Dōgen’s Uji: Stop Waiting to Practice

Sensei Michael Brunner explores Eihei Dōgen’s Uji (Being-Time) and the subtle ways we postpone our lives by waiting for better conditions, a quieter mind, a finished project, or some imagined future moment when practice will finally become possible. Drawing on Dōgen, Søren Kierkegaard’s image of the chess piece that “cannot be moved,” and the very real experience of building a new zendo, Brunner shows how longing, aversion, and karmic conjecture keep us negotiating with reality instead of inhabiting it.

The talk turns Uji from abstract philosophy into a direct practice imperative: witness what is here, include what is here, take responsibility for what is being created, and allow compassionate activity to arise from the actual circumstances of this moment. The unfinished zendo, fear, anger, uncertainty, work, and relationship are not obstacles to practice. They are the Dharma positions through which practice is already alive