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There Is No Now
person
Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
in Philosophy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/06/there-is-no-now/
I heard a brief segment where professor Marcelo Gleiser put forward this idea that only the past and future really exist. Of course, the common Buddhist (or really eastern philosophical) notion is that there is only now. So I thought maybe it would be fun to try to understand what he is arguing and stand up for our notion of now.
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From what I have read there is no now. And the reason there is no now is that it (a notion of now) is defined conditionally upon a notion of past and future. So if it is conditional on a 'notion' that is not reality well then a 'now' itself is also a notion. It's the madyamaka logical process.
That's interesting, I wasn't really expecting anyone to agree with him. Nowness seems like it is a pretty sacred notion around here.
I could try out a sort of counter argument but I'd rather wait to see what others might say.
Yeah but I think 'now' is bound up with other ideas like 'mindfulness'. What I am saying does not really reject many of those things such as mindfulness. But actually my teacher disfavors the word mindfulness. But she often makes the point that the teachings are meant to get you to a point and sometimes words used (even in your own sangha and from your teachers mouth) do not work for an individual. Or maybe 1000 year old teachings don't take an individual to the point. So you might end up having to use your own words that work for you. She likes 'awareness' in preference to 'mindfulness'.
And if you look at her instructions for meditation she does talk about letting go of past and future and being present. And it's actually in meditation when you might notice what your thoughts are including thoughts about how time works.
I think it is not so much a question of now, past and future, as it is a question of what is. And that is this moment, in motion, with all the past manifest within it.
Time, the idea that the past still exists in a form, and the moment-to-moment procession of the present, as well as any notions we might have about the future, are artefacts of the mind. Our memory maintains an imperfect but reasonably detailed record of what we have experienced, allowing us to re-experience things as we choose.
You could argue that there is no Now because it is an infinitesimally thin slice of time, always in motion and always changing, like a wavefront on the ocean, but that is a sophist's point.
I agree, on the basis of what @Jeffrey said. I have heard the same thing more than once. But like relative and absolute, we need some kind of marker to communicate and compare/contrast. The idea of "now" just seems to perpetuate dualistic thinking. "Now" is better than "then" just like "good" is better than "bad" but really we have to move past all of it because it all depends on the other for it to exist at all.
either past or future exists only in the mind
now also a given symbol to indicate a fleeting moment
without symbols (words) 'we' can not make a conversation with 'others'
If you try and pin down "now" it has already passed........
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/comment/350897#Comment_350897
Mindful of Current Consciousness is more psychologically 'correct' than 'living in the Now'
That is a helpful term and it throws light on what @Jeffrey said about mindfulness. In fact the term 'present awareness' might be even less dualistic.
I find @karasti point about the approximation of language relevant.
We are of the now, we have a history/heritage and future nows. Sometimes now is a continuum that we spot a placement on, drifting between existence and 'Mind the Gap' ...
... And now back to then ...
I don't know. That almost seems like picking one of the 2 truths as more true than the other when the reality is they are both true.
In light of non-separation and the fact that we have found no smallest increment, I would say there is just this moment which has always been. The past is what now used to be and the future only represents what may happen. Really, the future only exists as probability and never gets here so if anything is illusory it's the idea of a future.
Plus if now is only a notion then so is reality.
Where does that leave us other than now?
The fleeting moment, the passage of time, any distance or border is the mind working with duality and it is this separation that is the illusion I think.
I just wanted to say, I love the discussions here
It's an interesting thing to notice that you are resting in the moment. That your mind isn't elsewhere. Yet the second you realize it, you are back in thinking about the past and wanting to get back to that state in the future. "They" say that masters live in that moment continuously. I can't imagine.
My take is that he's trying to find it and pin it down to some discrete moment but is unable to find it as @Jeffrey pointed out similar to Madhyamika logic. I think he then makes the error to say that it therefore doesn't exist at all and the further mistake of saying the past and the future do exist.
Now can't be pinpointed it can only be experienced, every event that ever happened in the past and every event that will happen in the future only ever actually occurs in the present. Does the past get recorded in some cosmic database that we could travel back in time and visit? That sounds like what saying the past truly exists would imply, but that sort of claim has no evidence to back it up. Does the future already exist in some tangible way, making events set in stone?
I think the professor is confusing his ideas and concepts about a thing from the thing itself.
If past, now and future depend on each other to exist then in my view they are really different reflections or degrees of the same process.
If we could avoid the extremes of constantly living in the past or for the future then the middle way would be living in the now. I think it is possible to plan for the future and learn from the past if neither is being clung to.
Being decision makers we can't help but shape the future of what now could be whether we are mindful of the present or not.
If you think about it, it's pretty miraculous. Our sense of time is born out of knowing the immediate past, yet in order to actually happen anything we do must take place in the present. So we do all function on the edge of that infinitesimally thin slice of time we call the present, like surfers on the crest of a wave, without even being fully aware of it.
@David for householders I think avoiding the extreme attachments is about all we can do. People who don't have those daily concerns in the same way experience something different, I think. They often don't know what day, month or even year it is. Having to plan trips often requires someone to do it for them because their concept of planning for the future in that matter is not how they usually operate, where they would prefer to just show up at the airport and get a ticket and go, lol. That is how my teacher has explained it anyhow. It doesn't mean he doesn't acknowledge the past or future, there just is no focus on it whatsoever.
It seems for most of us the focus on the future is often all there is. We aren't always strictly thinking or planning for it, but really, that is what our lives have become. Long term plans for how to pay for houses, cars, children, college, retirement, old age, health care, etc. Our lives are entirely based on looking to tomorrow most of the time.
Perhaps the term "now" is inappropriate.
As Buddhists, we can say we are in the moment (the present) and that the moment is always changing. In that vein, we can say we are always in the present or moment.
If we say "now", it is the micromillisecond that is past before we can even begin the process to utter it.
Without arguing the scientific timing, which could place our perception oh so incrementally in the past, we are, for all intent and purpose, always in the present.
Being in the present is not the same as being in "now". Now being nothing more than a marker along the road or path.
It's all in the flux capacitor....
If someone reaches that point of (state of mind, perhaps) always being in the here and now, isn't that some sort of samhadi?
@David i was interested in that mention of the two truths. From my understanding TTT is really just a view and I have heard presentations of flaws to the view. At the same time everyone teaches them including my teacher and her teacher and they teach TTT for a reason in that this view is valuable. But it is often even admittedly presented almost as an antidote to a nihilistic view. Indeed if my teacher is correct even starting with the heart sutra (in the Mahayana prajnaparamita sutras) we have already done away with the idea that the universe is a reality moreso than a view. So for practical reasons the two truths might be useful so we don't think it is meaningless if we run someone over on the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svatantrika
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasaṅgika
I guess what I am saying about the two truths is that I don't think it disproves Nagarjunas analysis of time or suffering or non-self. Or rather I don't think Nagarjuna was preferring one of the two truths as you said. I think that already the skhandas are not the self. None of them from body to concsiousness. And thus suffering of a self that is not there is also illusory you could say. Sometimes I think people misunderstand the two truths and say that there is a 'relative self' that IS the skhandas and that relative self suffers. I think that's a misunderstanding. It makes me think that all of Nagarjunas analysis resulted in an "oh that's really cool idea of Nagarjuna and the prajnaparamita sutras but we are back to square one because the 'relative self' still suffers (and has time etc)"
Yet at the same time there must be some value of the two truths concepts as well. I have seen it in Dzogchen even where there is the saying of Padmasambhava that his view is vast as the sky but that he respects karma like fine grains of flour. At the same time Padmasambhava also said:
"When you realize that all that appears and exists to be your mind, there is no path of enlightenment apart from that... When samsaric existence is freed in itself, there is no awakened state to accomplish apart form that. Once you realize this, samsara and nirvana are not two."
~ Guru Rinpoche
Well, no why would it?
I never said Nagarjuna preferred one of the two truths as they work in harmony and neither negates the other. I think it confuses people when the objective truth is called absolute as many take that to mean the relative truth is less of a truth when it isn't.
I don't see it that way and feel the Heart Sutra sums it up well in light of TTT when the objective truth is called that and the word absolute is left out.
That sounds more like lazy mindedness rather than mindfulness of the present to me.
I try to limit that kind of thinking for practical purposes. It doesn't always work but it's like returning to the breath. We can be mindful of the present by planning for the future if we aren't supposed to be doing something else.
David do you have any links to where 'objective truth' is used in (a translation of) the heart sutra? Or what do you mean by 'objective truth'? Do you mean as compared to subjective?
Here is how I have heard:
http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/cul/cul03.php
I do not wish to sound disrespectful so we will likely have to agree to disagree because yes, in my view this is a misrepresentation.
Conventional yes. Not really here, no.
Objective yes. Absolute, only in conjunction with the relative.
I see it as the objective truth being the big picture and the subjective truth being perspective points.
I mean absolute truth is a confusing translation for objective truth.
Yes and I don't want to sound disrespectful to you either. I have just heard differently. That is just how I have heard. Did you read the link that I posted to? That describes pretty much exactly how I have heard because the author of what I linked, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamptso Rinpoche, is my own teacher's root guru.
I will look at the link shortly but it makes sense to me that separation is the illusion, not being here now.
I mean... How can one be deluded and not really exist at the same time?
Non-self doesn't mean no-self from my perspective.
So you are saying that if one is deluded then that shows that there is one there who is deluded?
You'll have to excuse me as I was up all night at the hospital with my daughter and worked all day and that question confused me.
Nouns are funny and self is more a verb in my understanding but yes, I would say the individual self must exist in order to be deluded even as it is impermanent.
It would be pretty tough to get tricked into existing but you probably aren't suggesting that.
Even the brief part of the link says there is a bewildered mind so how is mind distinguished from self?
Without the conventional self there would be no way for us to wake up to the objective or absolute truth as far as I can tell.
Basically what you are saying that there is some experience here? I agree there is an experience here.
And we can talk about it later. Hope your daughter is going to be ok.
Well if you go to access to insight and look for the Two Truths, Thanissaro Bhikkhu has a great explanation of TTT and he uses objective instead of absolute for the same reasons I have pretty much. I will link to it in a bit when can get to my computer.
Yes but Thanissaro Bhikkhu is not a Mahayana teacher. So he does not teach in light of Nagarjuna etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine
Origin and development[edit]
While the concept of the two truths is associated with the Madhyamaka school, its history goes back to the oldest Buddhism.
Early Indian Buddhism[edit]
Pali Canon[edit]
In the Pali canon, the distinction is not made between a lower truth and a higher truth, but rather between two kinds of expressions of the same truth, which must be interpreted differently. Thus a phrase or passage, or a whole sutta, might be classed as neyyattha or samuti or vohāra, but it is not regarded at this stage as expressing or conveying a different level of truth.
Nītattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: nītārtha), "of plain or clear meaning"[6] and neyyattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: neyartha), "[a word or sentence] having a sense that can only be guessed".[6] These terms were used to identify texts or statements that either did or did not require additional interpretation. A nītattha text required no explanation, while a neyyattha one might mislead some people unless properly explained:[7]
There are these two who misrepresent the Tathagata. Which two? He who represents a Sutta of indirect meaning as a Sutta of direct meaning and he who represents a Sutta of direct meaning as a Sutta of indirect meaning.[8]
Saṃmuti or samuti (Pāli; Sanskrit: saṃvṛti, meaning "common consent, general opinion, convention",[9] and paramattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: paramārtha), meaning "ultimate", are used to distinguish conventional or common-sense language, as used in metaphors or for the sake of convenience, from language used to express higher truths directly. The term vohāra (Pāli; Sanskrit: vyavahāra, "common practice, convention, custom" is also used in more or less the same sense as samuti.
Theravāda[edit]
The Theravādin commentators expanded on these categories and began applying them not only to expressions but to the truth then expressed:
The Awakened One, the best of teachers, spoke of two truths, conventional and higher; no third is ascertained; a conventional statement is true because of convention and a higher statement is true as disclosing the true characteristics of events.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine
Indian Mahayana Buddhism[edit]
Madhyamaka[edit]
The distinction between the two truths (satyadvayavibhāga) was fully developed by Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE) and the Madhyamaka school.[11] The Madhyamikas distinguish between loka-samvriti-satya, "world speech truth" c.q. "relative truth"[web 1] c.q. "truth that keeps the ultimate truth concealed,"[12] and paramarthika satya, ultimate truth.[web 1]
Loka-samvriti-satya can be further divided in tathya-samvrti or loka-samvrti, and mithya-samvrti or aloka-samvrti,[13][14][15][16] "true samvrti" and "false samvrti."[16][web 1][note 1] Tathya-samvrti or "true samvrti" refers to "things" which concretely exist and can be perceived as such by the senses, while mithya-samvrti or "false samvrti" refers to false cognitions of "things" which do not exist as they are perceived.[15][16][12][web 3][note 2][note 3]
The ultimate truth to Nagarjuna is the truth that everything is empty, sunyata, of an underlying essence.[11] Sunyata itself is also "empty," 'the emptiness of emptiness', which means that sunyata itself does not constitute a higher or ultimate "essence" or "reality.[22][23][note 4][note 5] Nagarjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth".[23] According to Siderits, Nagarjuna is a "semantic anti-dualist" who posits that there are only conventional truths.[23] Jay Garfield explains:
Suppose that we take a conventional entity, such as a table. We analyze it to demonstrate its emptiness, finding that there is no table apart from its parts [...] So we conclude that it is empty. But now let us analyze that emptiness […]. What do we find? Nothing at all but the table’s lack of inherent existence [...] To see the table as empty [...] is to see the table as conventional, as dependent.[22]
In Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā the two truths doctrine is used to defend the identification of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) with emptiness (śūnyatā):
The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.[25]
In Nagarjuna's own words:
The world-ensconced truth and the truth which is the highest sense.
9. Those who do not know the distribution (vibhagam) of the two kinds of truth
Do not know the profound "point" (tattva) in the teaching of the Buddha.
10. The highest sense of the truth is not taught apart from practical behavior,
And without having understood the highest sense one cannot understand nirvana.[26]
Nāgārjuna based his statement of the two truths on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta. In the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, the Buddha, speaking to the monk Kaccayana Gotta on the topic of right view, describes the middle Way between nihilsm and eternalism:
By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.[27]
According to Chattopadhyaya, although Nagarjuna presents his understanding of the two truths as a clarification of the teachings of the Buddha, the two truths doctrine as such is not part of the earliest Buddhist tradition.[28]
"There is no now".
In a sense I feel it is correct or until science can prove it to be fact. It is our own misinterpretation of "now" that makes us fail to see it's non-existence. Perhaps that is the practice. To understand it more, and to create less misinterpretations of it.
federica you provide a food for thought
thanks
Ok, then I'm having a brain fart at the moment. I could have sworn it was him and we had a thread @SpinyNorman started a few months ago where we got right into this.
I'll have to come at this again tomorrow.
And I am not saying Thanissaro is wrong on basis of 'not a Mahayana' just that it is relevant to be aware they are from different schools and so there is expected just to be differences in view.
If there is no now when do events actually take place? The past is made up of events that have already happened and the future is made up of events that will happen, so if there is no time when events actually happen then events are an illusion and so are the past and future because they are made up of events. Saying there is no now is nihilism, it means there is nothing.
saying that 'now', past and future, are notions doesn't necessarily indicate nihilism.
It is like saying our ideas about reality are wrong rather than saying there is no reality. It is an assumption to say that reality does not exist if our ideas about time are wrong.
Fair enough, there could be other ways time exists
The author of the article assumes the standard view of time though so at least from his point of view what he is proposing, I would say, is nihilism.
I mean 'past' and 'present' and 'future' are notions like 'hot' and 'cold'. Or 'north' and 'south'.
It's not a big non-descript ball. One of four features of the universe of truth (relayed by my teacher in a dharma talk and probably based on the tradition ie with scripture) is that it is finely organized and not a non-descript ball.
So when 'the primordial ground of being' is mentioned in Dzogchen do you think that has a beginning and end? Is 'the primordial ground of being' just this silly idea to be made a mockery of?
I'm not sure I really get where you're coming from as I'm not that familiar with Dzogchen philosophy. Maybe another way to say it is saying there is no now is nihilism, saying you can't find it is Madhyamika.
Also, no mockery intended, it's just one of my favorite lines from Doctor Who
I need to get to bed now, so anything else will have to wait until tomorrow
I'm not especially familiar with the Dzogchen philosophy either. but David and I were talking about Nagarjuna and the two truths and those are related to the Madhyamaka. What I know of the two truths is in this link http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/cul/cul03.php and is a thorough discussion of points in Buddhism where to access the two truths which includes a lot of ideas on how to understand reality including time. If you read the link it covers many views that are access points to understanding reality and they include the Dzogchen but also include the views from like the Abhidharma (I think called 'hearer's'? in link)
And the other three (of four) features of the truth are that there is flux, there is an emotional response to the truth (a heart so to speak ie we are alive and are examining), and that things come in and out of focus or manifest/non-manifest.
Perhaps now is the moment of death/emptiness/void when time as we know it ceases, both past and future. Perhaps the here and now everyone is wrangling over as a point in time and space is little more than a simulation/construct of a concept to reify the unstructured/non conceptual abstraction of sunyata. Perhaps, just so or_ just this_ are less limiting and harder to nail down in space and time or between past and future. The importance of now in a philosophy such as Buddhism stresses suchness rather than a time space relativity. It would follow then, that there being no now in the now is not what it is or what it is not. Just so.
And to edit my post above....
from the link I add this to point out the limitations of the discussion in the link:
Scientifically speaking, there is no now for the moment something is experienced eg. seeing a lightning or hearing a thunder, the original event has passed.
Experientially speaking, there is only individual moments of experience. A thought here, a feeling there, a memory appears, then a worry, a smell, a sound, a sight. All there is are fleeting moments.
In what branch of science is it postulated that there is no now? Can you cite the set of experiments from which this conclusion was reached?