A Life of Dogen by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

The Einsteinian notion of space-time, a continuum in which time represents the fourth dimension, was apparently anticipated by Dogen, for whom time was inseparable from “being”. Time, of course, can only exist within a context of space, since it is a function of movement. But since being, or put another way, consciousness, is self-identical with space, time itself is inseparable from being.

Dogen said: “So-called time of being means time is already being; all being is time…Self is arrayed as the whole world. You should perceive that each point, each thing of this whole world is an individual time.”

Shunryu Suzuki elaborates this point: “Moment after moment each one of us repeats this activity (of breathing). Here there is no idea of time and space. Time and space are one. We do things one after the other, that is all. At one o’clock you will 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.” To create an idea of a place separate from one o’clock, as when we say “I wish I had gone somewhere else for lunch,” is playing mind-games, weaving illusion.

Dogen’s ideas on being and time, which have aroused a lot of interest among modern thinkers, arise from his basic theme of the non-dual suchness of the world, the unity of being. All dimensions and systems of measurement, therefore, are just mentally-created facets of the one central reality, and ultimately are indistinguishable from each other and the underlying reality realm.

The ramifications of this temporal system include the concept of all things existing in their own “being-time” for all time. Thus at this instant you and this time are identical. But you also participate in the whole structure of being-time, which is timeless. This means that you have always existed, and past moments are still in existence, but exclusively within their own being-times. The notion resembles a roll of movie film, where individual frames can be observed and put into motion as being-time. However, the whole drama exists timelessly as the reel of film.

Dogen also points out that time can seem to be moving in various ways, from past to present to future, or the reverse, depending on the standpoint of the observer. In this he seems to be looking forward to Quantum Theory and other developments of mathematical relativity.

A number of current writers are making the connection between modern science and ancient Eastern philosophies, for example, Fritjof Capra in his interesting account, The Tao of Physics. Despite such ideas, Dogen was never diverted by mind-games and always remained firmly in the Buddhistic realm of direct experience. Words to him were only fingers pointing to the moon. Never the moon itself.

Relativity and Time
Dogen’s views on time and relativity are expressed in a passage from one of his essays in which he uses a boat as a metaphor:

Life is like (sailing) in a boat: though in this
boat one works the sail, the rudder, and the pole,
the boat carries one, and one is naught without the
boat. Riding in the boat, one even causes the boat
to be a boat. One should meditate on this precise point.
At this very moment, the boat is the world — even the
sky, the water, and the shore all have become
circumstances of the boat, unlike circumstances which
are not the boat. For this reason life is our causing
to live; it is life’s causing us to be ourselves. When
riding in a boat, the mind and body, object and subject,
are all workings of the boat; the whole earth and all of
space are both workings of the boat. We are that
life, life that is we, are the same way.

To use the terminology of Hua Yen, the boat is the “principal” of Indra’s net, while everything else becomes its satellites. The density of Dogen’s language here is wonderful to behold, sometimes looking both ways at once, as in “life is our causing to live; it is life’s causing us to be ourselves.” And again, on the subject of sailing in a boat:

If we watch the shore while we are sailing in a boat,
we feel that the shore is moving. But if we look nearer
to the boat itself, we know then that it is the boat
which moves. When we regard the universe in confusion
of body and mind, we often get the mistaken belief
that our mind is constant. But if we actually
practise (Zen) and come back to ourselves, we see
that this was wrong.

Our turbulent ego “freezes” the frame of our thinking process, giving the idea of a solid mental environment. This is revealed as false when we closely observe ourselves in the manner of looking at the boat, rather than the shore, the thinker, rather than the thought.

The work by which Dogen is best known is the Shobogenzo, a collection of more than ninety essays covering the gamut of Buddhist thought. It was written in the Japanese language and was the first such work to be written in the vernacular at a time when classical Chinese was the order of the day among educated people. Its style is more than idiosyncratic to the casual reader. The text contains many phrases in Chinese, mixed in with the basic Japanese, and occasionally has a repetitive, even recitative, quality as if Dogen is trying to hammer home his message as one would hammer in a nail. Moreover, the reader is more often than not on shifting sands while tackling the essays, as whole complexes of associated meanings, symbolic language, and radical shifts of definition take place within a single passage.

Dogen was never too particular in his use of source material either, regarding the printed word as a means rather than an end. There was, he thought, the barrier of knowledge between the novice and enlightenment. Quotations were often used in an eccentric way, to serve a purpose rather than to display knowledge.

All this means that one can not take for granted the obvious meaning of a passage, for there are always layers of truth embedded beneath the surface, and verbal firecrackers to break up normal patterns of thought and conventional understanding. In short, the Shobogenzo is not for the general reader, but is aimed at those who are actively engaged on a Buddhist path towards enlightenment and have a good knowledge of the corpus. It is more of a manual for the educated monk or advanced lay reader.

It has been said that Dogen developed his verbal techniques for the same reason that Huang Po and Rinzai used physical violence, namely to break down the intellectual structures of thought which the — mostly — well-educated monks found difficult to overcome in their training. In the best Zen tradition, he shocked them out of their complacency and forced them to confront the world in all its truth and bareness. Whereas Rinzai used a hossu, a fist and a katsu, the gentle Dogen used the battering ram of his pen.

Now Read Part 6