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Time Question -
mockeymind
Veteran
I am caught in a question that it's not clear to me, if there is a possibility. - Can a person be reborn in the past time instead of future? - Just curious, what if the earth will no longer habitable? what If the earth ends - and a person still in the process of enlightenment.
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Karma only works in a forward direction.
What if the earth will no longer available or no longer habitable.
@mockeymind, expanding on @SpinyNorman's comment, given that we are born of our kamma, and kamma means, succinctly speaking, 'Action' it follows that we can only be re-born via the actions we have made now, we can't be born BEFORE the 'Actions' determining our rebirth, have taken place...
Ok, I understand that it is moving forward. I just hope I could attain be non-returning state before this planet goes away or no longer sustain life forms.
You could do that today, if you really put your mind to it...
Whose to know that they have been reborn in the past-it would not be the past to them...Just a thought...
Oh there you go, mucking up the process again!
Being reborn in the past would create an anomololy-paradox thingy in the space-time whatsit, which Captain Kirk would have to rectify by going back in time to get some crustaceans.
It's that damned thinking that does it, it has a mind of its own
Can we all agree that time is certain? I was taught in the practice that everything is uncertain.
"There was a young lady named Bright
who could travel much faster than light
She set out one day in a relative way
and came back the previous night ! "
Some scientists believe time can be bent
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/string-theory-bending-space-and-time.html
I suppose everyone is born in the present, because when they were born it was now and it is still now and will always be now.
No, time is totally uncertain.
It depends whether you are thinking of 'Chronological' time, which we're ll brought up on (The clock, time-tables, anniversaries, schedules, appointments) and 'real' time - which enables you to suddenly realise you were a child, like, yesterday, and suddenly, you're an adult, and what the heck happened to all that time in between?!
I wrote this to my mother, a long time ago(!) and she's taped it to the inside of our Grandfather clock door...
Pythagoras believed that Time was an actual substance, tangible only to angels.
His follower, Archytas, defined it as a continuous flux of 'Nows'.
St Augustine said: "What is Time? If I am NOT asked, I know. When I am asked, I do not."
I just found this :
Zen master Dogen composed a fascicle of Shobogenzo called "Uji," which usually is translated as "Being Time" or "The Time-Being." This is a difficult text, but the central teaching in it is that being itself is time.
"Time is not separate from you, and as you are present, time does not go away. As time is not marked by coming and going, the moment you climbed the mountains is the time-being right now. If time keeps coming and going, you are the time-being right now."
You are time, the tiger is time, bamboo is time, Dogen wrote. "If time is annihilated, mountains and oceans are annihilated. As time is not annihilated, mountains and oceans are not annihilated."
Poetic, but basically, what they are saying is that Time - as an essence - is all in your Mind. As Archytas stated, it's always 'Now'.
And he's right.
That's all we have, and all we ever will have.
Sure, we need order. We need constancy. We need organisation and something to run our lives by in the practical sense. That's why the calendar exists, but note: Other cultures have other calendars THEY run their lives by...
Other than that, there is no time like the present. Because there is no other time BUT the present.
Hence, these witty, pithy little quips, like this one:
"The Past is gone, the Future isn't here yet, the Present is a gift. use it."
That may be true but which direction is forward?
I do not believe that time is linear. We impose our concept of human existence on the way we view the Universe. We are born, we live and we die so it's understandable we would view things in that context.
I believe we can seed our Karma in this existence and experience the fruition of that Karma wherever and whenever we are.
Does buddhism believes that the afterlife don't have time and space element.
I don't know. If you look at the Wheel of Life, there are various Realms we fall into when we die, but how long we stay there depends on how long it will take us to work through the kamma accumulated from this life.
of course, many state (as I also believe) that these 'Realms' are all figurative, and represent the States of Mind one can be in at any time, during Life, or at the point of death.
However, I think Buddhism dismisses the 'time and space' element as being immaterial and unimportant to practice, because we need to practice, NOW.
When we can't practice, is of no consequence.
I also believe that the Realms are States of Mind and that the physical existence(s) can occur at any point along the "time line" (figuratively speaking). The order of the time line is not necessarily the same as the order of our journey.
Karma is a process of cause and effect, action and consequence. Having the effect before the cause wouldn't make sense, it would be like experiencing tomorrow before today.
I think it is better for my practice not to deal with the question. Just to live in the here and now, the rising and ceasing of breathing, the awareness of posture are the most important in my own universe.
Thank you for all your answers.
I understand what you are saying and I think (at least I hope) I understand why you are saying it.
The concept of tomorrow and today (linear time) is, I believe, a human construct to which Karma is not bound.
If we do indeed experience rebirth in what we in this existence would refer to as "the past", our Karma will still be with us.
@mockeymind, actually, with the above comment - you've just dealt with the question perfectly.
I must have attained Nirvana already!!
No, we cannot all agree on it.
But what if there are other planets that can sustain life? In many ways, I feel like we (humans) know so little about the universe and different planes/dimensions of existence. Couldn't there be ways of being reborn that we cannot understand or articulate as humans?
Ultimately, though, I agree completely with your following quote: @mockeymind said "I think it is better for my practice not to deal with the question. Just to live in the here and now, the rising and ceasing of breathing, the awareness of posture are the most important in my own universe."
Some folks have memories of past lives & others very occasionally, future lives.
Our knowledge about time is as suspect as our knowledge about what exists beyond death's door.
Most musings about where we currently are not, seem mostly about ignoring this current moment where we currently are.
@how @Eliz - The question was raised out of curiosity, an investigation of possibility and probability - But at the later part - There is a question came to me, you can call it an insight - "why my mind asked the question in the first place" It's suffering.
Then I remember this:
"There are stories of people coming to the Buddha, and saying, "I am leaving your teaching because you have not told me about whether there is a life after death, or whether there is another world. And the Buddha says, 'Did I ever say that I would give you the answers to these things?' 'No, Lord, you didn't.' 'Why do you think that I ever said that I would give you the answer to these things? Because these are not the things that you need to know. The thing that you need to know is how to deal with suffering, because at this very moment, what made you ask that question was suffering.'"
I didn't understand this teaching... until NOW
The past, future and simultaneous rebirths aside, the reason I ask used to be because of suffering but now that's only a hint of it. It's fun.
Asking and pondering these things is not a problem if one isn't attached to a conclusion or doesn't expect to find an answer.
Well said, @Ourself!
Funny how sometimes you realized - you already know the answer from those questions. You're not just mindful or aware. Our own universe is vast unknown.
Life is wonderful.
There is suffering but we can understand it's cause and take steps towards it's cessation.
Where would we be if Siddhartha never bothered to look closer?
"IF".....
Sady, the fact that these questions seem to stimulate discussions which end up occasionally containing some heated comments, and which, ultimately get closed because the discussion is merely going round in circles, would seem to indicate that neither of these provisos are ever to the forefront.
Siddharta only looked closer at the relevant and pertinent. Even he stated that some things he did not teach because they were irrelevant to the cessation of suffering.
That is all he vowed to teach. Suffering, its origin and its cessation.
Looking closer at the irrelevant merely perpetuates more suffering.
I think I am safe in assuming Buddha taught about rebirth even as he said that pondering how it worked exactly is a waste of time when concerned about suffering.
When I ponder these things I take suffering into account but I fail to see how it causes more suffering and so am not concerned about suffering.
If these discussions cause one to suffer hopefully the title of the thread is plain.
@federica - yet again you have hit on the most basic buddhist concept": buddha wanted to alleviate suffering - that is all...
Everything else is... what it is...
Well, @ourself I'm genuinely pleased for you stance and attitudes, truly, but other members in the past have not been so fortunate in their understanding or practice. I wasn't speaking or aiming specifically at anyone via my comments. It was a general observation based on 10 years' experience....
The focus of true dhamma practice is to work out your salvation in this life. We do not know what happens when this life ceases.