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Hi all, (excuse my english - its my second language) this is my first personal contribution to the forum, I picked the Topic of Time because it is very interessting to me. Last year I had the great opportunity to receive teachings on Shantidevas "Bodhisattvacharyavatara" three times - two times with a focus on the 9th chapter, each of those teachings lasted for about a month, sometimes less. I would like to share one very interessting AhAAA moment I had while receiving these teaching (a little buddhist geeky intellectual orgasm). Madhyamika has a very beautiful way of dealing with time - for this school of thought when you say time you say reincarnation and when you say reincarnation you say time so I for one still believe in having a masala chai tomorrow in the morning - I still believe in Time. If I belive in Tomorrow - I unknowingly believe in reincarnation or a cuntinuum of conciousness Now for people who have tastes of meditation - Time is not such a fixed Idea anymore, because when one tastes Nowness Awereness (Keith Dowmans translation for Ye She) Time is seen to be a construct of the mind thats exactly what madhyamika is saying - reincarnation (time) is realtive truth, functional and important but realtive because why? The continuity of Consciousness is a mere imputation - an unborn phenomena (like all phenomena) that arises like a dream. If one starts to investigate no such thing like a continuity of mind exists -> ultimately the commentators on the ninth chapter of shantideavas classic (Khnepo Kunphel or Ju Mipham Rinpoche) use the analogy of the mala to talk about this: A mala is a compound phenomena, a collection made from 108 or 111 round stones or seeds or whatever and a string - each one of them doesnt constitute a mala and a collection of 108 "not malas" doesn't have the power to produce a real substantial mala. The beads themselves can be analysed down to its smallest particles that can be further divided into the 10 direction etc. they are shown in ultimate analyses to be like space its the same with our feeling of continuity of consciousness so Time and Reincarnation are just a figment or hallucination of our mind. I always had a problem with the Idea of reincarnation - I said to myself "Oh well its to keep us social good hearted animals - that doesn't hurt" - this explanations of my lamas (that I tried to share here in a much much shorter and easy to understand way) helped me alot in understanding basic buddhist nondualism and the conception of time/reincarnation in that light I hope its some food for thought