shankara
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- Apr 23, 2018
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The Sanskrit word Kala has a number of significations: "a fixed or right point of time, a space of time, time ... destiny, fate ... death". We will focus on the fact that it signifies both “time” and “death”. Everything which exists in time has an ending, nothing is permanent. Death, change, is inevitable. In response to this fact, many posit an eternity, an eternal entity, existing beyond time and not subject to any kind of conditions and causality. A very simple view of “Nirvana” or “Moksha” might be something like this. However Vajrayana Buddhism declares Samsara and Nirvana to be inseparable – there is no escaping impermanence, even Buddha dies, however it is possible to cultivate a state of mind which in itself is liberation, even if the body and aggregates (Skandhas) continue to be subject to time.The Buddhist Madhyamaka philosopher Chandrakirti states:
The present does not remain;
The past and future do not exist.
Wherever you look, you cannot see them,
So the three times are called, "imperceptible."
People speak about “living in the present”. However should one attempt to seize the moment of existence, to define the present, one will find nothing. Time is infinitely divisible, the most subtle moment is divisible into as many subtler moments as one wishes, and so on and so forth. At what point do we say “this particular moment or period of time constitutes the present”…? We cannot, because the present by definition must be something containing neither past nor future, while any particular division of time can be further subdivided, and would thus contain two or more moments, one or some being in the past, and one or some being in the future, and we could continue this division (quite literally) ad infinitum.
So, the past is gone, the future has not arrived, and the present has no solid existence whatsoever. How can we get around this? Certain schools of Buddhism suggest that we perceive phenomena correctly for a brief instant when they are freshly perceived. Immediately afterwards we begin engaging in mental projections, and thus cease to perceive things as they are. Thus there is the effort to overcome such conceptualizing, such projection, by stilling the mind. The Madhyamika however posits that it is possible to perceive phenomena correctly with the aid of the conceptual mind, on the condition that the concepts are correct analyses. In either case, we could suggest that to “live in the present” would consist of living without any projections. This is one aspect of our experience of time, but analyzing like this doesn’t tell us much about time as a whole beyond the present moment, about our experience of different times, of duration.
Chandrakirti continues:
The imperceptible is in essence empty of itself.
It is neither permanent and stable
Nor impermanent and fleeting.
This is the "emptiness of the imperceptible."
The second and third lines seem to sum it up. There is no need here to go too much into the philosophy of “emptiness” or “voidness”, we have already mentioned what is necessary for our purposes following the previous verse of Chandrakirti. Yet surely our experience of time is as he says, "neither permanent and stable, nor impermanent and fleeting", fluctuating between the sense of it passing and the sense of it having passed.
We go through our lives not much aware of impermanence, not much aware that time is passing. In fact we are not much aware of time at all, we notice the seasons go by, but that isn’t so important to us, especially if we live in the city. We have a nice warm house, we buy food from all over the world in a supermarket, and even eat bananas from far away countries in our winter. A farmer would be much more aware of the seasons, peasants live much closer to nature, her cycles are the cycles of their own labour. Really if there is any way of really understanding time, the cycle of the seasons, which is created by the orbit of our earth around the sun, would be the best way. The seasons are just like human life, growth, then strength and force, then gradual decay, then frozen sparseness. In our own lives we experience the four seasons, beginning with the spring of our youth, in our journey towards the winter and our end.
But we don’t think so much about the journey having an end. In fact, each breath we take is a breath closer to death, each step a step along a path which leads to the end of this physical form. We have a feeling like we are permanent, we say “I will do it tomorrow”. This leads us away from spiritual practise, which is a kind of preparation for death. In fact, the sensation of permanence is very illusory. A Buddhist text tells us: “The speed of human’s lives is like lightning in the sky”. Really life is such that before we even recognize that we are alive, we find ourselves at the end of it, with the sense “wow did all of that happen already?”. Even if someone were to lock us in a horrible prison for some long period of time, it would still be like that at the end, the time will pass and we will think “well now that’s over”. It might even seem like nothing, though when we were experiencing it likely seemed very difficult.
Only in rare moments do we become aware of how fragile our existence here is, for example if we have a car accident or meet with some circumstance which could lead to our death, otherwise we don’t really think about it. Then often we are terrified, because we realize that the fruits of our actions await us, that we haven’t prepared ourselves to face our future lives. But we only realize this in a vague, intuitive way, especially if we lack any spiritual concepts, and we soon manage to forget it. In reality though, human life is like a very thin screen which at any moment could be peeled away, and beyond it there are vast numbers of possible fates, a plethora of potential existences, including very hellish and terrible experiences. For those who have spent their days thinking only of wealth and success in this life, in truth the future is likely very dark.
Now, though we have already hinted at it a little, we come to the significance of the word Kala, the dual signification of “time” and “death”. Not only does everything pass, as is commonly said, but we are barely aware of its passing, we don’t comprehend that we are rushing towards the grave, towards the end of this human body. It is only in comprehending death that we come to comprehend time, that we grasp the real importance of the short moment we are living, the opportunity for spiritual practise which we are afforded.
On the other hand, it is only in comprehending the significance of time that we comprehend the significance of death. When we realize that the end of this body is just like the end of a short dream, that we will find ourselves experiencing in future lives the effects of whatever good or bad we have created in this one, only then do we realize that this life is a challenge to prepare for death. We must grasp that our being continues through time without end, even if our body doesn’t.
Unfortunately many people though they may have some comprehension of the former notion, about the brevity of life, struggle to comprehend the latter, of the eternity of being. We have been too much oppressed by notions of eternity, the idea of permanent punishment. People want to escape from such horrible doctrines, but in doing so reject not only the existence of eternal hell, but also the idea that we reap in any way the fruits of our actions. It is good that humanity has broken the shackles of such cruel oppression, freed itself from the fear-filled dogma of eternal torment, but we have gone too far, become nihilists, fallen into an extreme idea of impermanence. Due to this notion of “one life”, we rush towards sensual desire like moths towards a flame, out of fear that someday our capacity to experience these things will end. We might even be right, as living a life like that could lead to rebirth in some realm where there is much less pleasure and happiness.
Partly due to this concept of life, many people are even afraid to give up the illusions of youth for more mature joys. Jung tells us that the first half of life is extroverted, working towards constructing a life in this world, making something of ourselves. Afterwards, if we are healthy, we retreat into ourselves more. Like the sun at noonday begins to descend towards the horizon, towards the west, we begin to prepare for our parting. This is not to say that we should not begin spiritual practise at some earlier point in our lives, death is unpredictable, we can never say “I am sure not to die today”. Time is so fleeting, right now you are reading this, then the next thing you know, you are old, and briefly remember this article as you contemplate the passing of time, and how you grew old, and how surely your time here will be over soon enough, even though you managed not to die yet. The question is to begin, whether it be that great novel you know that you have in your mind, or a daily meditation practise. Otherwise you will look back with sadness, you will see that you haven’t accomplished your artistic creation, or your spiritual realization.
Time, then, is a preparation for death, and it is through recognizing the inevitability and unknown time of death that we come to utilize time for its real purpose. All the doctrines we hold onto to comfort us, all our dishonesty with ourselves, someday will be gone, in the face of death we will struggle to maintain our self-deceit. Then the only thing of importance will be whether we really did “fight the good fight”, when the moment of death arrives only our spiritual merit and wisdom will protect us from fear, and from fearful existences.
“Thus shall ye view all this fleeting world
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream”
(The Diamond Sutra)
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream”
(The Diamond Sutra)
