Master Mazu said: “All sentient beings have, since immeasurable aeons, never abandoned the concentration on the nature of things. While they abide in it for long, their wearing-clothes, their eating-food, their talking and arguing, the functions of their six senses, all of their actions, everything of that is the nature of things.” . . . From the beginning of the nature of things, the concentration on the nature of things has not been interrupted. After there is the nature of things, the nature of things has not been abandoned. Before there was the nature of things, the nature of things had not been abandoned. The nature of things alongside immeasurable aeons is the concentration. Immeasurable aeons are what we call the nature of things. However, while that is so, the complete presence of the immediate now is [also] the nature of things. The nature of things is the complete presence of the immediate now.

Firewood becomes ashes and it cannot become firewood again. Although this is so, we should not see ashes as “after” and firewood as “before.” You should know that firewood abides in the dharma-configuration of firewood, for which there is a “before” and “after.” But although there is a difference between “before” and “after,” it is within the limits of this dharma-configuration. Ashes abide in the dharma-configuration of ashes, and there is a “before,” and there is an “after.” Just like this firewood, which will not become firewood again after it has become ashes, a human being will not return to life again after death. . . . This is like winter and spring. One does not say that “winter” has become “spring,” one does not say that “spring” has become “summer.”

In the immediate present, it is not that the father is before and the child is after, or that the child comes first and the father follows. It is also not that they are beside each other. . . . It is not the opposition of past and future, or the measurement of big and small proportions, or the discussion of old and young age. The axis of “old-young” should be applied as with Buddhas and patriarchs. It happens that fathers are young and children old; it also happens that fathers are old and children young. It can be that fathers are old and children are old, too, or that fathers are young and children are young as well. It is not for the children to apprehend the oldness of their fathers, and not for the fathers to let the youth of the children pass.

The triple world is not an original existence, the triple world is not a present existence. The triple world is not a new becoming, the triple world is not a karma-conditioned birth. The triple world has no beginning, middle, and end. There is a triple world apart, there is the triple world of now-here. It is the mutual reflection of its functions, the reciprocal development of its contradictions. The triple world of now-here is the triple world that can be seen [= perceived]. . . . Because the triple world is the entire universe, the now-here is the whole of past, present, and futures. The manifestation of the whole of past, present, and futures does not overshadow the now-here. The manifestation of the now-here overshadows the whole of past, present, and futures.

The so-called “existential moment” means that each moment is in itself an existence and that all existences are momentary. The “golden body of the Buddha” is a moment, and because it is momentary it has its moment of ethereal glow. You should study this in the context of the twelve hours of the present. The “three heads and eight shoulders of an asura” are just a moment, and because of this momentariness, they are such during the twelve hours of the present. The twelve hours have length and distance, shortness and proximity, and even if you are not conscious of their measure, you still call this system “the twelve hours.” Because the marks of their going and coming are clear, people do not doubt them, but even if they do not doubt them, it is not the same as understanding them. Even if sentient beings do not make it a general principle to doubt everything and every event that they do not initially understand, it does not follow that they necessarily agree with everything before they start doubting it. Their doubts are no more than fleeting moments as well.

The I unfolds and becomes the world in its entirety, and one should see that all beings, all things constitute moments in this entirety of the world. Just as different things do not interfere with each other, different moments do not interfere with each other either. This is why the mind arises in the same moment, the moment arises in the same mind. And it is the same with the practice and attaining the way. When the I unfolds, it sees itself as “me.” The principle that the self is momentary works in the same way.

Because of how suchness is, there are myriad forms and hundreds of blades of grass in the entirety of space, but you should also realize that the entirety of space is within each single blade of grass, each single form. The perception of this oscillating interdependence is the beginning of religious practice. When you have arrived in the field of suchness, there are singular blades of grass, singular forms; there is rational grasping and non- rational grasping of forms, rational grasping and non-rational grasping of blades of grass. Because they are nothing else than precisely present moments of suchness, each existen- tial moment is the entirety of time; existing blades of grass, existing forms, are all moments together. In this time of all moments, there is the entirety of existence, the entirety of the world. Look—is it or isn’t it the entirety of existence, the entirety of the world that is thus dripping through the fleeting moment of the present?

However, an ordinary man who has not studied the Buddhist teaching has such views on time that on hearing the word “existential moment,” he thinks: “At one moment someone was an asura, at another moment he was a Buddha. This is just like crossing a river, pass- ing a mountain. Even if the mountain and the river continue to exist, I have passed them; my place is now in this jewel palace and vermilion tower. I and the mountains-rivers are like heaven and earth to each other.” Yet there is more to this principle than just such thoughts. At the mentioned moments of climbing the mountain or crossing the river, there was also an I, and there had to be the moment of the I. Whenever there is an I, the momentariness is unavoidable. If a moment is not just a sign of the transition, then the moment of climbing the mountain is the immediate present of the existential moment. If a moment fully contains all the signs of the transition, then the immediate present of the existential moment is there for me. This is the existential moment. The moment of climbing the mountain and crossing the river, the moment of palace-tower, does it not swallow them up and spit them out [simultaneously]?

The asura is a moment of yesterday, the Buddha is a moment of today. However, the prin- ciple of distinguishing between yesterday and today is the same thing one realizes at the time when, having gone directly to the mountains, one gazes at the thousands, the myri- ads of peaks in a range—nothing has gone by. The asura is one that completes its whole duration within my existential moment, and although he appears to be somewhere else, he is my immediate present. The Buddha is one that completes its whole duration within my existential moment, and although he appears to be someplace else, he is my immedi- ate present.

This being so, the pines are momentary and the bamboos are momentary as well. You should not conceptualize a moment as something that flies by, nor study “flying by” merely as the capacity of a moment. If moments could be fully defined by the capacity to fly by, there would be gaps between them. If you do not accept the discourse of the existential moment, this is because you are concentrating on what is already past. To sum it up: the entirety of existences in the entirety of the world are particular moments that follow each other. Because they are existential moments, they are also the moments of my existence.

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.

If you judge the moments only as something passing by, you will not understand them as incomplete. Although understanding is momentary, there is no cause that would lead it elsewhere. There is not a single being who has seen through the existential moment of the dharma-configuration by considering it as going and coming.

You should not conceptualize the phenomenon of shifting as the wind and the rain moving from East to West. Nothing in the entire world is ever without movement, is ever without advancing or receding—it is always in shift. This shift is like “spring,” for instance. Spring can have a multitude of appearances, and we call them “shifting.” But you should realize that they shift without involving any external thing [“shifter”]. In this example, the shift of spring necessarily makes spring shift. Shifting is not in spring, but because it is the shift of spring, this is how the shift becomes the Way now that spring is here.