Time Being

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“Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment. “13th Century Zen Master Dogen on Being Time

I read Dogen’s On Being Time during a class on Zen Buddhism at the Empty Hand Zen Center, and reading it again, I am reminded on what each moment holds. As a practice, whenever I see something that stops me in my track, being the beauty of nature, art, or just an old love letter crumbled in flying in the wind, I take a picture.

I am not sure who created this assemblage, but I took this picture at Penn Station . I loved it. It is much larger than this, so I will share later the lenght of it and it’s other parts. As I go to work, whenever I see it, it reminds me of time.

How time passes, how a year becomes a decade.

As I reflect on time, I think of the ways in which I have paused time. When I wrote my book, I paused time to care for my husband. When he died, I paused time to mourn. When I changed jobs, I paused time to get to know my job and my role. In the process of pausing time, I paused a lot of things in my life and I feel I am better for it, as I focused on the things that matter to me most.

Now as I reflect on time, i think of Dogen, this is what he said. Do you have a favorite Time quote, do send it to me.

Dogen says, “Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.”

He adds, “At the time the mountains were climbed and the rivers crossed, you were present. Time is not separate from you, and as you are present, time does not go away.”