2026-08-02 | Dharma Talk | Time and the Moment | Nate Smalley

This week, we’ continue to explore Zen’s understanding of time and the moment. Conventionally, we think of the past as a place things go to stay put — old mistakes, former selves, the people we've lost, with all of it shrinking into the distance. Dōgen, characteristically, disagrees. This Sunday, we sit with his strange claim that time does not pile up in a row, which has implications for what we carry and what we release. Illustration: Hasegawa Tōhaku, Pine Trees (c. 1595) Tokyo National Museum