Table Of Content1
A masterful guide to Zen Master Dōgen’s most subtle and sophisticated premise: that being
and time are inseparable.
Impermanence is time itself, being itself — yet time and being are not at all as we imagine them
to be. To really understand and fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world —
a world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Zen Master Dōgen frames the teaching on
impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time — and all of Dōgen’s profoundly poetic
teachings flow from his seminal understanding of time, as expressed in “Uji,” the famous — and
famously difficult — essay in his masterwork, Shōbōgenzō. In “Uji,” Dōgen teaches that time
itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is all- inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and
eternal.
“In this book, Shinshu Roberts does full justice, as does no other book I know of, to Dōgen’s
words. She offers interpretation of ‘Uji’ only after careful consideration and marshaling of many
sources — and offers simple everyday examples to illustrate points that seem at first abstruse. If
this text causes you to doubt your most cherished concepts about your life, it will have done its
work.” — from the foreword by Norman Fischer
“A brilliant work that brings alive Zen Master Dōgen’s fascinating teachings. Being-Time is not
just a book to be read, it is book with which to participate in the profound enlightenment practice
of Zen.” — Gil Fronsdal, author of The Buddha Before Buddhism
“A wise, kind, and wonderfully patient guide to one of Dōgen’s most important texts. This is a
book I will treasure and return to time and time again.” — Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the
Time Being
“Beautifully written and thoughtful. By integrating many of Dōgen’s works in this study, Shinshu
somehow allows Dōgen himself to explicate the text. This is truly a companion to reading all of
Dōgen — not just ‘Uji.’” — Pat Enkyo O’Hara, author of Most Intimate
SHINSHU ROBERTS is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, in the lineage of Shunryu
Suzuki Roshi. She received her priest training at San Francisco Zen Center and from the North
American branch of the Japanese Sōtō School. She cofounded Ocean Gate Zen Center in
Capitola, California with her spouse, Jaku Kinst.
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Day and night
Night and day,
The way of Dharma as everyday life;
In each act our hearts
Resonate with the call of the sūtra.
— EIHEI DŌGEN1
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Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Uji (Being-Time)
1. Uji Is Being-Time
2. Things Just as They Are
3. Time’s Glorious Golden Radiance
4. Present Doubt
5. Embodying the World
6. The One Hundred Grasses Exist
7. The One Hundred Grasses Are Time
8. Am I a Buddha or a Demon?
9. Time Is Multidimensional
10. Whose Time Is It Anyway?
11. What Is Today’s Time?
12. Learning Intimacy
13. The Essential Point
14. Time Passing
15. “Look! Look!”
16. Horses, Sheep, Rats, and Tigers
17. Penetrating Exhaustively
18. Manifesting the Tall Golden Buddha
19. Nothing Remains
20. Groping for Your Original Face
21. Deva Kings Presencing Here and Now
22. Passage of No-Passage
23. How Long Does Enlightenment Take?
24. Yaoshan Bites the Iron Bull
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25. A Raised Eyebrow, a Blink of the Eye
26. The Morning Star Appears
27. The Mind Is a Donkey, the Word Is a Horse
28. Encounters
29. Ultimate Attainment in Being-Time
30. Is There Something More?
Notes
Index
About the Author
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Foreword
OF ALL THE many important interlocking concepts that comprise basic
Buddhist teaching, none is more important than impermanence. The four
noble truths — suffering, cause of suffering, end of suffering, and path
— flow from it. We suffer because everything is impermanent,
everything ends, loss is inevitable. This is the inescapable human
condition the path is set forth to address.
But a more detailed look at Buddhist teachings on impermanence,
especially Mahāyāna teachings, changes the initial impression.
Impermanence, it becomes clear, doesn’t mean that things last for a
while then pass away: things arise and pass away at the same time. That
is, things don’t exist as we imagine they do. Much of our experience of
reality is illusory. And this is why we suffer.
In effect, what these teachings are telling us is that impermanence is
time itself, being itself, and that time and being are not at all as we
imagine them to be, they are utterly otherwise. To really understand and
fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world — a
world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Time is the lock — and the
key! — to Buddhist teachings, and to our lives.
As far as I am aware, Dōgen is the only Buddhist teacher who frames
the teaching on impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time. And
just as for Buddha impermanence is central, so for Dōgen time is the
central conception of the whole of his thought. All of Dōgen’s
profoundly poetic teachings flow from his seminal understanding of
time, as expressed in “Uji” (Being-Time), his famous (and famously
difficult) essay in his masterwork, Shōbōgenzō.
In “Uji,” Dōgen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous
awakening. It is all-inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and eternal.
Clearly, there is much to ponder here. Yet “Uji” is only a few short pages
in length. These pages, and this teaching, is the subject of the sturdy and
detailed volume you now have in your hands.
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Zen is famous for advocating direct experience and intense
meditation. Traditionally — and this is still true in many Zen places —
study is not only discouraged, it is forbidden. But in our Sōtō Zen
tradition, following Dōgen, study is prized, not necessarily for the
knowledge it provides but as an important component in spiritual
practice. Shinshu Roberts, a Sōtō Zen priest of long experience, has,
from the beginning of her practice, valued and prized study as a primary
gate for entry into the realms of faith and illumination. This book is the
fruit of her many years of practicing this.
Dōgen’s works (and “Uji” is perhaps typical of them) are
inspirational. But their inspiration doesn’t come without some effort.
Noted for the density and multifaceted nature of their presentation,
Dōgen’s works require serious study.
In this text Shinshu does full justice, as no other book I know of, to
Dōgen’s words. She offers interpretation only after careful consideration
and marshaling of many sources. She offers simple everyday examples
to illustrate points that seem at first abstruse. As a priest working closely
with contemporary Zen students, she never loses sight of the fact that
Dōgen’s teachings are intended to be put into practice in daily living, not
merely studied and discussed. I am truly impressed by the thoroughness,
intensity, love, and faith that Shinshu has put into this book.
Allow me to suggest to the reader a way to proceed. Do not read this
text as you ordinarily read, going along at a steady pace, with the
assumption that you will understand what is being said. Instead, take
your time. Go slow. Ponder. Read repeatedly the many quotations from
Dōgen cited (not only from “Uji,” but from many other related texts).
Perhaps write them down. Don’t try too hard to understand. Let the
words seep in, echo. Be willing not to understand. Be willing to feel the
uncomfortable feeling that perhaps what you think you know, even
fundamentally know, about your life isn’t right. Be willing to marvel at
this feeling, even affirm it, and not to insist that it go away. Be amazed.
If this text causes you to doubt your most cherished concepts about
your life, it will have done its work.
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NORMAN FISCHER is the spiritual director of the Everyday Zen
Foundation, and a former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center. He’s
also the author of numerous books on Zen, religion, and writing.
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Preface
I RELIED PRIMARILY upon scholarly articles, glossaries, and translation
footnotes to ascertain the basic meaning of the text. Practicing with the
material arose from my own exploration and reading the few practice
commentaries on parts of “Uji,” such as Dainin Katagiri Roshi’s book
Each Moment Is the Universe.1
As much as possible I have tried to grasp what Dōgen means, not
what I think he might mean. When reading Dōgen, we must be careful to
avoid the tendency to translate what we do not understand into
something we already understand. For instance, we might be tempted to
categorize everything as the doctrine of form and emptiness, or the
relative and absolute. If we applied that logic to being-time, we would
not see the vast scope of Dōgen’s vision.
Since I do not read Japanese, I depended, in part, upon the
interpretation of others. Included in this process was finding various
translations of the same word or phrase in more than one fascicle of the
Shōbōgenzō or another text by Dōgen, such as his collection of three
hundred kōans or the Eihei Kōroku. Several of Dōgen’s books have
excellent translations in English.
Because Dōgen’s original texts do not conform to modern textual
divisions, even the scholar must make translation decisions based upon
his or her understanding of the meaning the text. Dōgen did not write
paragraphs or stress delineations between ideas. When we read a
translation divided into paragraphs, those divisions are the translator’s
choice, not Dōgen’s. Translators sometimes omit arcane references by
translating them into a more palatable form. One such example would be
transforming the phrase “one hundred grasses” into “myriad things.”
Some sentences such as “Entirely worlding the entire world with the
whole world is thus called penetrating exhaustively”2 present the
translator with particular challenges. In Japanese this sentence is
constructed by combining the three characters jin, kai, and gu. Using jin
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