Time

Dogen says, "Some days go by too fast and some days drag on forever, but we still say each is twenty-four hours." Dogen's view was that time was flexible. Even though our clocks measure each hour as being exactly the same length, in actual experience we know that's not true. Some hours are way longer than others!

In scientific terms we'd say this is a mistake. Even if your subjective experience of an hour spent in line at the DMV is different from your subjectice experience of an hour spent rolling on the beach with the one you love, science would disagree. Dogen's view takes the Middle Way. Yes, our measuring devices tell us every hour is the same. But our subjective sense of time is just as real. So they're the same, but they aren't.

---Brad Warner, in his commentary on Dogen's Uji---