“If you return your mind to zazen it feels like coming home...Zazen is a home you can't ever lose.”

For Nao, zazen, a meditative discipline, typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhism, becomes a way for her to make peace with her now, even in the most difficult of circumstances, such as her sexual encounters with Babette’s clients and when she is attacked by her classmates. After considering the many meanings of time in the book, it becomes clear that the title has two meanings; it is both a tale for “the time being,” meaning a living being like Nao and Ruth, and a tale that focuses on the present and exists “for the time being.”