I found this article very good so I am pasting the whole thing
here. (btw I have posted part of this in a topic created very long
time ago, more than 2 years... in the first two months the forum
was created.. here: The Eternal Now and Time doesn't exist. I just suddenly recalled
about it)
Buddhism and the Illusion of Time
Questions and Answers from an interesting thread on Buddha's
Village Forum
Answers from Tom Huston [email protected]
<< I've just read 'The end of time' by Julian Barbour which
presents a fairly convincing theory that time is just an illusion
and really the universe is just made up of infinite seperate
'instants', or different configurations of the Universe. Has anyone
else read it and if so what do you think the implications are on
Buddhism and the mind. The theory has got me quite depressed and so
I would appreciate any replies.
Remmy>>
I haven't read it, but I just saw an ad for it in the new issue of
Science News and decided to browse the web for more info. As for
time being illusory and the universe being nothing but a series of
separate "instants," like frames in a movie, that's basically
correct. Everything we call "the past" is, literally, nothing but
present memories. Likewise, everything we call "the future" is
nothing but present memories inverted, or rearranged, to form a
prediction or expectation. The appearance of "time" is little more
than a trick of memory, as the Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Ornament
Scripture) says. You can easily discern this for yourself: simply
figure out what it is you consider "the past" and "the future." You
will discover that it is nothing but thoughts--nothing but
memories, nothing but expectations, nothing but mental commentary.
It's "all in your head," so to speak. There's really no such thing
as time. There is really only Now--an eternally present Present
with no beginning and no ending. Everything is completely new,
distinct, and original every instant, with no real "change" or
"motion" at all. The mystic-philosopher Heraclitus, explaining this
point, said, "A man cannot step in the same river twice."
Zen Buddhism, in particular, stresses this very significant
insight. Here's the Sixth Patriarch, Ch'an Master Hui-neng:
"In this moment there is nothing that comes to be. In this moment
there is nothing that ceases to be. Thus there is no
birth-and-death to be brought to an end. Thus the absolute peace in
this present moment. Though it is at this moment, there is no limit
to this moment, and herein lies eternal delight."
Zen Master Seung Sahn elaborated on this topic in his excellent
book The Compass of Zen (p. 143):
"Everyone thinks that this is extremely difficult teaching,
something beyond their reach or experience. How can things appear
and disappear, and yet there is, originally, even in this
constantly moving world, no appearing and disappearing? A student
once asked me, 'The Mahaparinirvana-sutra seems very confusing.
Everything is always moving. And yet everything is not moving? I
don't understand this Buddhism . . .' But there is a very easy way
to understand this: Sometime you go to a movie. You see an action
movie about a good man and a bad man--lots of fighting, cars moving
very fast, and explosions all over the place. Everything is always
moving very quickly. Our daily lives have this quality: everything
is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. It seems like
there is no stillness-place. But this movie is really only a very
long strip of film. In one second, there are something like
fourteen frames. Each frame is a separate piece of action. But in
each frame, nothing is moving. Everything is completely still. Each
frame, one by one, is a complete picture. In each frame, nothing
ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears. Each frame is
complete stillness. The film projector moves the frames very
quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so
the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. There is no break in
the movement of things. But actually when you take this strip of
film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing
moving at all. Each frame is complete. Each moment is completely
not-moving action.
"Our minds and the whole universe are like that. This world is
impermanent. Everything is always changing, changing, changing,
moving, moving, moving, nonstop. Even one second of our lives seems
full of so much movement and change in this world that we see. But
your mind--right now--is like a lens whose shutter speed is one
divided by infinite time. We call that moment-mind. If you attain
that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. From moment to
moment you can see this world completely stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop. Like the film, you perceive every frame--this
moment--which is infinitely still and complete. In the frame,
nothing is moving. There is no time, and nothing appears or
disappears in that box. But this movie projector--your thinking
mind--is always moving, around and around and around, so you
experience this world as constantly moving and you constantly
experience change, which is impermanence. You lose moment-mind by
following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is
real."
When you transcend your thinking mind in the realization of your
own pure, timeless, ever-present Awareness, then the illusion of
time completely collapses, and you become utterly Free of the
samsaric cycle of time, change, impermanence, and suffering. This,
my friend, is nothing at all to be "depressed" about! Rather, the
fact that your own Buddha Mind exists beyond time, in THIS very
moment, is itself the key to your permanent and eternal (timeless)
Liberation.
Hope that helps!
--Tom Huston
[email protected]
"To no longer resist the present is to see that there is nothing
but the present--no beginning, no end, nothing behind it, nothing
in front of it. When the past of memory and the future of
anticipation are both seen to be present facts, then the slats to
this present collapse. The boundaries around this moment fall into
this moment, and then there is nothing but this moment, with
nowhere else to go."
--Ken Wilber, No Boundary, pp. 158-159
<< Thanks for all that info Soulplex, I found it very
helpful. There's just a couple of things I'm not too clear on. If
I've missed the point somewhere please tell me. When you used the
movie analogy, do you mean we see the whole of our lives at once
which is 'played as a movie' to us so that the impression of
impermenance and change appears, so that in effect impermenance
does exist for someone who hasn't attained Nirvana? Or am I frozen
in time? The latter scares me quite a bit - is there still a ten
year old version of me in frozen agony after falling out of a tree?
Or are only fully enlightened people 'frozen' contentedly in
time?
Remmy >>
Okay, that's a good question, and I'll try to answer it as clearly
as possible. First, impermanence does indeed exist for someone
still trapped in Samsara (as well as suffering, attachment, death,
etc.--all just names for the same condition), but it doesn't exist
in Nirvana (and neither does its opposite, "permanence"). Nirvana
is beyond the duality of motion and stillness, and the way that's
experienced is that you feel that you (Buddha Mind) are absolutely
still in the midst of a world of absolute motion, but the two don't
feel different or separate. That's the nondual, Mahayana Nirvana,
in which the relative dualities of nirvana-and-samsara,
life-and-death, subject-and-object, matter-and-consciousness,
form-and-spirit are seen to be nondual or "one," an inseparable
unity. (In the dualistic, Theravadin, relative nirvana, the
two--Buddha Mind and the world of form--are felt to be different
and separate, which is why the Mahayana criticizes the Theravadin
view as limited and incomplete.)
