The Dead-end Up Here

My research, with some help from Claude, suggests there are two concepts of time: one in math and physics, another in life. They are not the same. Zen takes it further by equating time with Being: Being-Time . Dōgen Zenji, some 700 years before relativity, taught that time and being are inseparable. It's curious how everything formless, like Time, Space, Silence, Peace and Love, ends up attached to Being. Why is that? I summarize my findings in a poem. No beginning, no end. To have a start and a finish, you must first imagine Time. Buddha said, Anityam anityam, sarvam anityam , everything is impermanent. And again, Kshanikam kshanikam, sarvam kshanikam , everything is momentary. A symbol in algebra, a variable in all of physics, Time is a tool for measuring this impermanent creation. Dōgen Zenji turned it inside out: Time is being, being is time. Each moment complete, nothing to carry in, nothing to carry out. The time I live is not apart from me. When...

A throbbing toothache, An itchy throat, tired feet— Painful, yes, But they confirm I am alive. The tree swings in the storm, Branches break, leaves fly. It, too, bleeds; it, too, hurts— Another life. A little sparrow Watches the light go on, Mesmerized, she strikes the glass— A precious life lost. I am alive, Like the tree, like the sparrow. I, too, will die, Yet only I know this. Only I name the pain, Only I measure the weight. I wonder: Do I truly belong here? I am that— That which turns the simple, The ordinary, into me: Special, extraordinary. Feeling unique I call myself me A name shared  By all who can name. Maybe, just maybe, I am this world, But not in it, nor of  of it.