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according to buddhism is time linear or non linear
For example does time flow past, present and future
or does time flow so you can jump from the future to the past
or does time flow so you can jump from the future to the past
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Time is the present. Past and Future do not exist.
Or, if they do, they are mere concepts in our minds.
The only moment which truly tangibly exists, is this one.
Ooops, missed it..... don't worry, here comes another one.....:D
We need 'Chronological' time so that we may keep our days in order. Even Buddhist monasteries have an events calendar, and plan retreats and festival days.... but in essence, Time is now, with regard to Buddhism.
And that's all you need to focus on.
The present moment.
Also..
No, meditating won't help you travel to the future.
Yes, I have tried.
I would tend to agree with Federica, as far as the practicalities that we face on a day to day basis are concerned. I don't know of any living Buddhist adept that is able to travel in time. As practitioners at our level, it's pretty much what would be seen in classical Buddhist thought as "idle and pointless speculation". The terms "idle" and "pointless" are not necessarily pejorative in this instance, but they are meant to be emphatic in order to return our focus to the present moment and the practicalities we face day-to-day.
I would point out, though, that one Buddhist scholar (who by no means speaks for all of Buddhism, but is well-known and gets a lot of media and other attention), His Holiness Dalai Lama, is quite interested in quantum physics and quantum mechanics (as evidenced by his book The Universe in a Single Atom). HHDL has said on a number of occasions that if some valid scientific finding refutes any key tenets of Buddhism, then Buddhism needs to be re-evaluated in the light of that, and he has said that if a scientific finding refutes Buddhism completely, he will have no choice but to abandon Buddhism.
My point is that there is speculation among quantum theorists and especially superstring theorists that movement in time is theoretically possible, and that there is a sense in which time is nonlinear. So if someone like HHDL (for me at least) finds some things in quantum physics/mechanics very plausible, by extension he might think that think that movement in time in a nonlinear way is plausible as well.
But I don't know of any Buddhist adepts or anyone else that is currently able to move freely from present to future to past and so forth. So from a practical point of view it doesn't matter. There are lots of other things in Buddhism that need to be paid attention to first. For example, if a practitioner is experiencing the discomfort and dissatisfaction of samsara, even if he or she were able to move about in time freely they'd still be experiencing dukkha.
It's like Pema Chodron says- "wherever you go, there you are". Even if you can travel in time, you'll still have the dukkha.
When I asked him if he really meant this, he laughed and said that he would take some convincing. "First I would try metaphor," he said (his secretary had to find the word "metaphor" for him). He was delighted when I told him that Saint Augustine had said more or less the same thing about the Bible.
P.S. I know this little reminiscence is off-topic - we didn't, alas, discuss time, although we were supposed to have 15 minutes which actually lasted 45.
Strictly impossible.
but if you manage it, do let us know how it went.
I think a better summary Bill is that it is completely Irrelevant to Buddhadharma.
If a practitioner is working toward releasing attachment and aversion they would have no desire to time travel. There would be no attachment to the past and no aversion to the present or future, not that they exist anyways.
Pretty much.
I don't think the Buddha thought much about this because he was interested in two separate things that we routine mix into one.
These are causation and experience.
Causally, dependent origination is anisotropic, meaning it doesn't distinguish between any direction of time. This may seem counter intuitive, but if you look at the four conditionals of DO its clear to see how the distinction of direction is from the perspective of any selected cause or event.
Apart from some references in the Koran and the Book of Isiah, time travel doesn't really enter human thought until the nineteenth century, so I imagine the Buddha simply didnt entertain the notion - unlike rebirth etc issues its not actually a fruitless dharmic discussion.
The possibility of time travel is compatible with Dharma, whether or not its compatible with the laws of physicists another matter.
namaste
Now, back to the topic at hand: does the lack of the passage of time mean 'time travel' isn't strictly possible? In itself, I don't think so. Even though time itself is illusory, we still exist in the moment at hand, so what's to say, theoretically, that we couldn't develop a way to exist in a moment that has already existed or has yet to exist?
Only time will tell :crazy:
BB
That's not actually true. There are things like K meson decay that are anisotropic:)
They are separate issues. TimeTravel is to do with the structure of space and time and the laws of nature, the passage of time is to do with the experience of events.
If you mean some river that flows metaphor, then yes, that's an illusion. if you mean events connected consistently by causation, that doesn't seem an illusion...
No we don't, for science and dharma. It might be better to say, all that exists is the moment...
Yes, by time travel. That time travel is possible is theoretically isn't really up for debate based on current science and philosophy. Whether its logically or practically possible is another kettle of sardines.
Namaste
I must confess, I'm a little fuzzy on the subject
Well said.
*:o yeah, I'm a sucker for smileys and clever formatting
Just as you pointed out, I was hoping to show how they are different issues entirely. By saying time travel is theoretically possible, I was referring to the Buddhist context of the present moment being the all of existence; like you said, plenty of logical and practical challenges arise when even considering the possibility of actually doing this.
Now, while we're loosely referring to the quantum world and nature of the universe, please indulge my ramblings in the tangent of my choice. I'm not nearly as well-versed in the intricacies of quantum theory and such as I would like to be, but I think there's a huge danger in becoming muddled in rigidity and the status quo in the current search for understanding.
I'll point to wave-particle duality or the transfer of 'particles' as causing the four fundamental forces as great examples of what I think is a severe lack of 'thinking outside the box' in science today. We've attributed all the phenomena we see at the quantum to things we are used to dealing with, such as particles and waves. But as it stands, my gut tells me that there is a construct yet unimagined that can explain the workings of matter, energy, etc - something so strange that we can't help but see a particle in the context of a particle and a wave in the context of a wave, because we haven't ever known anything else.
Of course, we can agree that the current quantum model works very well at explaining the quantum world; but if you remember, for a while, the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the solar system was more accurate than the Copernican heliocentric model. As it is often said, exact science is not an exact science; scientific truths are merely the most accurate models that exist at present. I suspect that the Planck/Heisenberg limit of observation may soon forever limit our ability to test and verify our models of the small, smaller and smallest.
BB
:eek2:
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden."
T. S. Eliot - Four Quartets
That's hot :rarr:
Bill did you not understand when it was said that it was not relevant ?
If you asked Buddha this he would probley give you a sermon about paying appropriate attention to freeing oneself from samsara and not speculating on something that has no bearing on your life.
So time goes both ways is what you're saying, then...? :crazy:
BB
"Live more and more in the present, you will find it stretches infinitely beyond the limitations of past and future"
Mu.