You Are the River: Reflections on Dōgen’s Uji

Time, this evening I want to talk about time. Today Summer ends and/or rather Autumn starts. That is what the calendar is telling us. 

I have this very clear memory from when this year 2025 started, as if it just happened. The memory or this mental impression of my intention to make the most of this new year that at the time was just beginning. 

What I wanted, really, was to live with clarity and commitment in practice — and naturally, for that to infuse the rest of my life as well. Make the most of situations, learn, explore, engage, participate….. Big intentions and…. I cannot say that this has not been the case so far. I am very happy with how things went as I have more or less stayed true to the direction I set for the year.

It’s September now, just a few months left before a new calendar year begins. 

I guess that when I was younger, time felt like a long road ahead. There were whole decades waiting, one, at least would hope. You could easily take a breath and say, “I’ll do that tomorrow; I have time.” However, after crossing the fifty line, 3 years ago now, the voice changed. It went from “I’ll do that tomorrow; I have time.” to: “make the most of it, before time slips away.” 

Suddenly the same road I have been on since I was born seems shorter. Not because life has shrunk — the days are the same length, after all — but because the sense of urgency seems to have changed the way I meet each day.

I remember to read this beautiful chapter in the Shobogenzo, some time ago. Shobogenzo by Master Dogen. 

The chapter called Uji — Being-Time. I felt it was relevant to this perception I have been having of time slipping away so, recently, I went back to it. 

In the introduction to the chapter, we have the actual meaning of Uji. Read book.  U means existence and ji means time, so uji means existent time or existence time. 

Dogen, in this chapter is inviting us to reconsider what time actually is and more importantly, what we really are.

Do we have time or don’t we have time? How many times I caught myself saying, I haven’t got time for that. Which might be true in the very conventional way of navigating life but that, sometimes, seems to bring a non-essential sense of urgency and anxiety which doesn’t allow me to explore, accept and embody fully what I really am and what I am really doing.

When it comes to time, I guess that we tend to think: I am here, time is something outside me — like a river I stand beside, watching it flow. But in Uji Dogen says: no. You are not beside the river; you are the river. This moment of sitting is not a piece of something that’s passing by. It is the whole. Dogen wants us to clearly see that we are not separate from time, we are time. This breath is not one of many; it is the breath of the whole.

In practical terms, when I sit on the cushion, there might be a temptation to think: “This 25 minutes will be worth it if I reach some other place — some clarity, some calm, perhaps enlightenment.” So, the sitting becomes a means to an end. But Dōgen’s point is radical: the sitting itself is already the end. There is no separation between these elements, means and ends. The time I am sitting is the whole thing, the whole existence already, they are not 2 separate things. The sitting is the time-being. The breath is the event in which the whole universe appears. It is not a passage, it is it. There is not a separate Riccardo or a separate you in this perceived passing of time. Existing and time are the same thing, Uji, existence time. 

And this is how the teaching meets the small fear after fifty. The fear says: there’s less time left, let’s hurry. But Dōgen says: whether you have many years or a few, each moment is complete. September at fifty is not a lesser month than April at twenty. Each moment carries within it the entire life which we all manifest in this moment, regardless of all the mental interactions we might have within ourselves or with others.  

Dogen is inviting us to address our habit of thinking of time as ‘flying away.’ Because in the moment we see or perceive time as flying away, we think of time as something separate from us. Something that we don’t have, something that is fleeting, something I need to use, something that I need to make the most of, something to gain, not to lose. But in fact, we are time-being, one thing. Our very life in this moment is nothing other than the entire being-time.” In other words, Dogen is inviting us to drop ideas, mental games and all that and simply show up, full, unconditional.

Of course, we don’t want to turn this into some kind of intellectual understanding or a fixed concept or idea. It is more like, this moment, forget about age, hurry, time flying or not, just this moment, take part in it as you see the need arising in it. 

In a way, I see this teaching from Dogen saving me/us from a constant run, a constant adding things to the to-do list. If time only flies away — if the only function of time is to escape us — then we stand apart from life, always chasing, always behind. But if we’re the time-being, then our life is not something we possess already and try to spend wisely; our life is the very unfolding of each moment.

So how do we practice Uji? Here how I try to practice myself. Just simple ways to bring our attention back to being-time.

we can notice our relationship with the word ‘later.’
When we catch ourself saying “I’ll be fully present later” or “Once I finish X, then I’ll be calm,” Perhaps here we can pause for a second. Perhaps we can take one breath and ask: Is this moment — with its distractions, its noise, its rushing — not already the very thing I’m seeking? Can I slow down and being-time, embodying it. 

Another way could be Using the body as our anchor.
The body is always happening now. Feeling the soles of our feet, the weight of our seat, the cycle of the breath. These are not minor details to be dismissed. They are the very doorway into the fact that we are time. Practicing with the body is practicing with time.

Another way could be.
When Washing a bowl, when washing anything, yourself, the floor, your car, wash as if washing the universe. Be fully in it. Or, Listen to someone as if their words are the words of the universe. What is the universe saying now? These micro-practices are not lesser than formal sitting. They are expressions of Uji.

So, I began this talk with a small anxiety about time — the sense that I must make the most of it. I don’t think that Dōgen’s teaching of Uji removes that care; “It takes us further into it.”. Instead of frantic squeezing, it invites a kind of reverence for each moment by revealing that each moment is whole. September at fifty, April at twenty — each moment contains the entire being-time. Let’s just face it and accept and get on with it.

So, if the voice of urgency whispers in our ear — do this, do that, before it’s too late — hear that kindly, but also let Dōgen’s voice speak back: you are the time-being. Right now. This is not rehearsal. This is not preparation for something that we are chasing or we are doing later. This is life, right here, right now. It is not to be understood; it is to be lived.