Dogen's Weird View of Time 

I was just reading Uji for the first time not even 10 minutes ago and was about to ask you to make a video on it because I don't think I understood 1% of it (except Nishijima Roshi's comments which were super helpful) and you come out with this. Incredible timing. I blame aliens. Thanks a lot Brad!

Shohoku Okomura Roshi in Indiana has written and taught extensively on Dogen in very thoughtful, present-day terms and language. He did a series on Dogen's Uji (On Time) many years ago that may be on Sanshinji's or the Dogen Institute's web site. Roshi often talks about the relationship between time and impermanence in many, many of his talks. His summation of Dogen's thinking about time he summed up as: Time is what our minds create to understand an existence of change and impermanence. A mind-blowing (mind-bowing, as I accidentally typed at first!) koan to think about deeply. Sanshinji has a RU-vid channel with many of Okomura Roshi's decades of talks and the Dogen Institute is another voluminous source of Roshi's talks. And the Five Remembrances echo your comments that all we are are our actions in this world. I find your talks on Zen provocative and quite different from other Zen discussions. Don't always agree with what you say but my provocation from your words is more important than the words themselves. thanks for sharing your stuff. I appreciate Ziggy's contributions, too!

This is it Brad, this is everything, Keep on keeping on and Thank you

Came for the funny thumbnail, stayed for the mind blowing words.

I'm Taking a class on Hegel in University at the moment. As I started to learn about Hegels Phenomenology, I was shocked at the almost identical similarities to the philosophy of Dogens Uji. In fact, when I wrote my paper, I wrote about Hegel's Phenomenology through the context of Dogens Uji.

"things you do now are deeply significant" gosh, I can't bear the responsibility!

Last Sunday ( 17.05.2020 ) was the final episode of 10 part series for Michael Jordan called "The Last Dance". This ESPN Documentary focuses on 1998 season when Chicago Bulls won their 6 NBA title. In episode 10 reporters asking Michael Jordan if he can play one more year. And he responds with zen buddhist philosophy that he is trying to be in the moment, just to stay in the moment. Episode 10 starts with this really strange statement that MJ was a true mystic who were able to be present all the time without projecting past fears into the future. Something in this fashion. And for me was absolutely interesting the very fact that Michael Jordan was at least on some basic level inspired of zen buddhist ideas and philosophy. These ideas were presented to him and to Bulls team through their coach - Phill Jackson. In the documentary MJ uses specifically the term "zen buddhism", so this was important for him. He uses other terms like "faith" and he says to Phill: "Every time we were close, I knew we were gonna do it." This is all in episode 10 and I was blown by this because I always felt that MJ had some eastern wisdom, but now it's clear to me that Phill worked with him a lot on the mental preparation and on pure philosophy level. And Michael were able to use this knowledge as fuel to achieve something in his professional life as basketball player. Michael is so deeply connected with Phill that when Phill refuses to work one more year for Chicago Bulls, Jordan also retires from the game of basketball. I know this is just sport story, but it's amazing to me how zen and the greatest player of all time are so connected and now you can't talk about Jordan's career without talking about zen buddhism which were obviously important part of the journey. This is crazy and weird as Dogen's weird view of Time.

Dogen without practice is nothing but weird poetry

Interesting video Brad. I'm reminded of how I am more and more arriving at the conclusion that anyone consistently following a non-materialistic worldview has a hard time fitting into any major modern political ideology, the confusion around your political standpoint comes from the fact that there aren't many people like that here in the West.

11:21 “A person’s doody always lies in the present” 💩🙊

Great video! more of that please.

I enjoyed this. Going to watch it again to unpack it a bit more. Thanks!

It's always good to see another of your down-to-earth, thought-provoking videos.

Thank you for your wisdom, Roshi.

More of this stuff pls! Reminds me a scene in Interstellar movie. Thank you!

I'm currently reading "Each Moment Is the Universe" by Dainin Katagiri and he talks about Dogen and time and the nature of impermanence...and that's why I'm here lol...edit..The One Taste of Truth: Zen and the Art of Drinking Tea is also a nice read :)

This was amazingly good to me. This is what you do best.

Oh yeah! Really got that one. You're using your now very well with these video's, Brad. Thank you!

Yes. Eckhart Tolle says in "power of now" to live and focus on NOW, not the future or past. And, Inca, from Peru, separate civilization b.c., had beautiful alternative time view/perception. Like all time lines exist now, in present current moment.

We are one with the perfectly endowed reality of cause and effect. Great video!

Mahayana Buddhism is largely an accumulation of ideas whose origins are largely unknown to Mahayana Buddhists. Not because of a lack of information...but a lack of interest. Most of the folks you see at Buddhist temples just want a social circle, just want to fit in, be entertained, be consoled...and so there are very few real questions ever asked. Where does this principle of momentariness come from? Does it have any value? Will reading Dogen's recitation of it make you a better person? "The notion of citta-santāna developed in later Yogacara-thought, where citta-santāna replaced the notion of ālayavijñāna, the store-house consciousness in which the karmic seeds were stored. It is not a "permanent, unchanging, transmigrating entity", like the atman, but a series of momentary consciousnesses. Lusthaus describes the development and doctrinal relationships of the store consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) and Buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha) in Yogācāra. To avoid reification of the ālaya-vijñāna, The logico-epistemological wing in part sidestepped the critique by using the term citta-santāna, "mind-stream", instead of ālaya-vijñāna, for what amounted to roughly the same idea. It was easier to deny that a "stream" represented a reified self." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstream

Hey Brad! Lately at work I have been trying not to look at the clock, and LO! Time feels completely relative to my state of mind (well, and physical exhaustion of course)! One 8-hour shift can feel longer than a 12-hour shift if I keep checking the time and moaning to myself about wanting to go home.

can you do a video on bad habits? how you view them, how you over come them, if you do.

Watching the US from NZ is heart breaking but it was even before the event. I think I will stop watching mostly and just breathe this lovely air of this lovely earth.

Always appreciate when you discuss Dogen.

5:26 All is tathagata... thus come and thus gone... without abiding at all. Being and time are nirvana and samsara... not two... and not one.

Thanks for your video, Brad. I do have a question about your decision regarding the news. I certainly see what you are saying in terms of why you cut yourself off, and I have thought I should do the same thing many times. But what if you use the news as a way to become more aware of the suffering in the world ? (as if we need more reminders :) Kind of like the eyes of Avaloketishwara all open to seeing the suffering. Couldn't we also use the news as an upaya to reflect on ourselves? Ie. when we get triggered by a "them" perhaps we can investigate that later in meditation? I ask because, today in my practice, I had a pretty powerful experience with a video that's circulating on the news today and I felt like working with it enabled me to connect more with what the people in it were experiencing. What would you say to the idea that the news itself it neutral and it's up to us to interact with it in a skilful or unskilful way.?

Thanks Brad!

Thank you!

thank you man! i appreciate your elucidations! Dogen... time... this is the stuff I love to contemplate. be well.

Thanks Brad! I’m working my way through Being-Time by Shinshu Roberts and it’s been tough to wrap my head around.

@HardcoreZen I recently was reading in one of your books (Don't be a jerk?) that a "new" book on beingtime was coming out. Was that Being Time by Shinshu Roberts?

Thank you.

Regarding the news, always follow the money. Katagiri has some interesting things about time.

Let's play if game 😚: First : universe repeating his self in cycle. Second : we are anti atoms state , choosing characters in time line & that reincarnation . Third: we choose any things as reincarnation in state after death , because it's state no time / space . Blessings . 🌷🌷🌷

Thanks Brad

Read this book man-years ago and enjoyed it. Would love to hear more comments or thoughts you have.

No comentators on the teachings of famous masters or famous masters speak sbout the very base that allows people to practice, ponder, think and reserch, I am speaking about the instinct of survival and reproduction. This instinct has way more power than any teaching, I am waiting for some Zen genious to clarify the topic.

vert good.

3:30

Thank you, I needed to hear that. It was insidious how this disaster allowed infotainment to creep into my life. It sounds like you have received transmission from Bodhidharma himself. P.S. Would you ever consider retiring as a teacher in a zendo? I'm a fan of the HazyMoon Zen center's roshi Nyogen who seems to have retired to the roll.

More cowbell

I get the drug msg. I don’t do drugs. You threw me when you mentioned avoiding the news. Is that an intoxicant?

So there’s only one big moment called the present. Right?

"not to mention that life arises and perishes instantaneously from moment to moment." you wanted to know what I meant by "may be we'll meet again someday as human beings." now you know. the secret of reincarnation is out. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda now you share the same weird view of reincarnation. don't substitute it for the Hindu concept.

Pure heresy. All phenomena lacking inherent essence are empty and all views should be relinquished. The perception of time is as empty as anything else, as empty as this comment and your perception of it. What you're experiencing right now is empty. What I'm experiencing is empty too. Emptiness is ultimately empty of itself. The realization of Shunyata on a deep psychological level is the way to true liberation. Peace.

Why Dogen? Why not focus on the early buddhist texts of the Sutta Pitaka? I feel like your new age ad-hoc syncretic hippy version of Buddhism comes from an over reliance on Dogen without a greater appreciation of other Buddhist schools or non-buddhist philosophy. I find Buddhism to be a very materialist (in the academic sense) and mechanistic religion, but I fall more in line with Batchelor's interpretation.

This is much better than Russell Brand, he is a junkie.

i dispute the translation of "time", there is in fact no contemporary word in english to match what dogen meant, its obvious if you listen to all the inane explanations and i wouldn't be surprised if he used different words anyway, the consistency is just a translation illusion the translators give an interpretation in terms of an imagined structure, when its just a riff, pick it up and let it go, because that's about all it is look at the nonsense going on, the schizophrenics all trying to make sense of who-knows what a wikipedia page to testify to stupidity en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uji_(Being-Time)

"No one is too small to make a difference" - Greta Thunberg

Find a job instead of asking for donations

you are making all these claims of eihei dogen's behalf, but you are just another person making claims on eihei dogen's behalf all good poetry implicitly deals with time and its mutations, but your reading is so limited you have no idea the moon tonight, tomorrow who cares ? walking with the fairies that's zen