This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Tonight, we'll talk about impermanence. And if it gets... a little too much in your head, the kind of underlying practice encouragement of the night is to burn completely. And so I'll come back to that. So in Ganjo Koan by Dogen, something we chant in the morning during the winter and fall, I think, Dogen says, When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving.

[01:02]

But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So Dogen is bringing up here the study of impermanence as kind of a mode or as part of studying the self, studying our lives. And the basic kind of mistake he's pointing out is to think that the boat doesn't move. And so realization in this context is understanding that there's nothing about us that isn't changing. And this is based on keeping your eyes closely on the boat. On being, you know, intimate with this person. And also just to note that, you know, it can sound like the realization is that the boat moves and the shore is stable.

[02:07]

But actually, you know, the shore isn't stable either. The shore and the water and the boat are all flowing. And Dogen talks about that in another... writing of Shobo Genso called the Moon, Suki. And then after this passage Dogen goes on to talk about impermanence in terms of firewood and ash. And we'll get to that in a minute. And specifically I think also the kind of impermanence he's talking about here you could say it's radical impermanence. And that's in in contrast to conventional impermanence. So conventional impermanence is that things last for a while, and then they end. And so this is part of Buddha's teaching, and it was really important. And, you know, that nothing we experience, and nothing about us, will last forever.

[03:17]

Everything ends. And, you know, so there was, Shakyamuni Buddha had contemplations that he recommended, and some lineages chant these contemplations every day, like, the third is, I am of a nature to die. There is no way to escape death. And the fourth is, all that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. So this is... And so one reason we call this conventional impermanence is because it's kind of what has a conventional truth to it. For instance, we are born, we have a life for a while, and then we die. And this kind of impermanence also comes up in Dogen's teaching and in his life. But here in Genjo Koan, it's mostly talking about radical impermanence. And radical impermanence is not that things last for a while and then end, but that moment to moment there is nothing unchanging.

[04:26]

And so there's no aspect of us, no essence, no substance that's unchanging from one instance to another. We can kind of seem to stay pretty similar, and so we'll talk about that, but... But actually it's, you know, the notion here is that we kind of were kind of born and perish in each moment with the whole world. And also that, you know, and the important part also to keep in mind is this is about kind of looking at the core of how we understand ourselves. And, or, you know, we're kind of, this is kind of pointing at, you know, our sense of self is, it's usually kind of behind us or kind of behind what we experience. So this is trying to get, get to something, you know, very personal, very much about how we really, you know, how we, how we understand ourselves and how that conditions.

[05:41]

the way we experience our lives. You know, one of the ways we get fooled, I think, is words. And so words don't necessarily change. You know, like Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. You know, it's kind of spelled the same each time. But this is about getting in touch with how we're not the same in any given moment. And even like a mind object, we don't have to get rid of the words, but even the mind objects, they're not exactly the same each time they come up. It's a constant evolution. Earlier in Genjo Koan, Dogen says, to carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion.

[06:48]

You know, so this is, you know, I'm in here and I'm me. And now I'm going to go somewhere else and I'm me. And experience this and I'm me. Experience a table and I'm me. And so this isn't being intimate with impermanence. This is having an idea of... of a kind of a static self or, you know, kind of an unchanging aspect of what we are from moment to moment. And then he says that myriad things come forth and realize the self is awakening. So the self happens with everything in each moment. So another term for radical impermanence is momentariness. And this was a term in Indian Buddhism, in Sanskrit it's kshanaka. And the idea is that our life and the universe arise for an instant and then immediately perish, and then arise again, immediately perish, a kind of a very rapid succession of instants.

[08:06]

And an instant is a kshana, or in Japanese, nen. When we chant the enmeijuku kanangyo, those nens in there, that's moment or instant. So it's referring to this. Shonen, I think, is morning instant, morning moment or morning mind, kanzayan, evening mind, kanzayan, mind after mind, or moment after moment, instant after instant, is the nennen. The Abhidharma texts, the Indian Abhidharma texts, they would say how many instants there are like in a day or in a second. So for instance, Abhidharma Kosha by Vasubandhu, it says there's 75 instants in a second. And other texts say there's many thousands of instants in a second. And

[09:07]

I think this was a bad idea. It's actually just a place where I think it gets into a big mess. If you say it has a duration, it's not so good. If you say it has no duration, I think that doesn't work either. I don't think we should worry about that. We can't really grasp these instances. I don't think we should try to grasp them. That's not the kind of attention we're bringing in this kind of becoming intimate with our impermanence from instant to instant. Here's what the Abhidharma Kosha has to say about momentariness. A conditioned thing perishes as soon as it arises. If it did not perish immediately, it would not perish later since it would then remain the same.

[10:12]

Since you admit that it perishes, you must admit that it immediately perishes. Would you say that a conditioned thing changes and that consequently it is later subject to destruction? It is absurd to say that certain thing changes, becoming another thing, staying the same thing that you say shows its modified characteristics. So there, I think there he's kind of pointing also to a, um, You know, we often have a notion that there's a thing, a changing thing, and that there's kind of a substance of the thing that doesn't change, but that aspects about the thing do change. And basically this is saying all there is is the characteristics. All there is is the aspects. There isn't the substance in the middle that's keeping the thing a thing while it's changing. And then he actually brings up an example with firewood. The fact that we no longer see kindling after its relationship with fire is open to two interpretations. Either the kindling perishes by reason of this relationship, or it unceasingly perishes in and of itself and under normal conditions is unceasingly reborn in and of itself, but stops renewing itself by virtue of its relationship with fire.

[11:25]

And then he also gets into how the way we normally see fire is kind of like momentariness, you know, that there's like a flickering flame. You know, the flame's kind of constantly renewing itself. There isn't kind of like a real thing there that's flame, that's lasting from moment to moment. Vasubandhu concludes this section, this destruction of things is spontaneous. Things perish in and of themselves because it is their nature to perish. As they perish in and of themselves, they perish upon arising. As they perish upon arising, they are momentary. Yes, and so I think, so, you know, I especially like this image of fire for, or a flame, a flickering flame, and, you know, that gives some sense of kind of a sense of continuity, but also of this momentary flashing into existence.

[12:33]

Suzuki Roshi. said, when we do something, we should do it with our whole body and mind. You should be concentrated on what you do, and when you do something, you should do it completely, like a good bonfire. It should not be smoky. You should burn yourself completely. You should not be a smoky fire. So I like this image of burning completely. And, you know, you could say open completely, feel completely, completely engage, or you could say happen completely. You know, and or thoroughly, you know. I once asked Reb in Dokkasan,

[13:37]

I feel like I have little moments of presence, and what I'm trying to do now is have a longer, sustained presence. To be present for longer periods of time. And Reb said something like, you know, don't try to be present for longer periods of time. He said, bodhisattvas try to be present for shorter and shorter periods of time. So going to shorter and shorter periods of time, this is the kind of direction of intimacy with our life. Kind of attuning to a moment-by-moment quality. And trying to make something last and having some idea of duration. This is actually moving away from our life. Moving away from intimacy with how our life is happening. And that's kind of like

[14:39]

a smoky fire. You know, so to burn completely on each, you know, fleeting moment. So in Genjo Koan, right after the section on the boat, there's a section on firewood and ash. And here's how it goes. Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. So this term phenomenal expression is literally it's a Dharma position. And this is a translation of a Sanskrit term that refers to the dharmas arising in the present, phenomena arising in the present.

[15:44]

This is a phenomenal expression. And then he talks about these two sides of this, fully including the past and future and independent of the past and future, or cut off from the past and future. So first I want to talk about the independent of the past and future, cut off. In terms of the radical impermanence, the firewood is independent of the previous moment because the firewood of the previous moment, it ceased. And the firewood of the present moment has arisen. And there isn't a firewood that's kind of running between those. And the same thing into the future. There isn't an essence or a thingness that's going across from moment to moment. So that's this one way of understanding this cutoff. And to try and take that a little differently, when we look at impermanence, we're looking at time.

[16:47]

And so our everyday notion of time is that we're moving in time, we're moving through time, or time is going by. And, you know, anyway, in these different ideas, there's a sense that there's kind of like us and time, or things and time, or the world and time. And Dogen writes about time in a fascicle called Uji. And Uji is time being. And what's interesting is, like, in Japanese, Uji, as time being, it had this colloquial, the same colloquial meaning that it does in English. And for the time being... We all sat in the Wheelwright Center. But then also, it brings time and being together. And that's also what Dogen's getting into here. So he says, Time is being, and all being is time.

[17:51]

Time is not separate from you. And as you are present, time does not go away. Time is not marked by coming and going. Do not think that time merely flies away. If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time. The reason that you do not clearly understand the time being is that you think of time only as passing. So this is this idea that we are time. And time is... It's not going by, we're not going in time. Time is just the arrival of the present completely. In the Abhidharma teachings, there's the same idea. The intrinsic nature of the three periods of time, past, present, and future, is the conditioned dharmas.

[18:54]

And so what this means is that the essential nature of time is nothing apart from the activities of dharmas, the conditioned dharmas themselves. And so the idea of time, a separate time, or a time that's not actually just the activity of phenomena, that's an abstraction that we create. So the idea of time passing, this is things in time, or when we say things changing, this sounds kind of like things in change. And so the same thing here, there isn't a principle of change apart from the things. A Zen teacher named Tejo Munich, she once said something like, Rather than say things changing, we should say change thinging.

[19:58]

So change is us and time is us. There isn't a separation. And so this is a way to study our lives and to burn completely. Yeah, and so we aren't in kind of this big container of time with like a past part and a future part and a present part. And so in this sense, we can say that the phenomenal expression of firewood or us, our lives, is a cutoff from past and future. Past and future as a kind of, in terms of this abstract notion of time, You know, it's a firewood abiding in the phenomenal expression of firewood. It's a completely feeding, but also a complete expression.

[21:03]

You know, it's the time being. Also in Uji, Dogen says, just actualize all time. as all being. There's nothing extra. And so this is about, you know, about... I think what Dogen's getting at with this when he's talking about time like this and, you know, impermanence is giving ourselves to our life completely. Sometimes we want things to be different a little bit or a lot different. And we think, well, we could be somewhere else. Like if there's this big container of time and we're here, well, we could be somewhere else. And these are ways that we don't give ourselves to our life completely.

[22:10]

And so this is also, I think, what Suzuki Roshi is saying with this burn completely. And to develop a kind of a wholehearted presence. And you know, and also I think, you know, this, sometimes I feel like, oh, you know, time, like talking about time, it's such an abstract thing. But it's also, but I actually do feel like these, the way we understand time, it's, It underlies, you know, it really underlies our whole life, just like our sense of self does. Our understanding of things, self, time, these things underlie how we receive our whole life. So studying these things is part of studying our life.

[23:11]

And so these teachings are to support intimate presence. And then there's the other thing he said, the other side, firewood including past and future. And so I see these two aspects as kind of balancing each other. There's nothing about us that is a fixture and changing from moment to moment, but also from moment to moment there is continuity. And we do experience some continuity, and you know, in Buddhism, this is explained by, that there's conditions, conditional relations. So there's conditions in the past for the present, and the present is a condition for arising in the future, future moments.

[24:17]

Our body and mind, you know, in this moment, a condition for our body and mind in this moment is our body and mind in the previous moment. And You know, so we have, there's some, without having a separate self, we do have, we are distinct beings. You know, and so one way of talking about this is a series of the five skandhas. And this is, again, in the Indian Abhidharma teachings, I think all the schools agree on this momentariness and that the kind of way of describing a person is a series of five skandhas. It's kind of an ever-renewing series of five skandhas. And I want to read this. This is from Dhamma Jyoti, who's a contemporary scholar. A Dharma series is not statically identical at any time, yet it retains an overall individuality or integrity.

[25:20]

It is dynamically identical. One cannot step into the same river twice, but at the same time, one river is distinct from another. And so this side of including past and future is dependent co-arising. And this is the study of cause and effect. And this also includes karma. Karma is kind of a subclass of the general study of dependent co-arising. And karma is emphasized in... basically all Buddhist schools, is studying our own action. Studying how our aspects, what of our present experience is the result of past actions and how our present actions condition our future experience. You know, the sense of being in the present, you know, cut off from past and future has a kind of freedom and fulfillment in it.

[26:22]

And it has a completeness in it. But if we lean into that, we can kind of start to ignore this other side of causes and conditions. And start to ignore cause and effect, which is a big problem. It can lead to irresponsible behavior. So we need both sides. We need kind of a side of cutting off past and future, being completely present, and also a side of paying attention to conditions, conditional relations. Another way you can look at these two sides, I think, is in the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, another text by Dogen. He talks about the green mountains walking, And then he also says, towards the end, you should understand that water does not flow.

[27:26]

So, you know, the radical impermanence as a serial continuity, including the past and future. This is the Green Mountains walking. You know, so mountain, mountain, mountain. And then, you know, the water not flowing as being, you know, radical impermanence as this time being, you know, cut off from past and future. So river, river, river. You know, there's a saying that time is what keeps everything from happening at once. And that kind of came up for me in this, and then kind of like, that really is kind of working with this idea of time as being separate from everything that's happening. And so I actually think, you know, in Buddhism, we would say conditions keep everything from happening at once. So Dogen says, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past.

[28:31]

And so, you know, so this is another way you could say this is, you know, firewood has its own past and future. Ash has its own past and future. And to say that, like, firewood is past and ash is future is kind of just, it's just kind of like one little strand in a kind of... I don't know, a great web, I guess. It's just one little part of the story. Firewood doesn't just become ash. Firewood, it becomes heat and light and smoke and crackling sounds. And ash doesn't just come from firewood. You have to ignite the firewood and oxygen flows in and It means to burn. So next in Genjo Koan, the section continues.

[29:37]

Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death. This being so, it is an established way in Buddha Dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly birth is understood as no birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly death is understood as no death. So he's going from firewood and ash to birth and death. And then he's also going from birth and death to no birth and no death. You know so... You know, just as like we don't say firewood is the past, ash is the future. He's also saying don't say birth is the past and death is the future. Birth is an expression complete this moment with its own past and future. Death is an expression complete this moment with its own past and future.

[30:43]

And, you know, so part of what's happening here also is birth and death is the translation of samsara. and samsara in Indian Buddhism that's the bad part of life that's cyclic suffering that's what we want to get out of and no birth and no death is nirvana the birthless and the deathless and so part of what Dogen is getting at here is actually if you just look at the impermanence this radical impermanence of birth, radical impermanence of death, and just look right at them, actually there isn't birth. There isn't a thing that's born that goes along for a while. So there's no birth. There isn't a thing that's been going along that dies and then goes and reborn somewhere else. So there's no death. But another thing that he's getting at here is also that...

[31:50]

that the no birth and the no death is completely inseparable right there with the birth and the death. When we relate to birth and death, to not turn away from it. everything that's difficult about our lives, to not turn away from it. Don't grasp it, and don't push it away. But being intimate with birth and death, that's where we find the life of Buddha. We don't find the life of Buddha by getting away from samsara. In Shoji, Birth and Death, another Faskov Shobha Ganso Dogen says, In birth, there is nothing but birth, and in death, there is nothing but death.

[33:01]

Accordingly, when birth comes, face and actualize birth. When death comes, face and actualize death. Do not avoid them or desire them. And then another point I also wanted to make here is, you know, he says it's an unshakable... teaching in Buddhist discourse that death does not turn into birth. And I think, I don't think he's denying this, the Buddhist teaching of rebirth. But I think, you know, but he also just said, it is an established way in Buddha Dharma to deny that birth turns into death. So he's saying, you know, these things don't happen with the self. You know, so often actually there's a question about the teaching of rebirth. How can there be rebirth if there is no self? And I think what Dogen's actually saying is, how can there be life without a self? Clarify that, and you'll clarify how there could be rebirth without a self.

[34:04]

So basically, I just want to bring up impermanence, and... You know, that there is, to really look at ourselves, you know, and become intimate with, that there's nothing unchanging about us, that we have no, there's nothing fixed about us. You know, and this radical impermanence presents this image of our life as very fleeting, and these kind of, these instants, and I think it can be a little... nauseating or repelling but the encouragement is that to these instants to the smallest instant we can to give ourselves to that completely give ourselves to this fleeting life moment by moment everything we have so any questions or comments?

[35:17]

do you define as life? Oh, I don't know. Just everything that happens to you and yourself. And then if you're being aware, if... It's the consciousness that is aware, and that's one of the skandhas. So what good does it do to be aware? Because it's arising and ceasing. Well, I think the basic idea is that it's a self-transforming process. And so the consciousness is just a part of the arising and ceasing. There isn't a consciousness. It's outside of that process. But by working to develop our consciousness, that transforms the whole... psychophysical situation so it just changes the condition for the next moment yeah yeah yeah so being aware of ourselves is a condition in this moment for um liberation and happiness in future moments and and wise action not being aware of that stuff is a condition for um unhappiness bondage and uh

[36:43]

inconsiderate action. And so it seems like there's activity in every moment even though you can't define how long the moment is and that basically nothing is happening. That's one way you can go with it. You can go with it towards emptiness. But I would say don't worry too much about the In the Abhidharma Kosha, strictly speaking, the whole discussion of momentariness is coming up in a refutation that movement is real. So basically they're saying movement is not real. But there are instants. And so, anyway, I don't think we need to worry about it too much. But in terms of karma, they're saying actually, for instance, karma, they would say, is not a movement. Karma is a shape of your body. And so, for instance, if you're hitting somebody, there's this shape, which is like, you haven't hit them yet.

[37:47]

You haven't hit them yet. You haven't hit them yet. And now there's the hitting karma. Until then, it was preparatory karma. And you could miss. So there could have just been the preparation without the hit. So there kind of needs to be the hit. And actually, that moment is the shape of the hitting karma. And so that supports the whole idea of stillness. It could. I mean, that could be one way you could look at stillness, that nothing moves. And that's also going along with that unborn and the unceasing. That could be, yes. I'm going to have to spend some more time on this. Sure. So you're saying that there is a moment. It's just very short, but there is something. I don't want to get into the quantification thing. I think it's a problem.

[38:48]

I think it's a problem to say. I think it's one of these things like, I don't think the mind's going to do very good with it. Either way, having a duration or no duration. So it's like, just leave it alone. Just like the edge of the universe. Yes? It sounds like there's something about understanding impermanence. To understand impermanence, it seems like maybe I have to let go of my notion of time or something along those lines. Maybe not the notion completely, but my current idea of linear time. Is that part of the suggestion, is that time is somewhat flawed in the way we can play? Yeah, or especially this idea of time as being separate from what's happening, or from us, or from things.

[39:55]

And, you know, to kind of look at us as things moving through time, that there's, you know, anyway, there's various things happening there, but we're kind of, you know, we're becomes very easy to project a kind of substance onto those things that are moving and then there's also this kind of this separateness from time and that uh so they become really intimate with how we're impermanent is that we're just arising in each moment and that that and that that arising is time and uh yeah Yeah, I think so. But I mean, but the time also, it has its conventional, you know, usefulness, you know, with like days of the week and stuff like that.

[40:58]

But we get caught in that, you know. I mean, sometimes like our idea of Wednesday night, you know, I think it can get in the way of us really being with this night, which isn't really a Wednesday night. It's just like we all just tell ourselves that. So, Karachi Lewis said, he defined time is changing, changing is time, but if time is the concept, changing could be the concept? I think when we think of things changing, we can do something similar there to what we do with time passing. But I think if he's saying time and change, I think that could be his way of trying to bring both of those down to earth, down to us. But we can look at time as being this thing, this abstraction, and then also change can also become this abstraction.

[42:03]

Or it can become this thing that's like... there's things moving through change. It's like things moving through time. And the kind of little characteristics change, but the thing is kind of there. And so this change thing is like that there's this, that the whole universe is kind of happening right in this instant. and then again in the next instance and there isn't a there isn't a kind of these unchanging things with characteristics flowing along. Yeah, almost. But again, we have a word if we say changing, it's already something fake case to it. Yeah, it can be. And also, Connie's question, what is life?

[43:03]

I did ask Tenshin Roshi about that. Then he said, life is something happening between right now me and you. And I said, am I life? And are you life? Then we are part of life. But actual life is between something happening right now here. And then that is life could be, life can be changing, life can, yeah, life is time, time being, right? So the life is change life is the time it's a the kind of yeah that works for me yeah yeah thank you anyone see what time it is Didn't Einstein say that time cannot be separated from space?

[44:22]

That sounds great. I mean, I never studied Einstein, but I think it's something like time-space continuum and So this space here really doesn't move and all that, and time is intertwined with that inextricably. So that helps me to deal with this concept of time as a standing still. Yeah, I think... Yeah, I guess general relativity, yeah, time gets... Time gets affected by gravity, for instance, right? So, yeah, I think he's saying that time is right in there with matter. And, you know, yeah. Also, you know, quantum physics, that description of reality is very similar to radical impermanence. You know, there's...

[45:24]

the quantum description of electrons and protons and photons and stuff. It's not that they sit there. They don't ever sit there. They're always popping all over the place. This is something more about language. It's an obvious thing you said that we call ourselves of you, Charlie, and that helps us, you know, think of ourselves like that. What did you do in language? You know, it makes me go out and talk. I keep, Kaya's picture keeps popping up in my mind. You know, I still think of words about three or four years old. I just think, Kaya's got it. She's got it. Yeah, I guess, um, I guess I feel like there is some separateness and some basic idea of things not changing that actually happens before words.

[46:42]

And part of the reason I feel that when Kai was a tiny baby, I could not teach her anything about, like, this is a something. She had to kind of, she was going to figure out, she had to kind of distinguish the object. And then once she had done that, it could have a name. But there wasn't any way the teacher had to create the object to have the name. Otherwise, I was just, I'm going a book or whatever. And she's not seeing a book. And she won't until she makes that discrimination. And then, so I feel like there's kind of a basic... The basic delusion is actually kind of deeper than words. But then the words, I feel like, really make it solid, really lock it down nicely and really get in our way. But then also I feel like we don't need to get rid of the words, that our presence...

[47:49]

It can open around the words. So the words can be there, and it's fine. The words don't limit the presence, but how we relate to the words, we can close down around the words, but we can be open around the words, and it's totally open. And appreciate that actually that these words, when they live in our lives, they are impermanent too. They are changing. And we can also see this. I was actually thinking, like Wednesday night is Dharma talk night at Green Gulch. But actually, in Sebastopol, Wednesday night is, I go to a Dharma talk on Wednesday nights. But for a while, I didn't go to Dharma talks on Wednesday night. And then Wednesday night was a totally different night. Because the words are happening through associations with other words and ideas and experiences.

[48:50]

And all those associations are evolving and changing. But do we enjoy it? I guess it strikes me that that's something like, would you say that's something Like the self, like we have these words and they kind of get in the way, but they also are useful or it's useful to work with them or, you know, in them. Is that kind of similar? I mean, it seems like we can find ourselves or the self using words anyway, and they just seem similar. So do you have an opinion? Yeah, I think we don't need to obliterate our sense of being a distinct person. That wouldn't be so good.

[49:52]

So there is a sense of self that's natural and healthy. But if we think of ourselves as having something unchanging here, it'll condition our life in a way that is conducive to never being fulfilled. So that's not so much fun. A friend of mine yesterday told me this. He said, Steve, don't think of yourself as a CK. Think of yourself as the act. Yeah, more like a verb than a noun. That's like another one, yeah. I was just thinking about how it seems like one of the greatest gifts we receive here is the periods of time when we don't have to use language and we don't have to think about time.

[51:09]

It's just like when these long stretches unfold, when we don't talk, you know, and we don't write, and we don't read, how different the mind can feel, you know, things get kind of softer, less defined. And when days, you know, you don't know what day it is. You don't know what time it is. It's just light. It's just temperature. And I feel like those... kind of having a bodily experience of those things really helps the mind understand thinking in a different way. I just appreciate that. I just told that at one point you said you decided like firewood does not become ash at that part. And you said, like, yeah, that firewood does not become ash, it's just one string of it, it also becomes heat and light and all these things.

[52:18]

And I thought at this point, do you really feel like that is what Dogen wanted to stress, that the ash is just one part, or that he really wanted to say, no, firewood does not become anything? That's what I always felt like. Firewood does not become anything that is not this string which goes through. Yeah, I think it could be both. It could be both the kind of independent of the past and future and including past and future. Either way, the firewood does not become... We don't say the firewood is past and the ash is future. So from the perspective of that side of being cut off, that's another way in which... But even from the side of including past and future, I think even then it's kind of... Yeah, I don't know what Dylan meant.

[53:20]

Trying to think, did he say anything bad? All right. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org. and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[54:08]

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