Yes. Time, which is division, is psychological, or a perception
of consciousness as Longchen said. It is our thought that makes us
believe there is continuity of our life through time. That is
called "age form" in Diamond sutra. Or "time form". Changes happen
but it is not "things" that are changing, empty phenomena are
changing. Empty means empty of inherent existence, it does not mean
a null void or nothingness. There must be continuity of an
existence of a "thing" for there to be time, but all things are by
nature empty. What you are now is neither same nor different from
what you are 20 years ago, because you are by nature empty.
If lets say there is a time line of moment 1, moment 2, moment 3,
moment 4, and so on. When you said "now" at moment 1, it is
immediately moment 2. So which exist? Moment 1 or Moment 2? If you
say all 4 moments exist because you registered it in your memory,
what about a person with memory loss? What if the whole world had
amnesia? So time is a psychological impression due to not knowing
the ultimate truth (Emptiness).
However for practical purpose, chronological time, or clock time,
is a useful means because it is relative truth. It is true that you
are born (lets say) 20 years ago. In Buddhism that would be
relative truth. It has relative reality, it is true in relation to
something but it has no ultimate reality. Even the Sutras make good
use of relative truth. However according to ultimate truth however,
you were never born. There never was a beginning nor an ending.
There is no "self" that is born.
The only problem arise when sentient beings mistake relative truth
as ultimate. Or, not knowing the ultimate truth. Here is some
quotes by J.Krishnamurti which I found useful:
"Time provides no solution. All religions have maintained that
time is necessary, the psychological time we are talking about.
Heaven is very far away, and one can only come to it through the
gradual process of evolution, through suppression, through growth,
or through identification with an object, with something superior.
Our question is whether it is possible to be free of fear
immediately. Otherwise fear breeds disorder; psychological time
invariably does breed extraordinary disorder within one."
"I am questioning the whole idea of evolution, not of the physical
being, but of thought which has identified itself with a particular
form of existence in time. The brain has obviously evolved to come
to this present stage, and it may evolve still further, expand
still more. But as a human being, I have lived for forty or fifty
years in a world made up of all kinds of theories, conflicts, and
concepts; in a society in which greed, envy, and competition have
bred wars. I am a part of all that."
"To a man who is in sorrow, there is no significance in looking to
time for a solution, in evolving slowly for the next two million
years as a human being. Constituted as we are, is it possible to be
free from fear and from psychological time? Physical time must
exist; you cant get away from that. The question is whether
psychological time can bring not only order within the individual
but also social order. We are part of society; we are not separate.
Where there is order in a human being, there will inevitably be
social order outwardly."
A timeless state
"When we are talking about time, we do not mean chronological time,
time by the watch. That time exists, must exist. If you want to
catch a bus, if you want to get to a train or meet an appointment
tomorrow, you must have chronological time.
But is there a tomorrow, psychologically, which is the time of the
mind? Is there psychologically tomorrow, actually? Or is the
tomorrow created by thought because thought sees the impossibility
of change, directly, immediately, and invents this process of
gradualness?"
"I see for myself, as a human being, that it is terribly important
to bring about a radical revolution in my way of life, thinking,
feeling, and in my actions, and I say to myself, Ill take time
over it; Ill be different tomorrow, or in a months time. That is
the time we are talking about: the psychological structure of time,
of tomorrow, or the future, and in that time we live."
"Time is the past, the present, and the future, not by the watch. I
was, yesterday; yesterday operates through today and creates the
future. Thats a fairly simple thing. I had an experience a year
ago that left an imprint on my mind, and the present I translate
according to that experience, knowledge, tradition, conditioning,
and I create the tomorrow. Im caught in this circle. This is what
we call living; this is what we call time."
"Thought, which is you, with all its memories, conditioning, ideas,
hopes, despair, the utter loneliness of existenceall that is this
time...And to understand a timeless state, when time has come to a
stop, one must inquire whether the mind can be free totally of all
experience, which is of time."
The very nature of thought
"Time is thought, and thought is the process of memory that creates
time as yesterday, today and tomorrow, as a thing that we use as a
means of achievement, as a way of life. Time to us is
extraordinarily important, life after life, one life leading to
another life that is modified, that continues. Surely, time is the
very nature of thought, thought is time."
"And as long as time exists as a means to something, the mind
cannot go beyond itself the quality of going beyond itself belongs
to the new mind which is free of time. Time is a factor in fear. By
time, I dont mean the chronological time, by the watchsecond,
minute, hour, day, year, but time as a psychological, inward
process. It is that fact that brings about fear. Time is fear; as
time is thought, it does breed fear; it is time that creates
frustration, conflicts, because the immediate perception of the
fact, the seeing of the fact is timeless..."
"So, to understand fear, one must be aware of time time as
distance, space; me which thought creates as yesterday, today and
tomorrow, using the memory of yesterday to adjust itself to the
present and so to condition the future. So, for most of us fear is
an extraordinary reality; and a mind that is entangled with fear,
with the complexity of fear, can never be free; it can never
understand the totality of fear, without understanding the
intricacies of time. They go together."
Time is a poison
"In your bathroom you have a bottle marked poison, and you know
it is poison; you are very careful of that bottle, even in the
dark. You are always watching out for it. You dont say, How am I
to keep away, how am I to be watchful of that bottle? You know it
is poison, so you are tremendously attentive to it."
"Time is a poison; it creates disorder. If this is a fact to you,
then you can proceed into the understanding of how to be free of
fear immediately. But if you are still holding time as a means of
freeing yourself, there is no communication between you and
me."
"You see, there is something much more; there may be a totally
different kind of time altogether. We only know two times, physical
and psychological, and we are caught in time. Physical time plays
an important part in the psyche, and the psyche has an important
influence on the physical. We are caught in this battle, in this
influence. One must accept physical time in order to catch the bus
or the train, but if one rejects psychological time completely,
then one may come to a time that is something quite different, a
time which is not related to either. I wish you would come on with
me into that time! Then time is not disorder; it is tremendous
order."
