Uji (Being-Time)

The Japanese Buddhist word uji (有時), usually translated into English as Being-Time, is a key metaphysical idea of the Sōtō Zen founder Dōgen (1200-1253). His 1240 essay titled "Uji", which is included as a fascicle in the "Shōbōgenzō" ("Treasury of the True Dharma Eye") collection, gives several explanations of "uji", beginning with, "The so-called "sometimes" ("uji") means: time ("ji") itself already is none other than being(s) ("u") are all none other than time ("ji")." (Heine 1985: 155). Scholars have interpreted "uji" "being-time" for over seven centuries. Early interpretations traditionally employed Buddhist terms and concepts, such as impermanence (Pali "anicca", Japanese "mujō" 無常). Modern interpretations of "uji" are more diverse, for example, authors like Steven Heine and Joan Stambaugh compare Dōgen's concepts of temporality with the existentialist Martin Heidegger's 1927 "Being and Time".
Terminology.
Dögen's writings can be notoriously difficult to understand and translate, frequently owing to his wordplay with Late Middle Japanese terms (Tanaka 2013: 323). Dōgen's Zen neologism "uji" (有時, "existence-/being-time") is the uncommon "on'yomi" Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word "yǒushí" (有時, "sometimes; at times", "Wenlin" 2016), and plays with the more common "kun'yomi" native Japanese pronunciation of these two kanji characters as "arutoki" (或る時, "once; on one occasion; at one point; [in the past] once; at one time; once upon a time", Watanabe et al. 2003: 94). In the multifaceted Japanese writing system, "arutoki" ("at one time; etc.") was archaically transcribed 有時 in "kanbun" ("Chinese character writing"), and is now either written 或る時 with "-ru" る in "okurigana" indicating a Group II verb stem, or simply あるとき in "hiragana". Authors have described Dōgen's "uji" as an "intentional misreading" of ordinary language (Heine 1983: 141) and a "deliberate misreading" of "arutoki" (Raud 2004: 39). 
Dōgen etymologizes the two components of "uji" (有時) with usage examples from everyday Japanese. The first element "u" refers to "existence" or "being", and the second "ji" means "time; a time; times; the time when; at the time when; sometime; for a time". Several of Dōgen's earlier writings used the word "arutoki", for example, in a "kōan" story, it repeatedly means "and then, one day" to signal that an important event is about to happen (Nearman 2007: 106). 
Interpretations of "uji" are plentiful. Dainin Katagiri says that Dōgen used the novel term "being-time" to illustrate that sentient "beings" and "time" were unseparated. Thus, "being" represents all beings existing together in the formless realm of timelessness, and "time" characterizes the existence of independent yet interconnected moments (2007: 73). Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross (2008: 143) say, "u" means "existence" and "ji" means "time," so "uji" means "existent time," or "existence-time." Since time is always related with existence and existence is always related with momentary time, the past and the future are not existent time—the point at which existence and time come together—the present moment is the only existent time. 
The Japanese keyword "uji" has more meanings than any single English rendering can encompass. Nevertheless, translation equivalents include:
"Shōbōgenzō" fascicle.
Dôgen wrote his "Uji" essay at the beginning of winter in 1240, while he was teaching at the Kōshōhōrin-ji, south of Kyoto. It is one of the major fascicles of "Shôbôgenzô", and "one of the most difficult" (Waddell and Abe 2001: 47). Dôgen's central theme in "Uji" Being-Time, and an underlying theme in other fascicles such as Busshō (佛性, Buddha Nature), is the inseparability of time and existence in the everchanging present.
The present "Shōbōgenzō" fascicle (number 20 in the 75 fascicle version) commences with a poem (four two-line stanzas) in which every line begins with "uji" (有時). The 1004 "The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp" collection of hagiographies for Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen monks attributes the first stanza to the Sōtō Zen Tang dynasty patriarch Yaoshan Weiyan (745-827). 
<poem>An old Buddha said:
For the time being, I stand astride the highest mountain peaks.
For the time being, I move on the deepest depths of the ocean floor. 
For the time being, I'm three heads and eight arms [of an Asura fighting demon].
For the time being, I'm eight feet or sixteen feet [a Buddha-body while seated or standing].
For the time being, I'm a staff or a whisk.
For the time being, I'm a pillar or a lantern.
For the time being, I'm Mr. Chang or Mr. Li [any Tom, Dick, or Harry].
For the time being, I'm the great earth and heavens above. (tr. Waddell and Abe 2001: 48) </poem>
The translators note their choice of "for the time being" attempts to encompass Dōgen's wordplay with "uji" "being time" meaning "arutoki" "at a certain time; sometimes".
Compare these other English translations of the first stanza (adapting Lucut 2001):
<poem>Sometimes ("uji") standing so high up on the mountain top;
Sometimes walking deep down on the bottom of the sea; (tr. Heine 1985: 155)
For the time being stand on top of the highest peak.
For the time being proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean. (tr. Welch and Takahashi 1985: 76)
At a time of being, standing on the summit of the highest peak;
At a time of being, walking on the bottom of the deepest ocean. (tr. Cleary 1986: 104)
Standing atop a soaring mountain peak is for the time being
And plunging down to the floor of the Ocean's abyss is for the time being; (tr. Nearman 2007: 106)
Being-time stands on top of the highest peak; 
Being-time goes to the bottom of the deepest ocean (tr. Katagiri 2007: 85)
Sometimes standing on top of the highest peak,
Sometimes moving along the bottom of the deepest ocean. (tr. Nishijima and Cross 2008: 143)
</poem>
Dōgen's "Uji" commentary on the poem begins by explaining that, "The 'time being' means time, just as it is, is being, and being is all time.", which shows the "unusual significance" he gives to the word "uji" "being-time." (Waddell and Abe 2001: 48)
Interpretations.
Many authors have researched and discussed Dōgen's theories of temporality. In English, there are two books (Heine 1985 and Stambaugh 1990) and numerous articles on "uji" (有時, "being-time; time-being; etc."). According to the traditional interpretation, "uji" "means time itself is being, and all being is time" (tr. Welch and Tanahashi 1985).
Hee-Jin Kim analyzed Dōgen's conception of "uji" "existence/time" as the way of spiritual freedom, and found that his discourse can be better understood in terms of ascesis rather than vision of Buddha-nature; "vision is not discredited, but penetrated, empowered by ascesis" (1978: 45).
Steven Heine's 1983 article on the hermeneutics of temporality in the "Shōbōgenzō", that is, Dōgen critically reinterpreting and restating, "even at the risk of grammatical distortion," previous views of Buddha-nature in order to reflect the multidimensional unity of "uji" "being-time". For example, paraphrasing the venerated "Nirvana Sutra", "If you wish to know the Buddha-nature's meaning, you should watch temporal conditions. If the time arrives, the Buddha-nature will manifest itself," Dōgen reinterprets the phrase "if the time arrives" ("jisetsu nyakushi" 時節若至) to mean "the time already arrived" ("jisetsu kishi" 時節既至) and comments, "There is no time right now that is not a time that has arrived.. There is no Buddha-nature that is not Buddha-nature fully manifested right here-and-now." (1983: 139-140).
Heine's 1985 book contrasted the theories of time presented in Dōgen's 1231-1253 "Shōbōgenzō" and the German existentialist Martin Heidegger's 1927 classic "Being and Time" ("Sein und Zeit"). Despite the vast cultural and historical gaps between medieval Japan and modern Germany, there are philosophical parallels. The conventional conceptualization of time is removed from the genuine experience of what Heidegger calls "ursprüngliche Zeit" ("primordial time", that is, temporalizing temporality) and similar to what Dōgen calls "uji no dōri" (有時の道理, "truth of [being]-time") (1985: 105-152).
Masao Abe's and Steven Heine's article analyzes the origins of Dōgen's interest in being-time when he was a young monk on Mount Hiei, the headquarters of the Tendai school of Buddhism. According to the 1753 "Kenzeiki" (建撕記) traditional biography of Dōgen, he became obsessed by doubts about the Tendai concepts of "hongaku" (本覚, "original awakening") that all human beings are enlightened by nature, and "shikaku" (始覺, "acquired awakening") that enlightenment can only be achieved through resolve and practice. "Both exoteric and esoteric Buddhism teach the original Dharma-nature and innate self-nature. If that were true, why have the Buddhas of past, present, and future awakened the resolve for and sought enlightenment through ascetic practices?" (1988: 2). Dōgen's doubt eventually led him to travel to Song dynasty China to seek a resolution, which was dissolved through the enlightenment experience of "shinjin-datsuraku" (身心脱落, "casting off of body-mind") when he was a disciple of Rujing (1162-1228).
Joan Stambaugh, the philosopher and translator of Martin Heidegger's writings including "Being and Time" (1996), wrote a book on Dōgen's understanding of temporality, Buddhist impermanence, and Buddha-nature. Rather than writing yet another comparative study, Stambaugh chose to produce a "dialogical" encounter between Eastern thinkers and Western philosophers, including Heraclitus, Boethius, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and particularly Heidegger (1990: ix).
J. M. E. McTaggart's classic argument that time is unreal differentiated two basic aspects of temporality, the "A-series and B-series": the A-series orders all events as continual transformations in time's passage, things are said to exist in the "future", then become "present", and finally enter the "past"; while the B-Series orders time as a set of relative temporal relationships between "earlier than" and "later than". Dirck Vorenkamp demonstrated that Dōgen's writings contained elements of the "B-theory of time". The "Shōbōgenzō" describes time's passage without reference to a sentient subject, "You should learn that passage ["kyōraku" (経歴)] occurs without anything external. For example, spring's passage is necessarily that which passes through spring." (1995: 392).
Trent Collier contrasts how Dōgen and Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Pure Land Buddhism, diversely understood the role of time in Buddhist enlightenment. These two leaders in Kamakura Buddhism believed in two different forms of spiritual practice with disparate temporal concepts; Dōgen advocated "zazen" or "shikantaza" ("just sitting") meditation and Shinran emphasized the recitation of the "nembutsu" ("repeating the name of Amida") alone. Dōgen's notion of "uji" unified time and being, and consequently things in the world do not exist "in" time, but "are" time" (Collier 2000: 59). According to the "Uji" fascicle, "zazen" falls outside the common understanding of time as past, present, and future. Dōgen declares that "When even just one person, at one time, sits in "zazen", he becomes, imperceptively, one with each and all the myriad things, and permeates completely all time." Everything in reality is to be found in the absolute "now" of being-time (2000: 62). For Shinran, the central Pure Land awakening or experience is "shinjin" ("faith; piety; devotion"), the unfolding of Amida's wisdom-compassion in the believer. Shinran teaches that "ichinen" (一念, "one thought-moment") of "shinjin" is "time at its ultimate limit," and in the subjective experience of the practitioner, Amida's Primal Vow in the past and the Pure Land of the future are realized simultaneously (2000: 57). There are two ways of interpreting this "ultimate limit". In the first sense, it is the ultimate limit of "samsaric" existence, deluded and foolish existence stretched to its end; and in the second, "ultimate limit" refers to the absolute brevity of the one thought-moment, "the briefest instant of time, a moment so brief that it cannot be further divided" (2000: 70).
Rein Raud wrote two articles concerning Dōgen's notion of "uji", translated as "being-time" (2004) and "existential moment" (2012), respectively. Raud's first study compared "uji" with Nishida Kitarō's interpretation of "basho" (場所, "place, location") as "the locus of tension, where the contradictory self-identities are acted out and complementary opposites negate each other", and is thus "the 'place' where impermanence happens" (2004: 46). Both these Japanese philosophers believed that in order to attain self-realization one must transcend the "ordinary" reality not by rising above it, and thereby separating oneself from it, but by "becoming" it, realizing oneself in it and the totality of the world, including "being-time".
His second study reinterprets Dōgen's concept of time as primarily referring to momentary rather than durational existence, and translates "uji" as "existential moment" in opposition to the usual understanding of time as measurable and divisible (2012:153). According to Raud, this interpretation enables "more lucid readings" of many key passages in the "Shōbōgenzō", such as translating the term "kyōraku" (経歴, "passage", etc.) as "shifting" (2012: 167). In present day usage, this term is commonly read as Japanese "keireki" (経歴, "personal history; résumé; career") and Chinese "jīnglì" (經歷, "go through; undergo; experience"). Scholars have translated Dōgen's "kyōraku" as "continuity" (Masunaga), "flowing" (Welch and Tanahashi), "stepflow" (Myers), "passing in a series of moments" (Nishijima and Cross), "passage" (Cleary), "totalistic passage or process" (Heine), and "seriatim passage" (Waddell). One translator says, "These attempts basically hit the mark, but fail to convey the freshness and originality of Dōgen's terminology, which is the verbal equivalent of him waving his arms wildly and screaming at the top of his lungs across the centuries to us: 'Look at my radical new idea about time!'" (Myers 2008: 114)
Compare these two renderings:
Being-time has the virtue of seriatim passage; it passes from today to tomorrow, passes from today to yesterday, passes from yesterday to today, passes from today to today, passes from tomorrow to tomorrow. This is because passing seriatim is a virtue of time. Past time and present time do not overlap one another, or pile up in a row (tr. Waddell 1979: 120). 
The existential moment has the quality of shifting. It shifts from what we call "today" into "tomorrow," it shifts from "today" into "yesterday," and from "yesterday" into "today" in turn. It shifts from "today" into "today," it shifts from "tomorrow" into "tomorrow." This is because shifting is the quality of the momentary. The moments of the past and the present do not pile on each other nor do they line up side by side. (tr. Raud 2012:165) 
Dainin Katagiri says Dōgen's "uji" Being-time means the complete oneness of time and space, "dynamically functioning from moment to moment as illumination that is alive in the individual self". When time, being, self, and illumination come together and work dynamically in one's life, time and being are unified (2007: 85). Furthermore, self is time. The "self arrays itself and forms the entire universe." One should perceive each particular thing in the universe as a moment of time. Neither things nor moments hinder one another (2007: 93).