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Paper short abstract:

Exploration of the ways time was kept in early Sōtō School monasteries provides insight into a intricate ecology of interactions between various groups of human and non-human agents, putting into sharp relief the chronometric aspect of Dōgen’s idea from Uji that “whatever there is, is [also] time.”

Paper long abstract:

Dōgen famously stated in his Shōbōgenzō Uji that “whatever there is, is [also] time” and involves “lining up” (hairetsu 排列) the self and the whole world. Bruno Latour’s maxim to account for the “agency of things” sheds new light on the meaning of these enigmatic statements. It further shows how “measured” and “lived” time were less antagonistic in Early Sōtō monasteries than they are today.

Time concepts and time units are cultural and social artifacts, identified through interaction of human beings, material tools, and the environment. The Zen monasteries founded by Dōgen and his Dharma descendants were no exception to that rule. The ways they used to measure and communicate time exemplifies how monastic life was dependent on an ecology comprising, besides the congregation and its patrons, various man-made devices as well as a host of natural agents, from distant stellar bodies to ants cohabiting monastic dwellings. Following these interactions and their components throws into strong relief the lived engagement of Dōgen and his monastic communities with time, which has so far been predominantly discussed in terms of concepts alone, and in strict opposition to measured time.

Time in Zen monasteries was organized on the basis of civic, lunisolar calendars and the system of twelve stellar hours (shinkoku 辰刻). These calendars could be obtained from the outside. For implementation of their schedules, however, monasteries largely had to rely on their own time-reckoning devices. These varied according to the material and cultural resources they commanded. Monastic regulations by Dōgen and Keizan contain evidence of the multifarious agents – material, animate, and human – involved in determining and communicating time, and the division of functions between them. Exploration of the methods of keeping and announcing time for the co-ordination of monastic life reveals a complex array of interactions between various groups of monastics, material tools, and natural agents. The resulting image shows how measuring and communicating time was a colorful process involving manifold sights, sounds, and a distribution of labor that allowed ordinary monastics to concentrate on the activity at hand while conforming to a tightly knit daily schedule.