The Unreality of Time, Space, Duration and
Extension
The Buddhist Theory of Universal Flux
explained the world process represented as a motion that is
discontinuous, although a compact one. It is consist of an infinite
number of discrete moments following one another almost without
intervals. There is no matter at all, just flashes of energy
following one another and producing the illusion of stabilized
phenomena.
This Universal Momentariness also implies
that every duration in time is consist of point-instants following
one another, every extension in space is also consists of these
point instants arising in close proximity to each other and
simultaneously and every motion consists of these point-instants
arising in close proximity and in succession. It is just like a
roll of negatives in our cinemas of old, where when set in motion
at a certain speed, eventually products the stability of the
pictures we see on the screen. There is therefore no Time, no Space
and no Motion over and above the point instants of which these
imagined entities are constructed by our
imagination.
When we look at the Indian Realist
interpretation, Time is a substance, eternal and all pervading. Its
existence is inferred from the fact on the sequence of events
occurring between phenomena. Space is likewise a substance which is
eternal and all embracing. It is inferred from the fact that all
extended body processes impenetrability and they are beside each
other in space. According to them, different times are parts of one
and the same time. When Time and Space are represented as divided
in many spaces and different times, it is a metaphor. The objects
situated in them, but not Space and Time itself, are divided. They
are not general concepts but proper names. They are representation
produced by a single object only. To the Realist, Time and Space
are two all embracing receptacles contain each of them the entire
Universe.
The Buddhist denies the separate reality of
these two realities. Real is a thing possessing a separate
efficiency of its own. The receptacles of the things have no
separate efficiency. Time and Space cannot be separate from the
things that exist in them. They are not separate entities. Every
point instants may be viewed as a particle of Time, as a particle
of Space and as a sensible quality, but this is only a difference
of our mental attitude toward that point-instants. The point
instant itself, the ultimate reality cut loose from all imagination
is without quality, timeless and indivisible. Only subtle time, the
moment, the point instant of efficiency is considered as
real.
The notion of substantial Space and Time
were not highlighted as it can be deducted by reasoning and where
its empirical original is impossible to conceive, but they can be
destroyed dialectically on the score that the notions of duration
and extension contain contradictions and cannot be accepted as
objectively real.
If we look at reality as a point instant of
efficiency, and if we are to said that it possesses extension and
duration we will be landed in a contradiction, as each real point
instant cannot exist at the same time in many places, neither can
the same reality be real at different times. To the realists,
empirical things have a limited real duration. They are produced by
the creative power of nature or by human will or by the will of
God.
For the Buddhist, if a thing exists at
moment A, it cannot also exist at some moment B, for to exist at
moment A means not to have any real existence at moment B or at any
other moment, keeping in mind the reality of a point instant of
efficiency. If a thing could have any real duration through several
moments, it would represent a real unity existing at once at
different times. It would be either that the enduring unity is a
fiction and real is only the moments, or the moments are fiction
and real is only duration. For the Buddhist the moments alone are
real, duration is a fiction, for if duration is a reality, it would
be a reality existing at different time at once, i.e., existing and
at the same time non-existing at a given moment.
Thus Ultimate Reality for the Buddhist is
timeless, space-less and motionless. But it is not timeless in the
sense of eternal being, space-less not in the sense of an
ubiquitous being, motionless not in the sense of an all embracing
motionless whole, but timeless, space-less and motionless in the
sense of having no duration, extension or movement. It is just the
mathematical point instant, the moment of an action’s
efficiency.
