Good evening. Okay, well I have these curly little sheets of paper that won't stay on the podium. So tonight I want to talk about time. And I told you during my first talk that I was very, very, very interested in this topic and I wasn't kidding.

[01:06]

And therefore I am really frustrated that there are all these things that I would like to have read for this talk so that I could expound the Dharma that they contain. But there wasn't time. So I'm going to talk about some of my own experiences and how time manifests in my own life and some of the ways that I struggle with time. So you can hear from the way I express that, that I'm in the habit of thinking of time as something very separate from myself, a contender. But we've been studying that actually I am time.

[02:11]

So that's something for me to practice with as I work on these things. And I do notice that the problems I have with time are exactly the problems I have with myself, which are wanting to be more than I am and not being satisfied with myself. So let me give you a few examples of some ways that I'm working with time. For a number of years at Zen Center, I was afraid to give talks or even speak up at meetings because my voice was unreliable. And when I opened my mouth, I was never quite sure what kind of sound was going to come out.

[03:12]

Mostly the sound that did come out was highly unsatisfactory to me. My voice has a tendency to crack, and I had trouble making myself heard. And in any of those kinds of meetings where people just speak up as they think of something that they want to say, I would have a lot of trouble entering the conversation and finding a place to insert myself. When I lived at Tazahara in the 80s, I had a lot of trouble chanting. I had trouble finding a pitch that was comfortable for me and also harmonious with the other people who were chanting. And my voice would give out long before morning service was over. This really bothered me, and it became something about myself that I wanted to fix.

[04:19]

So eventually I started working with a speech therapist, and I learned many interesting things. One of the things I learned was that I had not been breathing. I learned that my voice was much less likely to crack if I had sufficient breath support. Well, of course, everyone needs breath in order to speak. I also learned about opening my mouth wider to create more resonance and about speaking with more connection between words. I went through a phase of study with my speech therapist where I spoke very slowly in what seemed to me like a sing-song voice. But when she would play back a recording of me speaking that way,

[05:25]

it sounded perfectly natural and normal. So my previous habitual speech had been much too fast. And it left me literally breathless. One of the things I did with this therapist was watch newscasters on TV who have to speak both very quickly and very understandably. Interestingly, though, almost everything I learned was about radically slowing down and paying mindful attention to the business of speech production on a really detailed level.

[06:25]

I think I understand some of the reasons why I developed this difficulty. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I was too slow. And when I looked at myself through that lens of too slow, I was always rushing to keep up. To keep up with what? I'm not quite sure. But I felt so compelled to keep up with the chanting or a conversation that I didn't feel like I dared take the time to breathe. And this was emblematic of my way of being in the world. I have often felt so pressured by time and by what I imagined to be people's expectations that I didn't really give myself permission to let things take the time that they actually take.

[07:34]

So one of my ongoing practices, and especially during this practice period, is to find and accept a pace that's appropriate to the circumstances and remind myself to breathe or to stop and think if that would be useful or is necessary. Panic about time and keeping up is a state of mind that is so familiar to me that I can fail to recognize it when it arises. Recently, I was working in the kitchen here doing my dinner prep. I do dinner prep on Saturdays with one other person. And there is considerable variation in the amount of work involved.

[08:37]

Sometimes we're just heating up leftovers and it's really easy and we have lots of spare time. And sometimes there's a more complicated meal that's really challenging for us. So on this particular night, there was more work than we could do and it was only half an hour away from mealtime. The tenzo stopped by, as she often does, to see if things were okay. And she saw that we needed help, so she stayed and helped. And another person in the sangha also pitched in and helped, so we had two additional people. I was working on a really simple dish, but it was unfamiliar to me and I was just following the instructions. There was too little of one of the ingredients. And I thought about adjusting the other ingredients to correspond, but I didn't do it.

[09:44]

I just kept going, hurrying as much as I could. When the dish was finished, I tasted it and I wasn't very happy with it at all. And I'm afraid a lot of it may have gone to waste. I realized I had fallen under the spell of that familiar feeling of needing to rush and not wanting to take those extra few minutes to stop and think or evaluate. And I wished I had taken just a few minutes to consider the ingredients and the quantities and what might have made that dish taste good. Since we had additional help, those few minutes were really readily available. So I have found that hurrying, rushing often leads to problems that could be avoided

[10:48]

by taking some time and care in the first place. We have some common expressions about that. The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. A stitch in time saves nine. During my last talk, I told you that there was a period of time when I had a lot of trouble getting to the Zendo in the morning. And I want to talk about that a little bit. During that time, I really thought that I wasn't going to the Zendo because I was working too hard and there just weren't enough hours in the day and I really needed more sleep. So every night I would set my alarm to wake me up in time for Zazen. But I figured I'd decide in the morning, based on how I felt, whether I'd actually go or not.

[11:56]

Well, I have a feeling that some of you know how that would be likely to turn out. So morning would come and I would have set the alarm early enough that I had time to think about it. And I would lay there and think about it and notice that I was so tired. And I'd fall asleep thinking about it. And I might wake up again in time to go for second period. And again I would fall asleep thinking about how I was so tired. And then I'd wake up again when it was too late to go to either first or second period. And suddenly I felt completely rested and refreshed and ready to get up and I would.

[13:01]

This happened over and over. As soon as 6am was safely passed, I felt great relief and I was ready to get up and start on my day. It took a while for me to notice that this had absolutely nothing to do with needing more sleep. It was just resistance and my desire to spend that time doing something more entertaining than going to Zazen. So when it became that clear, it was possible for me to look again at the priorities I have for my life and rededicate my intention to get up and go to Zazen. Recently I was talking with Michael about time and I said I really wondered how the understanding that I am time was of any help to me when I was overwhelmed with so many questions.

[14:36]

When I was overwhelmed with tasks and didn't know what to do first. He said when time is experienced as scarce, it's usually because of preferences. Attaching to pleasant activities, avoiding unpleasant activities, or hurrying through them to get it over with. He said that using time as opposed to being used by time was a matter of priorities. Well, I didn't say this to Michael, but my internal reaction was, this is not about preferences. I just have too much to do and there is too little time. Nevertheless, I've been thinking about it since and watching to see how my preferences may be creating a feeling of time scarcity for me.

[15:42]

A couple of years ago, I taught myself to knit from the Knitting for Dummies book and it quickly became my absolutely favorite thing to do. However, even before I learned to knit, I had plenty to do and there were already lots of things including pleasant ones like reading and going to movies and studying and seeing art exhibits and keeping up with the news that I wanted to do that I wasn't getting around to. So learning to knit actually put more time pressure in my life. Soon, I always had a knitting project going and not only that, I had a whole raft of ideas for future projects. And every time I would start a project, it would sort of go on my mental to-do list and I noticed that it was really causing me some anxiety.

[16:54]

Before I learned to knit, I had imagined that it would be this wonderfully productive thing to do that I could feel really good about. I would have all these scarves and sweaters and I would make lots of presents for my friends and it would just be very useful and pleasurable to boot and wouldn't that be wonderful? Well actually, knitting is pretty slow and a project may or may not come out well and buying yarn to knit a sweater probably will cost more than buying a sweater. So the cost-benefit analysis approach didn't work here and it was really clear that the only justification for knitting was that I loved to do it. So then, as Michael said, it became a matter of priorities.

[17:58]

Did I love to do it enough to forego all the other things I would have to give up to do it? And what were really the priorities for my life? During this practice period, while I am being head student, my time is pretty well filled up with scheduled activities. Most of these activities are really, really pleasant, like having tea with practice period students or going to other people's lectures. But they do come one right after another, with little or no time in between. And this is very different from the way I have habitually set up my life. I like lots of space around the things I have to do and I've always been pretty careful to maintain some time between events and commitments.

[19:11]

So you can see that being head student has really reoriented how I think about time and live my life. Darlene Cohn has offered some workshops here at City Center, where she talks about the fact that most of us make some judgments about which events in our lives are the most important. Which events in our lives we feel are worth showing up for and which ones we'd just as soon miss. We want to show up for the good stuff and check out for the rest. The problem with that is that if you're not in the habit of being mindful and present for all the times in your life, in our lives,

[20:21]

we'll probably find that it's impossible to be truly present even for the good and important moments when you'd really like to be there. So for me, being Shuso here now definitely falls into the category of something I want to show up for. I'm aware that it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it's really very important to me. So I'm practicing hard to stay where I am, where I actually am, and fully enjoy this practice period. And I am really enjoying this time. I'm enjoying every single part of it. The wake-up bell, the morning jendo, being in the zendo, even looking at your faces right now, even preparing talks.

[21:26]

It's just been a really wonderful experience and kind of a turning point for me. One traditional idea about Zen practice is that dislodging a person's habits, shaking things up a bit, can be very beneficial. And I imagine maybe that is what is contributing to my pleasure in this time. I know it will never be this way again and that the time is very short. Of course, everything on our lives is just like that, but in this case it's really highlighted for me. Another of the obvious ways that I notice time is that I'm aging. Of course, we're all aging, but it comes up for me with particular force now.

[22:33]

I'm 57. I imagine advancing age impacts different people in different ways. For me, it's less about physical limitations or feeling any different than about what I see when I look in the mirror or how much time I have left. One of the first shocks about age for me came about 5 or 10 years ago when I was in the dentist's office and we were talking about doing some procedure. And the dental assistant said, You know, you could live another 30 years. And I was really kind of taken aback. Recently, I was talking to Michael about my life and what I wanted to do in the future.

[23:35]

And he said, You know, there's really not that much time left. And again, I was a little bit shocked. And his comment also touched on one of the big issues about aging, which is that most of the decisions about how you're going to spend your life have already been made. And the options that are still open to you at that point are somewhat limited. Recently, I was watching a TV special on KQED about the folk music era, which was happening as I was coming of age. And it included the Kingston Trio and Judy Collins and the Limelighters and the Smothers Brothers and Glenn Yarborough. And it was very poignant for me to hear all those old favorite songs

[24:42]

and see them all up on the stage together. And they looked like a bunch of really nice old geezers. And it was a reminder to me that my generation is doing what I used to think of as getting old. At Zen Center, I participate in what we call a coming of age group for people over 50. And we've talked about things like retirement homes and exercise and taking care of our aged parents and our parents' devs. One member of the group told me that she feels very conflicted about participating because this is supposed to be a support group that helps us to feel better. And actually, it's a reminder of all the hard facts of aging. As a perennial self-improver, I have the habit of thinking that the future will be better than the past

[25:53]

and that I will be better in the future than I was in the past. I still feel that way, and I'm inspired by some models of elders in the Zen Center Sangha who still contribute to all our lives with great energy and sustained practice. I look at them and think that if practice will make me look like that when I'm that age, I will do it. Lately in the news, we've been seeing predictions that more and more people can be expected to live into extreme old age, 100 and beyond.

[26:56]

Many of those people will live on manufactured time, years gained from technological advances, better medical care, better surgical techniques. And some of them will be quite frail and will require continuous care for longer periods of their very long lives at an extremely high cost. So the expression that time is money may take on new meaning. And prolongation of life is likely to be a really important social, financial, moral issue in the next century. So enough of that cheery business. Let's see what time it is.

[28:01]

I think we've been really fortunate to have so much teaching during this practice period about time, both from Michael. And on Friday night, we had a wonderful presentation by Shohaku Okamura. And then on Saturday, Tygan Leighton talked about the koan about not being busy. In my frustration over not being able to read the books that I would have liked to talk about, I did surf the net a little bit. And I discovered there are some fairly interesting things out there on the topic of time. I just typed Buddhism tilde time into Google and got some stuff that I found quite interesting. And you might want to do the same.

[29:03]

And actually, I think there's time. I'd like to read one thing that I found that I think is interesting, if that's okay. So this first comment is by the Sixth Patriarch, Chan Master Wang Heng. In this moment, there is nothing that comes to be. In this moment, there is nothing that ceases to be. Thus, there is no birth and death to be brought to an end. Thus, the absolute peace in this moment. Though it is at this moment, there is no limit to this moment. And herein lies eternal delight. Elaborating on that, this comes from Zen Master Tsang San's book, The Compass of Zen.

[30:17]

And I hope this works to read to you. Everyone thinks that this is extremely difficult teaching. Something beyond their reach or experience. How can things appear and disappear? And yet there is, originally, even in this constantly moving world, no appearing and disappearing. A student once asked me, The Mahaparinirvana Sutra seems very confusing. Everything is always moving, and yet everything is not moving. I don't understand this Buddhism. But there is a very easy way to understand this. Sometime you go to a movie. You see an action movie about a good man and a bad man.

[31:24]

Lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all over the place. Everything is always moving very quickly. Our daily lives have this quality. Everything is constantly moving, coming and going, non-stop. It seems like there is no stillness place. But this movie is really only a very long strip of film. In one second, there are something like 14 frames. Each frame is a separate piece of action. But in each frame, nothing is moving. Everything is completely still. Each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. In each frame, nothing ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears.

[32:28]

Each frame is complete stillness. The film projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so that the action on screen seems to happen non-stop. There is no break in the movement of things. But actually, when you take this strip of film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. Each frame is complete. Each moment is completely not-moving action. Our minds and the whole universe are like that. This world is impermanent. Everything is always changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, non-stop. Even one second of our lives seems full of so much movement

[33:34]

and change in this world that we see. But your mind, right now, is like a lens whose shutter speed is one divided by infinite time. We call that moment mind. If you attain that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. From moment to moment, you can see this world completely stop, [...] stop. Like the film, you perceive every frame, this moment, which is infinitely still and complete. In the frame, nothing is moving. There is no time, and nothing appears or disappears in that box.

[34:39]

But this movie projector, your thinking mind, is always moving around and around and around. So you experience this world as constantly moving, and you constantly experience change. Which is impermanence. You lose moment mind by following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is real. So thank you for your patience in letting me read that. And there is a lot of discussion and question and answer around this stuff that's on the web. I've read a tiny bit of it, and I can't really answer questions about it from my own experience, but I think it's a very interesting thing to investigate,

[35:42]

and I hope some of you will be interested to do that. So that's all I have to say. And thank you very much. Thank you.

[35:59]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ