were saying, Srini, it's not about... Naturally, of course, we all come to practice with some aspiration.

[31:50]

You know, we want to feel better. We want some stress reduction or calm or peace of mind. Of course. But when we recognize how uncontrollable reality is, we have to kind of give up and say, okay, here we are. How is it? What can I do now? instead of trying to imagine some result. We don't, so Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, talks about non-gaining attitude, which means just, it doesn't mean that there aren't benefits from practice, but it's just that any idea we have about them, any particular goal we have, that we have to get that. Any idea of enlightenment or of some magical understanding or experiences, that we think we have to do something, practice in order to get that, that can be very harmful. How do we just experience this situation in the fullness of deep time here?

[32:51]

And how do we give our best effort and kindness to that?

[32:56]

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