Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
A Way Of Seeing (Being-time)
Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253) was a contemporary of Shinran Shonin, founder of our way of seeing. If the Kyōgyōshinshō (Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Enlightenment) is Shinran’s magnum opus, the Shōbōgenzō (The Eye and Treasury of the True Law) is Dogen’s. In English translation (by Kosen Nishiyama and John Stevens), it is four volumes long, each about 170 pages or more. Each volume has numerous chapters, each chapter covering a particular Buddhist topic, such as the one I’d like to bring to your attention, Uji, “Being-time,” which is only four pages long. Dogen’s work is often judged more philosophical than is Shinran’s, although Shinran’s is quite philosophical. Perhaps we can say that Shinran’s works written in Chinese-style are meant to give a foundation to his way of seeing the Pure Land teachings, while those written in Japanese are meant to explain it, especially for the ordinary person.
In any case, it is probable that I am merely co-opting Dogen’s words and not truly understanding what he is saying. Let’s see what he says.
“’Being-time’ means that time is being, i.e., ‘Time is existence, existence is time.’ The shape of a Buddha statue is time. Time is the radiant nature of each moment; it is monumental everyday time in the present…All things exist in ourselves. Every thing, every being in this entire world is time. No object obstructs or opposes any other object, nor can time ever obstruct any other time. Therefore, if we have the resolve to attain supreme enlightenment, the entire world will also be seen to possess that resolve at the same time…The entire world in included in ourselves. This is the principle ‘We, ourselves, are time’…Mountain is time, ocean is time. Mountain and ocean exist only in the present. If time is destroyed, mountain and ocean are destroyed.”
That is quite a lot to swallow in one sitting, but swallow it we must if we want to digest it. As a Jodo Shinshu follower, to me all those words point at an existential way of seeing time, which says that there is no “time” separate and apart from us. Time begins and ends, for us as individuals, as we are born and die. What, if any, meaning does time have to us when we die? When we no longer are “being?” For the person who practices Zen, this question probably sounds like a koan, but for the person who follows in Shinran’s path, it may very well be even more important. T’an Luan (J., Donran), the Third Patriarch of Jodo Shinshu, says no beings are born in the Pure Land. If we follow that with Dogen’s being-time, then there is no time in the Pure Land. If Amida is immeasurable life (or time), then there is nothing to worry about, because we are one with Amida, with Suchness.
This took off in a direction I did not know it would take. I hope it makes some sense. In any case, please give it some thought. I will need to do so as well, simply to make sure what I said is in fact the case.
Gasshō,
Donkon Jaan
Rev. John Doami
April 2007
