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There is no time. What is memory? Excerpt from Chapter 6 of Ten Zen Questions |
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(Due to be published in the magazine New Chan Forum 2009) A week with a koan One January, John Crook ran a new kind of retreat at Maenllwyd. The idea was for people to spend a whole week working on just one koan. It sounded ideal for me. So I signed up, arriving in the mountains along with twenty or so others, on a bitterly cold winter’s evening. The first day, after the usual early rising and morning’s meditation, John read out a list of a dozen or so koans. Some were traditional Zen stories, one was a story of his own, and others were short questions. I liked some of the stories, and was reminded of them in the days to come, but one short koan stood out: "There is no time. What is memory?" It was an inscription John had seen on the arch of a Chinese temple on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. When he’d finished reading the list, he handed us copies with a list of instructions, and sent us off for a short walk, to read quietly by ourselves and choose one to be our companion for a whole week. I climbed the steep track on the other side of the stream and sat on a flat promontory looking out over the valley. As instructed, I studied them all carefully in case my decision had been too hasty, but no. This one was obviously for me. The routine of the retreat got under way. We rose each day at 5 a.m. for energetic exercises in the frozen yard followed by a few words of encouragement and advice; then a quick cup of tea before the first meditation session of the day. Apart from meals, work periods, and a walk in the afternoon, the routine was mostly half hour meditation sessions broken by ten-minute breaks for slow walking in the yard, or exercises indoors. Our task was clear: to keep our chosen koan firmly in mind all the time and never let it go. The first morning, when we’d all assembled under the bright stars of a frosty morning in the yard and dutifully copied John’s assorted jumps and stretches, he gave us some steadying words for the day: "Patience, Application, Persistence".
I start work. The instruction sheet says that Western minds will first tackle the koan intellectually, but that this thinking will naturally wear itself out, so not to worry. Good. I don’t have to prevent myself from thinking. What I have is simple: - here a statement; there a question. I don’t need to rush. I have a whole week ahead. I decide to take the statement and sit with it in two different ways. First I’ll agree with it, and then later I’ll disagree with it. I sit. I look. I look very hard. I sit and look at the carpet on the floor in front of me. But I haven’t had enough sleep. That’s the one thing I hate about these organised retreats. I start to hallucinate. The pattern of colours and squiggles on the carpet turns into big crabs that get up and crawl about over each other and make me blink and get cross. But I cannot see any time. OK then. The koan is right. There is no time. But if there is no time, what is memory? I am out in the yard again, for slow walking meditation, looking down at the ground as I pace up and down. The frost has gone, and the mud and sheep droppings squelch under my feet. Of course there’s time. The clouds are pouring up straight into the sky from behind the hills, moving fast. You can't have movement without time. The koan is wrong. There is time. Hours of sitting pass. The crabs crawl and I blink to keep myself awake. Hang on a minute. How can I tell the clouds have moved, or hear that noise as a cough, or see that John is walking? Because from one moment to the next I can remember what came before. Without memory they would be meaningless sights and sounds. And what is memory? Ha. This is a clever koan indeed. If I agree with it, then I become perplexed about memory – if I disagree with it I have to find out what time is. I begin to feel a curious respect for these seven simple words. It’s evening and we all sit in deep silence around a flickering log fire, the smell of the smoke hanging heavy in the slowly warming house. The flames are moving all the time. So is there time in these flames? Is there a now? I could grasp a moment with a camera but there is no camera, only my eyes, and what they see keeps changing. I can’t grasp a moment from which to say that what has gone before is past and what is to come next is future. I watch the tongues of red curling around the dried bark of a long-dead tree and try to imagine things from the flames’ point of view. Without memory they cannot have a past, a now, and a present. I get the creepiest feeling that the whole of the universe is like this. Flames, and pieces of wood, and rocks and fireplaces, and matches, and hills – none of them has time. I sit and listen to the crackling. An ant is crawling from the pile of wood on the floor. Is there time for an ant? The ant is different from stones and hills and I wonder whether this is what it means to be a sentient being, but I don’t know. There is so much to investigate. A week seems nothing. But it’s late. I wash, clean my teeth, and slip into my sleeping bag, still holding my koan steadily in mind. This is how far I got with my koan the first day.
The morning boards are sounding and I’m instantly awake. The words are right here. “There is no time. What is memory?” This koan is like a magic converter that flips everything in its path into mindfulness; and it does so without a jerk. I might meander off into thoughts like, "I remember when I was here last summer when the ...", but before I can get lost in reminiscence up come the words, “What is memory?" So instead of being cross with myself and coming back to the present with a jolt, the memory of last summer becomes food for the koan. Almost every arising thought is like this, so I am still working on the koan. Or perhaps the koan is working on me. This morning, in the yard, where we all stood shivering or gazing dumbstruck at the beauty of night in the mountains, John gave his advice for the day: “Perfect practice” (ha!), “Persistence” (again), and “Let the koan do it”. It seems that it is.
It is the third day and we are each to have a formal interview in the library. We have been told to enter quietly, bow to a particular statue, sit down on the cushion facing John, and then, without him asking, explain how far we have got with our koan. I have heard so many Zen stories of encounters between teachers and monks. They are always dramatic or insightful, and either teacher or pupil does something unexpected. At the end the monk is either chastised and told to keep practising, or instantly becomes enlightened. Of course I want to become enlightened – to be hit with a stick and everything falls away and then …… stop it. I want John to approve of me, to think I’m clever, that I’m getting on really well with my koan. I know all this from many retreats. It’s just self-centred stuff that gets in the way. I know. I concentrate hard, waiting for my turn. There’s a tap on my shoulder. I get up, bow, and walk mindfully to the library. I push the curtain aside, find the right statue and bow to it, sit on the empty cushion, pause, and then bang twice on the floor. "What separates these two bangs?” I ask, as John sits perfectly still. “Time of course. So the koan is wrong. There is time. But we only see the time when we remember one bang from the other. From here you can begin to doubt all past things, and all future things too, because they are all built on memory. So all that's left is “now”. You can't doubt that - can you? But what is now? I am looking to see. That's how far I have got with my koan." I feel pleased with myself. I said it clearly and well. John is impassive. “Fine”, he says. "Aren't you going to help me?" I ask. He smiles and says “Continue.” I walk back to my place in the hall.
If I can’t catch a “now” perhaps I can find what’s happening now; one might say “the contents of now”. I realise that this is the same concept as “the contents of consciousness” so familiar in neuroscience. Yes, this is my consciousness; it’s my “now”. I shall look into that. I stare at the carpet crabs, and the unstable streaks of the wooden floor. I open my ears to the cracking of logs in the stove, to the shuffling of other people’s uncomfortable knees, and the clearing of their throats. I feel a slight pain in my calves but the more I look the less substantial the feelings seem. The longer I watch, the less like sounds and sights and feelings they are. Yet these are all the contents of “now”. What is this? What is this? I am surprised to realise that this is the very same question that drives my life; that motivates my research, and has done for decades: “what is consciousness?”. This is all I want to do: to sit, quiet and steady, and ask this question. Surely I must be able to see if I look hard enough, mustn’t I? I must keep looking, all the time, meditating or not meditating. This is a magic koan. It gobbles up everything in its path. Even repeating the words "There is no time" requires memory. It is a self-gobbling koan. I am looking to see what is left after everything is gobbled up.
It’s work period now, and I am to care for the twin-vault, urine-separating, composting toilets. I love them. I like the principle of dealing with waste without water, and the skilful job of tending them properly. I like working on my own in mindful silence, and getting the bathrooms sparkly clean. But the people drive me mad. They come and want to use the toilets during work time (why aren’t they doing their own jobs?), or even to speak to me (don’t they know what silence means?). But I persevere. I don't look at people on retreats – not at all. I look at feet. It is a long habit inspired by Master Sheng Yen who told us, many years ago, not to make eye contact or any facial expression, just to bow in acknowledgement and gratitude to others. So I let the others be ghosts in shoes, and I mop the floor. Is this now? Whether I try looking for the “now”, or ask what is in the “now”, I stumble into a kind of blindness or fog. It’s as though out of the corner of my eye I’m convinced that something’s there, but when I look straight at it I cannot see. Things somehow evaporate into insubstantiality whenever I am looking at them. In one way this is encouraging. I remember Sheng Yen once telling us that we had to become blind and deaf, and I had no idea what he meant. Indeed, I hated the idea because I desperately wanted to see more clearly – not less. But if he advocates blindness, then maybe I’m getting somewhere. But it’s horrible. I hate it! I keep staring into the blindness harder and harder. I don’t know how to proceed. Keep looking – can’t see. Keep looking – it runs away. Keep listening – can’t hear. Look. Look. Pay attention! I remember that the koan is meant to be doing it, not me, and I relax a little. This helps. It even seems that I am the koan as I walk through the refectory and sit at my place at table. I am the koan as food is silently eaten. I am the koan as legs walk back across the yard. In some way that I don't understand this seems to open up a little chink. The wretched carpet glows spaciously. Something has changed. This is interesting (I allow myself a little academic speculation). Normally it seems as though I am conscious of some sounds or sights, and can switch my attention so that different ones come into consciousness. It’s as though there’s a me watching the things in a space called “my conscious mind”. I know this doesn’t correspond to anything inside the brain, and it implies an impossible inner space where a ghost in the machine observes its stream of private experiences. Yet it has always seemed that way. Now it doesn’t. It seems as though everything I attend to has always been happening. There’s no jump when my attention shifts. Everything is just as it is, even as it changes. I reflect that maybe experiences simply don’t exist in time. There are brain processes going on but there is no me who experiences them, and no time at which they become conscious. How slow I am, but now I see that directly.
Thank goodness for the afternoon walks. The hill behind the house is steep and I’m breathing hard by the time I reach the edge of the moor with its heath, and sheep, and far views of the Welsh mountains. I plod along narrow sheep tracks, through the rough stalks of heather, walking steadily, staying mindful, asking my question as I go. The heather and rocks pass through me as I walk. I don’t know who is walking, and I don’t know who’s moving, them or me. Then I’m laughing and laughing and laughing. There are no “contents of consciousness”! Of course. It’s so obvious. Experiences are scraps; they’re not grounded; they are not in anything; they’re not centred anywhere, either in time or space. The world we think we see or hear - is always a memory. And what is memory? Ha ha! I am grateful to this amazing koan; to this transforming, self-gobbling meme, to these circumstances here in mid-Wales, to my parents, and to this little sturdy, willing body for which I suddenly feel much affection. My downfall is yet to come.
Why don’t I just stop trying? I stop trying and fall into a spaciousness and deep quiet. But I don’t rest there; I want to understand; I want to keep looking. Standing in the yard, staring blindly out over the beautiful scenery, I get the most powerful impression that if someone taps me on the shoulder I will explode. I’m quivering, on the edge of something terrifying. No one does. Sheep go on bleating.
It’s my last interview and I’m so frustrated that I just shout at John, really loud. I want him to understand. He’s sitting calmly, and I’m frothing and screaming inside. “You talk glibly,” I accuse him, “about the answer to ‘what is this?’ being ‘just this’, but there is no ‘this’, is there? I can't see a 'this'. Can you?” He doesn’t tell me whether he can or not, and I want to know. “I can see you”, he calmly replies. I’m shouting back, "That's not good enough" (because obviously in my frame of mind there could be no such simple thing as seeing someone). "What's this all about?" he asks, and I explain about Sheng Yen and the blindness, and there being no now, and no contents of now. "Ah yes," he says. "You've entered the Great Doubt". That great Zen phrase sums it up to perfection. It’s not just an intellectual, wordy doubt, but a doubt about every aspect of every experience. What is this? This? and This? I have no idea any more. I want him to tell me - to tell me how to look differently; how to see through to the world in a different way. He would not, or could not. Perhaps it is not like that. As I leave he tells me to take it a little more slowly. A little more slowly!! When I’m bursting with .... well, with what? There’s nothing to do but follow his advice. I feel deflated. The passion and tension leak away. I go back to my place with tears drying on my face and get on with sitting. My knees hurt. For the first time on this retreat, I feel pain in my knees. The meditation is more like it usually is on retreat: tedious, an effort, boring. I plod on.
"Stuff that" I think, after a welcome tea break. I'm not a Buddhist. I haven't taken any vows. I'm not devoted to doing whatever real Buddhists would do in this situation. I want to find out about the mind, and this great effort of inquiry seems to work, so I'm going to do it again, whatever he says. I start on a new tack. Do past and future look different? I call up examples of each and look at them one by one. For the past I remember years ago when I lived in Pear Tree Cottage, and the children were small. I see them playing in the garden. I can visualise the layout and see them running about. It has a certain feel to it: mind feel, imagination. OK, so now for some future. I think about when I’m going to leave Maenllwyd at the end of the week. I imagine getting in my car and turning carefully in the muddy yard. I imagine driving down the valley, opening and closing all those gates for the sheep. I can visualise the layout and see the twists and turns of the track. It has a certain feel to it: mind feel. They’re all just the same stuff - memory stuff; imagination stuff. Past and future can be held in mind as equivalent. What then comes between them? The “now” is supposed to, of course, yet I have already realised that it cannot be found. There is no longer a past, a present, and a future, laid out in a line with me moving along in the middle. It simply isn’t like that any more. The question “What is memory?” turns out to be the same question as “What is this?”. So what is all this stuff? How, and where, and when, is it arising?
It’s the last day of the retreat and I set to work again, looking into the whatever it is. I conjure up past things, and future things, and completely imaginary things, and present things. Although I can label them differently, and they vary in vividness and how much confidence I have in their details, they all seemed to be made of the same kind of stuff. It is somehow manifesting itself, but how? And where? And when? As I say goodbye to John I tell him that I have a new question, "When is this experience?". He laughs. Before driving away I walk up on to the rainy, windy hill, where everything is movement and change. I’m being mindful, but then I have a sudden thought. After so many years of practice, there is one thing I thought I could rely on; that I know what mindfulness is. It is being fully here in the present moment. But now I know that there is no such moment. So what is mindfulness? I know it’s different from not being mindful. But how? So this is what I am left with at the end of this retreat. The one thing I really thought I had learned in all these years is overthrown.
Discuss this chapter at the Ten Zen Blog Back Home To Sue Blackmore's Web Site Back to Ten Zen Home Page created date 22
June 2009 |
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It’s the second
to last day and I am throwing myself even more fiercely into looking for
the “now”. The "blindness" is intense, but it isn’t anything as tangible
as blindness, making it all the more frustrating. I can't find the
“now”; I can't see what anything is like, even though it’s right in
front of me. So I feel as though I can’t see at all. 