Someone asked about checking the clock during Zazen, whether it is something to avoid.
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In truth, looking or not looking is not the core question, for Zazen is never a matter of time. Zazen is beyond seconds or minutes no matter how long one sits, for a moment or a thousand years. Zazen is ALWAYS timeless, whether one is measuring time or not measuring time. A single moment within a moment of Zazen embodies all the ages of time and the timeless foundation of all. There is nothing you can do or need do to change that fact, and it is so whether realized or not. Looking at the clock or not looking at the clock impacts nothing, for Zazen is both the unmoving face of the clock and the moving hands going round and round and round ...
What is more, ticking time is timeless, and timeless is each single tick of time. Thus, one second = a year = a billion years = all the time of the world = infinity = more = Zazen.
As well, for the Zen sitter, past flows into present and future, as future flows into present and past ... and past fully contains and is each second of future and present, and likewise for future and present as to each other and the past. Ultimately, we can drop all ideas from mind of "past" and "future" (And what need is there then even for "now" or "present," which only exist in contrast to the others?) The future is the past tomorrow, and the present is tomorrow and yesterday today. All true. The hour glass is each falling grain of sand, but the hour glass is unmoved, while each grain is fully all the other grains, the whole glass and the falling flowing falling too. Though time appears to flow one way, the top of the mountain flows to the bottom, and the bottom of the mountain flows to the top, while all is only the mountain and each stone and blade of grass of the mountain is the mountain ... and there is only flowing flowing flowing.
All of the foregoing are true at once, and all such times and timeless are embodied in each drop of Zazen.
So what will looking at the clock or not looking at the clock inform you?
That said, it is enough if, even for a moment or a few moments in a sitting, one gets a subtle sense in the bones of how timeless is this world, and how each second of our passing life holds all time interflowing. No need to realize this constantly, in every moment of every sitting, but just once in awhile ... and it will come to be a deeper sense always carried in the bones.
Zazen has no start, no finish, nor any before or after or during the ring of the bell.
Thus, looking at the clock sometimes, or not looking at the clock sometimes ... all timeless.
Also, sometimes sitting without a clock, sitting just as long as one sits, not a second more or less ... also timeless.
Zazen is not a matter ever of "long vs. short" ... although we sit for some minutes each day to taste this measurelessness.
That said, however, if one is obsessed with the clock, always-always looking at the clock and counting the minutes like a stopwatch, then that is not good. If one sits Zazen so long without a bell that one misses one's doctor's appointment or to make dinner for the kids, then that is not good too. If one sits thinking that enlightenment comes at some later time, then that is not enlightened sitting. If one sits, proud that 100 hours sat is better than 10 hours of sitting which is better than one, then that is not good sitting.
But if one sits, even for some minutes, knowing that there is not one second to add or take away from those minutes, long or short ... then that is good sitting.
So, I advise to sometimes look at the clock (I do, especially when time keeping for the group) and then mentally put the clock down. Put the clock down, pick it up and glance ... then "open the hand of thought" and mentally put it down again ...
... forgetting time between ... letting the time just flow ...
Gassho, J
stlah
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