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Awareness of time is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we do not treat spoken teaching lightly. 知時是法明門、不輕言故. This gate is about having a sense of urgency and not wasting time. It’s not just a matter of applying ourselves, but applying ourselves properly. If practice is based on ignorance, it’s a waste of time. First let’s review the ways that Dogen looks at time, and then let’s take up this idea of wasting time in our practice and whether that’s possible. According to Okumura Roshi, Dogen considers time in three different ways. The first is the common way: time flows from the past through the present to the future. The second is the time that is the absolute present. The past has gone and doesn’t exist anymore, and the future has not yet come and doesn’t exist yet. The only actual time is the present. There’s a famous passage in the Genjokoan in which he says: Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays at the position of ash, with its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. At this present moment, firewood is completely dwelling in the dharma position of firewood. In the past it was a live tree, but that time has gone. In the future, after the firewood is burned, it will be completely gone and only ash will exist. The ash isn’t here now. The live tree isn’t here now. There is only firewood now. The past isn’t reality any more, and future isn’t reality yet. Only this present moment is actual. That’s what “past and future are cut off” means. Okumura Roshi frequently explains Uchiyama Roshi’s view that the present moment has no length. If it had any length, we could cut it in half and one part would be in the past and the other in the future. The present is only a boundary between the not-existing past and the not-existing future. The present is 0. Time disappears when we look at in this way. This is the second way of looking at time: time is the absolute present, what I often call the eternal now. The third way of considering time is that it doesn’t flow. In Bendowa, Dogen says: Therefore, even if only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all times, it performs everlasting buddha guidance within the inexhaustible dharma world in the past, present, and future.* In our zazen, we sit at this absolute present or eternal now. When we do that, we are one with all time and all beings; there’s no separation. This is the time that does not flow. There is only one moment, without any parts or segments like seconds or minutes or centuries. Those are our ideas and ways of measuring, and we need them in order to function, but that’s just our story about the eternal now that doesn’t actually flow. In conventional thinking about time, we can write a story about ourselves as karmically conditioned beings. Dogen says that in zazen, the time that doesn’t flow appears because we recognize that we’re in the absolute present, and in the absolute present there’s no coming and going. There’s only the eternity of awakening throughout all space and time, or Buddha’s eternal life. Sawaki Roshi said, “It’s pointless for human beings merely to live a life that lasts seventy or eighty years.” He was talking about this third way of considering time that doesn’t flow. All three of these ways of considering time are true. Somehow, we’re right in the middle of all of them, even though they seem to contradict each other. Awareness of time in the conventional sense reminds us that in spite of what Sawaki Roshi said, this body has a limited lifespan. We only get so many years in which we can practice and carry out our vows, so it’s foolish to waste time either not practicing or practicing unskillfully. Three texts related to this gate come to mind immediately: Sandokai, Fukanzazengi and Gakudo Yojinshu. Sandokai, or The Merging of Difference and Sameness, is a long poem by Shitou Xiqian (J. Sekito Kisen) written in the 8th century. The theme of the poem is that we need to see both the individual and the universal. This is the difference and sameness. Seeing both of these—form and emptiness, small self and universal self, individuality and universality—is seeing reality. If we don’t see both aspects, we’re only aware of half of the story and we’re not living out our lives completely. The end of the Sandokai says, I humbly urge you who study the mystery: don’t waste time or don’t pass your days and nights in vain. Not wasting time in this context is not practicing with only one or the other aspect in view. If we’re not making an effort to awaken to both form and emptiness, we’re not really practicing wholeheartedly. In Living by Vow, Okumura Roshi says about these two lines that no matter how hard we practice, if our practice is not based on true reality we are wasting our time. Suzuki Roshi’s advice about this line was that we shouldn’t sacrifice actual practice for idealistic practice. If we’re practicing based on how we want things to be, or our ideas about what practice is or should be, we’re sacrificing actual practice for idealistic practice. We’re not awake to both difference and sameness. Next is Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, or Universal Recommendations for Zazen. This is the first thing he wrote after coming back from China, where he practiced with his teacher Tendo Nyoji and had an experience of awakening while sitting zazen in the zendo. He understood the importance of zazen and wanted to help others to understand by providing instructions and explanations. Near the end of the Fukanzazengi he says: You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your time in vain. You are maintaining the essential working of the buddha way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning — emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. Human form is the only form within the six realms of samsara in which we can practice. The other five have various impediments, so we’re frequently encouraged to be grateful that causes and conditions resulted in our being born in human form. Fukanzazengi says it’s a pivotal opportunity and we need to not throw that opportunity away. It goes on to say that what we’re engaged in is the essential working of the buddha way. There’s nothing outside of that, and we don’t need to waste time looking around for things to fulfill us or make us better somehow. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? The spark isn’t the fire—it flashes and then it’s gone. It’s a distraction from the main thing. To take delight in just having the spark rather than the fire is a wasted opportunity. That’s just being pulled around by the three poisonous minds. Earlier in the text Dogen asks why we think we need to leave our own seats and travel around through dusty foreign lands looking for awakening, peace or nirvana, and says that that’s fruitless or meaningless. It’s just a distraction from the practice and awakening that are right in front of us, and a waste of time. Then Dogen reminds us that forms are impermanent. Not only are the things we’re chasing after impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying, but also this human form won’t last forever. We have to take this opportunity to practice while we can. Finally, we come to Dogen’s Gakudo Yojinshu, or Points to Watch in Studying the Way: Out of fear of time slipping away too swiftly, practice the Way as if you are trying to extinguish a fire enveloping your head. Reflecting on the transiency of your bodily life, practice as diligently as the Buddha did when he raised his foot for seven days. If your head was on fire, you would expend every effort to put it out! This is a well-known passage, and I think it’s not a coincidence that Dogen uses a fire image. The Lotus Sutra includes the image of the burning house, which represents samsara, where we’re in the midst of our craving, aversion and delusion. The opposite is the peace and calm of nirvana, where we’re not pulled around by our desires and we’re not creating suffering for ourselves and others. Our heads on fire is a powerful image of the energy that comes from our thoughts and emotions. There’s some urgency about that picture, like we ought to pay attention to what’s happening there. Reflecting on the transiency of your bodily life: here again we have only a limited amount of time in this human form in which to practice. Practice as diligently as the Buddha did when he raised his foot for seven days: there’s a story that Buddha raised his foot for seven days out of admiration and respect for a buddha called Pushya. I don’t know the circumstances of that story, but imagine effort it takes to stand on one foot for a week! Dogen says that’s the kind of committment we need to have to practice. All three of these texts are making the same points: 1) This human body is impermanent and it’s the ground of our practice, so we have to take advantage of that opportunty while we can. 2) Not making an effort to see both form and emptiness or both individual and universal is not practicing based on true reality, and it’s a waste of time. 3) Getting distracted by chasing after things to satisfy our cravings is wasting the limited time we have in this form to wake up. I think it’s interesting that the gate statement makes reference to “spoken teaching.” There’s some immediacy about spoken teaching. Of course, the sutras are said to be transcriptions of words spoken by the Buddha; some of these are apocriphal, but when they begin “Thus have I heard,” that’s Ananda reciting what he heard the Buddha say. Thus “spoken teaching” here could just mean all the sutras, but I’m going to read something else into it, and of course this is just my response to this gate statement. Maybe you’re familiar with the expression ichigo ichie, literally one time, one meeting. The idea is that this moment is unrepeatable; it will never come again. When we encounter some teaching, we have to take advantage of that moment, or that meeting with the dharma. If teachings are written down, maybe we can read them again later; that’s the maintaining version of the dharma treasure. Of course, that moment of returning to a teaching is different from the moment of first encountering it. If we hear spoken teachings, that’s a moment of encounter, whether the speaker is a dharma teacher or a sangha friend. It might be people chanting sutras and doing liturgy, or even the sound of a creek, or wind blowing or a cat purring. That moment won’t come again and everything is impermanent—one time, one meeting. In that moment of encounter, we have the chance to experience the teachings (and everything else) with a fresh mind. This is before we judge and label and decide anything. We have the chance to absorb the spoken teaching with the body and mind before we try to study it. This kind of fresh encounter is the reason that Sawaki Roshi found zazen so important, not because sitting gives us the spaciousness to understand one time one meeting, but because that’s the way he first encountered zazen. He went to Eiheiji to become a monk, but he couldn’t be ordained because he didn’t have a teacher. Instead, he became a lay worker at Eiheiji, which gave him the opportunity to observe the practice of the monks, particularly their zazen. He saw them sitting day after day and felt something deep and sacred, but he couldn’t identify the source of that feeling. He later said that he had encountered the real thing before studying what it was, and on that basis zazen was very special to him. Anyway, according to this gate statement, if we really understand the nature of time, we don’t disregard any opportunity to hear and absorb spoken teachings. The Lotus Sutra in particular encouraged people to recite it. It says that anyone who recites the sutra or expounds the contents does it in place of Buddha, taking on the role and characteristics of Buddha or carries the Buddha on his/her/their shoulders. Reciting or teaching the sutra is important because anyone who hears this spoken teaching is said to instantly attain awakening. “What is the reason? When this person joyfully speaks the Dharma, those who hear it for but an instant shall directly achieve ultimate Annuttara samyak sambodhi.” If we’re not listening when that opportunity comes along because we think we’ll have plenty more chances . . . well, maybe not! Practitioners sometimes ask, "Does that mean we have to be hypervigilant, driving ourselves crazy trying to look for all these gates so as not to miss something?” No—not possible, and that would be fixating on an idea about what practice and wisdom and awakening are. We’d develop some real clinging and we might become selfish. I need to seize the opportunity to sit that sesshin whether or not it creates problems for my family or coworkers that’s I’m away. Instead, we let all of these teachings seep in gradually. If we sit shikantaza and deeply experience time, for instance, in the ways that Dogen does, we understand some things about this gate statement. We can see that in the conventional view of time, our lifetime is limited and we’re subject to illness, old age and death. We don’t want to look back at the end of our lives and say “I wish I’d taken the time to practice more.” Our circumstances are changing all the time, so it might not be possible to practice tomorrow or next year. We can also see that it’s important to stay focused on our vows and not be distracted by other things that come along, and that because time is absolute, we can only act in this eternal now. We can’t act in the future, so this is our chance to practice. Questions for reflection and discussion
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About the text The Ippyakuhachi Homyomon, or 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination, appears as the 11th fascicle of the 12 fascicle version of Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo. Dogen didn't compile the list himself; it's mostly a long quote from another text called the Sutra of Collected Past Deeds of the Buddha. Dogen wrote a final paragraph recommending that we investigate these gates thoroughly. Hoko has been talking about the gates one by one since 2016. She provides material here that can be used by weekly dharma discussion groups as well as for individual study. The 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination
[1] Right belief [2] Pure mind [3] Delight [4] Love and cheerfulness The three forms of behavior [5] Right conduct of the actions of the body [6] Pure conduct of the actions of the mouth [7] Pure conduct of the actions of the mind The six kinds of mindfulness [8] Mindfulness of Buddha [9] Mindfulness of Dharma [10] Mindfulness of Sangha [11] Mindfulness of generosity [12] Mindfulness of precepts [13] Mindfulness of the heavens The four Brahmaviharas [14] Benevolence [15] Compassion [16] Joy [17] Abandonment The four dharma seals [18] Reflection on inconstancy [19] Reflection on suffering [20] Reflection on there being no self [21] Reflection on stillness [22] Repentance [23] Humility [24] Veracity [25] Truth [26] Dharma conduct [27] The Three Devotions [28] Recognition of kindness [29] Repayment of kindness [30] No self-deception [31] To work for living beings [32] To work for the Dharma [33] Awareness of time [34] Inhibition of self-conceit [35] The nonarising of ill-will [36] Being without hindrances [37] Belief and understanding [38] Reflection on impurity [39] Not to quarrel [40] Not being foolish [41] Enjoyment of the meaning of the Dharma [42] Love of Dharma illumination [43] Pursuit of abundant knowledge [44] Right means [45] Knowledge of names and forms [46] The view to expiate causes [47] The mind without enmity and intimacy [48] Hidden expedient means [49] Equality of all elements [50] The sense organs [51] Realization of nonappearance The elements of bodhi: The four abodes of mindfulness [52] The body as an abode of mindfulness [53] Feeling as an abode of mindfulness [54] Mind as an abode of mindfulness [55] The Dharma as an abode of mindfulness [56] The four right exertions [57] The four bases of mystical power The five faculties [58] The faculty of belief [59] The faculty of effort [60] The faculty of mindfulness [61] The faculty of balance [62] The faculty of wisdom The five powers [63] The power of belief [64] The power of effort [65] The power of mindfulness [66] The power of balance [67] The power of wisdom [68] Mindfulness, as a part of the state of truth [69] Examination of Dharma, as a part of the state of truth [70] Effort, as a part of the state of truth [71] Enjoyment, as a part of the state of truth [72] Entrustment as a part of the state of truth [73] The balanced state, as a part of the state of truth [74] Abandonment, as a part of the state of truth The Eightfold Path [75] Right view [76] Right discrimination [77] Right speech [78] Right action [79] Right livelihood [80] Right practice [81] Right mindfulness [82] Right balanced state [83] The bodhi-mind [84] Reliance [85] Right belief [86] Development The six paramitas [87] The dāna pāramitā [88] The precepts pāramitā [89] The forbearance pāramitā. [90] The diligence pāramitā [91] The dhyāna pāramitā [92] The wisdom pāramitā [93] Expedient means [94] The four elements of sociability [95] To teach and guide living beings [96] Acceptance of the right Dharma [97] Accretion of happiness [98] The practice of the balanced state of dhyāna [99] Stillness [100] The wisdom view [101] Entry into the state of unrestricted speech [102] Entry into all conduct [103] Accomplishment of the state of dhāraṇī [104] Attainment of the state of unrestricted speech [105] Endurance of obedient following [106] Attainment of realization of the Dharma of nonappearance [107] The state beyond regressing and straying [108] The wisdom that leads us from one state to another state and, somehow, one more: [109] The state in which water is sprinkled on the head Archives
September 2024
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