Conference PaperPDF Available

Some Buddhist Notions on Time and on Sense of Time

June 2017

Conference: Fourth International Scientific Conference "The Silk Road”
At: Sofia, Bulgaria

Authors:

Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

The principle of causality or of dependent origination (Skt. pratītyasamutpāda, Pāli paṭiccasamuppāda) is central in philosophy of Buddhism. The idea that everithing is impermanent, conditioned, that there is nothing permanent or eternal, brings to mind different thoughts about time. In the present article some of the Buddhist ideas concerning time and the sense of time are considered. Psychologically, there are intimate relationships between the sense of time, the structure of human thought, the sense of body, and the sense of self – the loss of the sense of body and time results in collapse of the sense of self. And the collapse of the sense of self is central in Buddhism.

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Some Buddhist notions on time and on the sense of time

Gergana Ruseva

Fourth International Scientific Conference "The Silk Road”

June 01-02, 2017, Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

The principle of causality or of dependent origination (Skt. pratītyasamutpāda, Pāli

paṭiccasamuppāda) is central in philosophy of Buddhism. The idea that everithing is

impermanent, conditioned, that there is nothing permanent or eternal, brings to mind

different thoughts about time. In the present article some of the Buddhist ideas concerning

time and the sense of time are considered. Psychologically, there are intimate relationships

between the sense of time, the structure of human thought, the sense of body, and the sense

of self – the loss of the sense of body and time results in collapse of the sense of self. And

the collapse of the sense of self is central in Buddhism.

Keywords: sense of time, time, doctrine of momentariness, flow, present moment,

Buddhism, psychology of Buddhism

When we investigate the nature of time and the sense of time we try to isolate the

sense of time from all other senses and feelings, from thoughts, from the sense of body and

from the sense of the self. In fact, there are intimate relationships between the sense of

time, the structure of human thought and sensations, the sense of body, and the sense of self

(Ataria, Neria, 2013, Zhou, Pöppel, Bao, 2014). When we speak about the sense of time in

Buddhism we should have in mind that some of the teachings about time are based on

personal experience during meditation or some other practices leading to altered states of

consciousness (ASC)1 and that these teachings about time and sense of time are internally

connected with the sense of causality, of saṃsāra, of the dharmas, of body, and of self.

1 ASC can occur spontaneously, or can be achieved through meditation, hypnosis, psychedelic drugs, can result from

traumatic experiences such as isolation, hunger, and near-death experience, and can cause varying levels of alertness,

reduced concentration, sharpened senses, generation of unity among senses, hallucinations, etc. See Ataria, Neria,

2013.

We know that during ASC human thought can change dramatically, people can

receive completely new type of knowledge, and the world perception, including time

perception, can be reshaped (see Ataria, Neria, 2013). Time may lose its “pace”, duration,

direction, and its fundamental link to causality system. The ability to estimate time can

disappear and, in certain cases a sense of lack of time and a sense of existence outside time

can develop.2 “Evidence suggests that the loss of the sense of body and the loss of the sense

of time are in fact connected; that is, they collapse together. This breakdown in turn results

in collapse of the sense of self.” (Ataria, Neria, 2013: 159). And the collapse of the sense of

self is central in Buddhism.

One important thing here is that practice of meditation can vary according to the

concepts of the concrete Buddhist teaching and that different practices cause different states

of consciousness with different sense of time. So there is no single teaching about time, but

many teachings, connected with a sense of time in accordance with the sense of saṃsāra,

dharmas, causality or dependent origination, and with the sense of self or no-self, anatta.

For example, the teaching of momentariness is based not on the idea that the time is

discrete, but on the idea that there are no real entities that last more than a moment. So it is

not a teaching of time but of complete change (or more precisely shift) in every moment –

the world (and all its components) is absolutely new in the next moment and the illusion

that it is the same and that the things have some time stretch is conditioned by dependent

origination.

We also will pay some attention to the question do Buddhists have a special sense

of time which is reflexed in their teachings, or do they have the same old sense of time but

conceptualize it in a different manner. Is it possible the structure of human thought to be

like a matrix forming or at least affecting the sense of time? Is it possible, for example, the

doctrine of the lack of eternal, stretched in time entity to bring about the sense of discrete

time?

In the first part of this article we will consider the experience of time according to

Buddhism – the experience is at the heart of various concepts of the world, or at least can

color the concepts, in particular, the concepts of time. Then we will see how this experience

2 See Ataria, Neria, 2013, and their bibliography on the subject.

is mirrored in language – we will consider words signifying “time”, paying special attention

to the word Skt. kṣaṇa, Pāli khaṇa. At last we will look at different Buddhist schools

concerned with time and experience of time, and at the doctrine of momentariness and the

experience of momentariness.

We derive time from events. Linearity and imperativity of time

Now we will focus on the deep laid notion of linearity and imperativity of time, on

the way out of this absolute time, on living in the present moment and on the so called

“flow”.

The Buddha insisted that the beginning of the universe is inconceivable, yet that it is

possible to speak about moments of evolution and dissolution in terms of eons – periods of

immense duration, that can be illustrated by similes.3 From these similes we can see that for

the Buddha (long) time duration is determined by events. In Saṃyutta Nikāya is said:

Sāvatthiyaṃ. Atha kho aññataro bhikkhū yena bhagavā tenupasaṅkami.

Upasaṅkamitvā bhagavantaṃ abhivādetvā ekamantaṃ nisīdi. Ekamantaṃ nisinno

kho so bhikkhū bhagavantaṃ etadavoca: ''kīvadīgho nu kho bhante, kappo'' ti?

Dīgho kho bhikkhu, kappo. So na sukaro saṅkhātuṃ ettakāni vassāni iti vā,

ettakāni vassasatāni iti vā, ettakāni vassasahassāni iti vā, ettakāni

vassasatasahassāni iti vā'ti. Sakkā pana bhante, upamaṃ kātunti? Sakkā

bhikkhū'ti bhagavā avoca. mahāselo pabbato yojanaṃ āyāmena, yojanaṃ

vitthārena, yojanaṃ ubbedhena, acchiddo asusiro ekaghano, tamenaṃ puriso

vassasatassa vassasatassa accayena kāsikena vatthena sakiṃ sakiṃ parimajjeyya,

khippataraṃ kho so bhikkhu mahāselo pabbato iminā upakkamena parikkhayaṃ

pariyādānaṃ gaccheyya, na tveva kappo. Evaṃ dīgho kho bhikkhu, kappo. Evaṃ

dīghānaṃ kho bhikkhu, kappānaṃ neko kappo saṃsito nekaṃ kappasataṃ

saṃsitaṃ, nekaṃ kappasahassaṃ saṃsitaṃ, nekaṃ kappasatasahassaṃ saṃsitaṃ.

Taṃ kissa hetu? Anamataggoyaṃ bhikkhu, saṃsāro pubbākoṭi na paññāyati

avijjānīvaraṇānaṃ sattānaṃ taṇhā saṃyojanānaṃ sandhāvataṃ saṃsarataṃ.

3 Kalupahana, 1974.

Yāvañcidaṃ bhikkhave, alameva sabbasaṅkhāresu nibbindituṃ, alaṃ virajjituṃ,

alaṃ vimuccitunti. (3.1.5. Pabbatasuttaṃ, Saṃyuttanikāyo, 268)4

At Savatthi. Then a certain bhikkhu approached the Blessed One, paid homage to

him, sat down to one side, and said to him: "Venerable sir, how long is an aeon?"

"An aeon is long, bhikkhu. It is not easy to count it and say it is so many years, or

so many hundreds of years, or so many thousands of years, or so many hundreds

of thousands of years." "Then is it possible to give a simile, venerable sir?" "It is

possible, bhikkhu," the Blessed One said. "Suppose, bhikkhu, there was a great

stone mountain a yojana5 long, a yojana wide, and a yojana high, without holes or

crevices, one solid mass of rock. At the end of every hundred years a man would

stroke it once with a piece of silk cloth. That great stone mountain might by this

effort be worn away and eliminated but the aeon would still not have come to an

end. So long is an aeon, bhikkhu. And of aeons of such length, we have wandered

through so many aeons, so many hundreds of aeons, so many thousands of aeons,

so many hundreds of thousands of aeons. For what reason? Because, bhikkhu, this

saṃsāra is without discoverable beginning… It is enough to be liberated from

them."6

From this passage emphasizing the immensity of time one can also conclude that according

to the Buddha we derive time from events, we use events to measure time.7

We often assume that abstract, uniform, and objective time is a universal physical

entity. But this kind of evenly flowing time was introduced to us only recently together

with the mechanical clock. Before the introduction of mechanical clock, events were used

to measure time and our natural way of time-keeping depends on the perception, estimation

and coordination of events. Our experience and understanding of time emerges from our

perception of events.8 Even the principle of operation of mechanical clock is based on

4 GRETIL

5 A measure of distance, sometimes regarded as equal to 4 or 5, sometimes to 9, and sometimes to 2,5 English miles.

6 Here is given the Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of Saṃyutta Nikāya, 2000: 654.

7 See Forman, 2015. Buddhism is essentially a practical school which goal is to overcome suffering (Skt. duḥkha,

Pāli dukkha). Early Buddhism is not a system of metaphysics so we don’t expect to find there abstract notions

concerning time. See Koller, 1974.

8 See Forman, 2015.

events: a uniform artificial event is generated and repeated, while keeping an accumulative

count. With the mechanical clock a new sort of uniform, objective, abstract time,

independent of events, emerged (Forman, 2015).

Of course it is obvious that the experience of this linear absolute time is not new at

all. The imperative pace of time is a real factor, for example, for ancient agricultural

societies. The Buddhists have some kind of psychological approach to this imperative,

linear, absolute time – and to the liberation from it. The basic idea of Buddhist teachings is

to eliminate suffering duḥkha or dukkha9 (especially the “third-level” suffering). To do this

one has to see the true nature of the self – one has to realize that the reason for this

suffering is the instinctive sense of unchanging, eternal, separate self. This self requires a

particular linear temporal order in which to operate. So time is objectified and is felt like an

external compelling force.10

Our experience then appears to be confined to the realm of linear time, where events

unfold in a predictable sequence, moving forward from the past, to the present, and in to the

future. This is what is called conditioned existence and we act as if this linear time is

absolute.11

Let us for a while leave aside Buddhism and its psychological approach towards

time. Is it possible time to have a more peculiar structure? We often say “the thread of

time”. Can it be “the twisted thread of time”, or can this thread of time possess an

additional structure? Can it be like having primary, secondary and tertiary structure DNA

molecule? We can speak about the DNA structure because it is extended in space, but time

is not extended in space. And since the space is defined by the objects, extended in it, time

is defined by the events – the events are extended in time, i.e. time may have a more

peculiar structure, relative to the motion and phenomena, and “thread” gives the sequence

9 According to Ronald Purser (2014), there are three kinds or levels of suffering in Buddhism: the physical and

mental pain; the suffering of change (any phenomenon or being that arises is subject to change and will also pass

away); and suffering of conditioned existence – the basis of the other two levels of suffering. It is the deepest level

existential suffering based on the premise that everything is subject to the laws of karman or karma and dependent

origination and a vague feeling that self may be empty and devoid of separate identity. “This level of suffering is

usually repressed, or covered up, through incessant goal-directed activities that are attempts to make the self feel

more secure, grounded and real. The suffering of conditioning, or “third-level” suffering, requires the deepest level

of investigation of temporality…” Purser, 2014: 1.

10 For more detail see Purser, 2014.

11 Ibid.

of events and cause-and-effect relationship. Moreover, subjective time is also connected

with states of consciousness, structure of thought, and perception, i.e. the secondary and

tertiary structures can arise from quite subjective perspective.

For the way out of the imperativity of time Dōgen (an eminent 13th century Japanese

Zen master, founder of Sōtō school) gives another idea: we are not in time, but we are time.

According to Dōgen (as far as I can understand his teachings) the one is not in time, he/she

is not an observer of the flow of time – he/she is the very flow of time. One is not in the

flow looking for a shore – one with all his/her experiences, feelings and thoughts is this

very flow, and this flow is time.12

In Anguttara Nikāya, IV.137. is said: “There is no moment, no inkling, no particle

of time that the river stops flowing.”13

The present moment

According to the Pāli scriptures one has to realize enlightenment in the immediate

present.14

Do not chase after the past; do not seek for the future.

The past is already no more; the future is not yet.

And see the elements of present in every place, without attachment,

Without moving – yet clearly see and strive in the present.

Do earnestly the task for today; who knows the nearness of death on the morrow?

Truly who can say he will not meet the great army of death?

Such a man of realization, earnestly striving day and night without indolence,

He, surely, is the sage of time, the peaceful one, the steady one.

(Majjhima Nikāya, 131-134)15

As Sharf (2013) pointed out, early Zen masters recommended intense immersion in

the flow of here-and-now to reach a nonconceptual and nondiscursive awareness, leading to

12 For more detail see Abe, 1992: 77-105; Stambaugh, 1990: 24-71; Purser, 2014; Miyamoto, 1959. Here I would

like to mention also the so called “flow” experience in sport psychology.

13 Citation is according to Kalupahana, 1974: 184.

14 See Miyamoto, 1959.

15 Here I cite the translation given in Miyamoto, 1959: 122.

a state of inner stillness. But Zen reformers Dahui and later Hakuin in Japan thought that

these methods lead to an imbalanced state of “meditation sickness”, in which the meditator

is attached to a dull, peaceful, and blissful stillness and has no concern for the suffering of

the world.16

Cyclic conception of existence

Cyclic events such as the day-night cycle, the cycle of the sun, the cycle of the

moon’s phases are at the basis of calendars since ancient times. The cyclic conception of

existence according to Buddhism is the idea that until one is liberated he/she is bound to be

born, live and die again and again. So there is a cyclic nature of reality, but this does not

mean that the time is cyclic. Only after a very long period a Bodhisattva can become an

enlighten person – a Buddha. “Despite the cyclic nature of the Bodhisattva’s existences and

of the intervening world ages, the vast expanse of time unfolding between the initial

aspiration and the final attainment is conceived of in linear terms. While the wheel

traveling over the road revolves, the road itself does not.”17

Causality

In Majjhima Nikāya, 115, Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta: Sutta 38, i, 262-264, 19 is

said:

Sādhu bhikkhave. Iti kho bhikkhave tumhe pi evaṃ vadetha aham-pi evaṃ vadāmi:

[Iti] imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imass' uppādā idaṃ uppajjati…18 (Majjhima Nikāya,

Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta: Sutta 38, i, 263-264)

Good, bhikkhus. So you say thus, and I also say thus: 'When this exists, that comes

to be; with the arising of this, that arises.'19

16 Purser, 2014. Purser (2014) made also some very interesting remarks on the contemporary practices of

mindfulness meditation and especially to the contemporary starving for the present moment. On the present moment

see Montemayor, Wittmann, 2014.

17 Rospatt, 2004.

18 GRETIL.

19 Here is given the Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of Majjhima Nikāya, 1995: 355-356.

Let us consider the causal principle presented here by the Buddha. Because of the

locative absolute construction in the sentence imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti it can be translated

also as a conditional clause “If this exists, that comes to be”20. And this means that

according to the Buddha events cannot be predicted and are not determined with certainty.21

Omniscience and especially knowledge of the future is not claimed by the Buddha –

according to causal principal could be made only predictions. And one can perceive only

causality (Skt. pratītyasamutpāda, Pāli paṭiccasamuppāda):

Vuttaṃ kho pan' etaṃ Bhagavatā: Yo paṭiccasamuppādaṃ passati so dhammaṃ

passati. yo dhammaṃ passati so paṭiccasamuppādaṃ passatīti.

Now this has been said by the Blessed One: "One who sees dependent origination

sees the Dhamma; one who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination."

(Majjhima Nikāya, Mahāhatthipadopamasuttaṃ Sutta: Sutta 28, i, 284: 190-191)

Here one should have in mind that in Yogasūtra 3.16. of Patañjali the knowledge of

the pariṇāmatraya (the three changes) means also knowledge of the past and knowledge of

the future.22

Sanskrit and Pāli words signifying “time”

Let us now refer to the Sanskrit and Pāli words signifying “time”. There are:

samaya, kāla, kṣaṇa (khaṇa) and adhvan (addhan).23 Samaya means “coming together”,

“meeting”, “contract”, “agreement”, “opportunity”, “appointed time” or “proper time”.

Kāla means time in general, as in kāla-vāda “time-doctrine”. Kāla signifies also appointed

or suitable time, meal-time or the time of death. In Sanskrit death is expressed kāla kṛta

(Pāli kāla-kata), meaning literally, "whose time is completed."24 Sanskrit kṣaṇa (Pāli

20 See also Kalupahana, 1974.

21 According to Sarvāstivāda ("the theory of all exists", originated between 3rd century BC and around the turn of the

Christian era), one of the most influential early school of Buddhism, flourishing throughout Northwest India,

Northern India, and Central Asia, all dharmas exist in the past, present and future. From this contemporal existence

of past, present and future it is implicated that the consequence preexists in the cause and that what will be is

completely determined from what is and from what was, so temporality becomes just an illusion.

22 See Yogasutra, 3.16. of Patañjali (pariṇāmatrayasaṃyamādatītānāgatajñānam.) and the commentary of Vyāsa.

Some Buddhist Notions on Time and on Sense of Time

Abstract

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