Thusness of the Place (Anderson)
Looking back at “Actualizing
the Fundamental Point” (it is incredible how different some of our earlier
readings appear now that we are more comfortable with Dōgen’s ways), I came across
this sentence:
“The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it
is not merely arising now.” (32,
italics mine)
We didn’t comment on this
sentence when we read it aloud in class, but I want to point it out here for
the astounding statement that it is. It seems to me that this sentence should
give us serious pause and forces us to ask: if we hold, as Dōgen does, that all
things are perpetually carrying forward from the preceding moment, what sense could
it make to say that anything is not carried
over from the past? If arising is the fundamental character of reality, how
can he claim that anything is not merely
arising?
At first, it may sound like Dōgen
is denying dependent origination—a Buddhist cornerstone—by suggesting that
there is anything at all that does not arise. This can sound something like a
covert reintroduction of essences, as I mused in my previous post—although I
don’t think it is. Saying that the ‘place’ is not carried over from the past suggests that Dōgen is looking only
at the present moment and excluding what came before and what will come after, without
rejecting dependent origination as a universal principle. To say that the ‘place’
is not merely arising is still to accept
the validity of arising, but also to imply that it somehow exceeds the fabric of mere causal
origination. If ‘arising’ denotes a process or span of time that contains one
moment and the next moment, the ‘place’
does not arise because it points out nothing more than the now of any single moment.
Dōgen seems to be working with two equally accurate—if very different—ways of seeing something; on the one hand, we can see the present moment as simply a link in the causal chain of dependent origination. Alternatively, it is a ‘place’—a now—independent of any connection to past or future moments which would situate it within a larger temporal sequence. While I think the former perspective is more familiar and intuitive, this latter option is Buddhism's sub specie aeternitatis: all things are capable of being viewed independently of their role in the causal nexus—but without denying their place in the sequence of temporal events. What thus reveals itself in the moment is the true ‘scale’—as Dōgen uses that word in “Washing the Face”—of what is there, prior to its comparison with anything else. “At that very moment”, he says in that fascicle, “the body and mind cannot be measured by self or other”, because there is no ‘other’ to compare to (59).
Part of my interest in this
sentence is connected with my ongoing attempt to understand ‘thusness’ which I introduced in my previous post. As
Dōgen says in “Mountains and Waters Sutra”, what is seen in this way is not tied, either by an essence that
would define it as a particular thing, or by the way it is interpreted by other
beings. Lacking an essence to define it, the present moment is therefore free,
and being open to limitless possible interpretations—the theme running through “Mountains
and Waters Sutra”—it is vast, even infinite. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, the
vast freedom of the present moment seems to reside within a kind of narrow specificity;
it is only the present moment—not the
whole temporal expanse that takes into account arising and ceasing—that seems
to possess this unbounded character. What is most vast and unbounded, it seems,
is also what is smallest: the present moment—or, the thusness—of the ‘place’.
As usual, your perspectives are incredibly thought-provoking, and your writing so beautiful. I really appreciate a continued focus on your theme of thusness, and referring us back to previous readings from the perspective of deeper study of Dogen. I'm now wondering about "place" and "moment," which fit nicely into the human temporal scale of past, present, and future. "At that very moment" tethers (love this word, thank you, Ms. Hennigan) us to an earthly, physical plane of existence, and "washing the face" seems to remind us of that, the cleansing of the past in preparation for the future, or dropping into the freshness of the now. And yet, how could there be a present and how can you measure that, how "long" a period of time would that be, milliseconds? A photograph comes to mind, a static representation of something that does not exist and yet, somehow, it did at one point in time. Thinking of "place" as the way, however, takes into consideration the whole temporal expanse in a way that includes, yet leaps over any attempt to isolate a moment. Thusness as vastness?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ms. Carter. I suspect that Dōgen would reply that any calculation of the precise duration—in ‘clock time’—of the ‘moment’ would be derivative of the original moment it purports to measure. That is to say, the moment, on its own terms, doesn’t have duration at all, precisely because it is defined by its immediacy: it is always already here. To compare a moment with something outside of itself—which is to say, to measure it—is to step outside of it and enter something alien to itself, like a set of standards that originate elsewhere, and then return to apply those standards to the original experience. What results might be perfectly accurate, but accuracy is bought only at the cost of the moment itself; that is, a measurement can only be said to be accurate if it first loses the immediacy and unity that characterizes experience in the first place.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most difficult things Dōgen seems to be saying in “The Time Being” is that the moment is instantaneous and immediate, yet it also connects across time to all other moments which we might provisionally label ‘past’ and ‘future’. The idea seems to be something like a ‘transcendental now.’
Oh, this is so interesting and helpful. It's difficult to see other than clock time for me, although I feel like I've experienced this "moment." But, if I understand you (and Dogen, Nagarjuna), is the "moment on its own terms" that has no duration ultimate reality? That there really is nothing outside of the immediacy of the moment, and yet to step outside of it to see and measure it, the something alien, is cyclic existence? I really appreciate the thought that Time Being is actually the connection, the flow, the transcendence of what we provisionally label past and future. That "transcendental now" is that connection. It seems fleeting, I suppose, because of "my" action to step out of it? And the "remembering" is to become part of the flow again?
Delete“[I]s the "moment on its own terms" that has no duration ultimate reality?”
DeleteThis is how I am reading it. I am beginning to sense that the time being is perhaps another perspective—a distinctly temporal perspective—on the ‘thusness’ that we find in Dōgen’s other writings.
“That there really is nothing outside of the immediacy of the moment, and yet to step outside of it to see and measure it, the something alien, is cyclic existence?”
I hadn’t quite realized this, but I think this is profoundly true and interesting. So, accurate measurement of the ‘moment’ is just that: an accurate measurement. A measurement of the moment’s duration will turn up a result that is perfectly true—and perhaps accurate measurement is the very definition of truth, strictly speaking. But this truth can only ever be derivative of the more original ‘beyond-truth-and-falsity’ of the ‘moment’ itself. Now, it sounds like you are connecting all of this to Nāgārjuna’s stunning declaration that “There is not the slightest difference/Between cyclic existence and nirvana” (Or maybe I am making this connection myself because it is such a memorable verse). Maybe we can interpret this through the lens of Dōgen to mean that cyclic existence can be nothing other than an accurate measure—or perception, or interpretation, or experience—of the ‘thusness’ or ‘time being’ of things. Precisely on account of its accuracy, it has not the slightest difference from things themselves, but accuracy is not capable of reproducing what is original and undefinable. So, what has ‘not the slightest difference’ from things themselves—namely, an accurate measurement of them—is cyclic existence, because it only earns its accuracy by forfeiting the immediacy of nirvana that the measurer had originally possessed.
You did a good job finding an alternative to the reintroduction of essences - one that is, I think, in accordance with earlier Buddhist teachings. Indeed the closest definition I can give to an ultimate emptiness is the transience of all things; non-essence means impermanence. The present moment therefore is by definition devoid of an essence. I still don’t get though what makes the present moment so special as to be sought after as if an essence. The present moment, it is true, contains our memories of the past and expectations of the future. Yet what is it that makes it contain both past and future themselves, as the bamboo and plantain contain yin and yang, and as the original face contain the universe? What is so essential about this non-essence?
ReplyDeleteI think what is so difficult in Dōgen (and in Buddhism generally) is that what we are ‘looking for’ can’t really be ‘sought’ at all—or, maybe more encouragingly, it doesn’t NEED (it is annoying that I can’t italicize in the comment section) to be sought because we already have it. But we tend to use the language of seeking because there seems to be no alternative.
DeleteIt seems to me that what makes the present moment special is that, unlike the past and future, it alone IS. What makes essences unique is that they possess being—crucially, their OWN-being in Sanskrit. But in a world devoid of essences, the present moment alone has real being—not the previous moment, nor the subsequent one. The immediacy of the BEING of the present moment seems to be filling in somehow for the ‘being’ we lose when we no longer accept that there are essences.
Dōgen’s next big move is to make the present moment—that is, the time being—swallow up the past and future. I’m not sure this is quite right, but think the idea here is that all of our experiences come to us through the present moment as a kind of ‘condition for the possibility’ of having a concept of past and future in the first place. We only come to have an idea of time as a duration that strings together one moment and the next AFTER—or ON THE BASIS OF—the primary experience of the present moment. Sometimes I picture the time being as a kind of camera aperture, through which whatever is seen is seen. You might look at the past or at the future, but you are always doing so through the aperture.