Time (and the horse it rode in on)

[manitou]

 

I'm currently reading a book that is making my head spin - It's Time, Space, and Knowledge, (A New Vision of Reality), by Tarthang Tulku.  I'd love to share part of it, to help me understand what the heck he's talking about.  I feel that it's important 

 

page 124

"It is possible to discover a 'lower time' which is the appearing and transforming of the subjective, objective, and peripheral components that constitute a 'situation'; also, 'lower time' is such that these components cannot be either successfully abstracted from the momentary situation or isolated from one another.  The abstraction and isolation or independence that are commonly felt are themselves components of what 'time' bears. This subtle but potent 'time' must be understood if we are ever to attain true harmony with our world and control over our own lives.

 

"The 'time' that operates our realm is the particular version of Great Time which is allowed through a specific focal setting on the openness of Great Space.'   This 'time' is 'local'; it is the dynamic expression for our lower space.  Local capacity for opening to reality is limited (in practice); so a realm appears with 'us' as the observers of a world of things and circumstances.  All this is actually given by 'time', but is seen rather as a world of isolates whose states and patterns of interaction can be conveniently indexed by ordinary time.  Local partitioning (by 'time' presents time in terms of units arranged in a past-present-future scheme.

 

"This past-present-future structure (and emphasis on moments) has the effect of appearing to cover all the possibilities for expression, all available time for storing events and for having experiences.  We cannot depart from this series; we are unable to break through the inexorable pattern of time 'marching on'.  Thus, we may feel both controlled and frustrated."

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

So - I've got a few questions.  I barely made it through high school.

 

1.  When he says that time is 'local', does that mean he is referring to something so mundane as a time zone?  Or is it more like 'this very moment is the same moment all over the world'.?

 

2.  Am I right in assuming that Great Time is temporally challenged?  That Great Time must morph into day-tight compartments to allow the circumstances to unfold?  I think the reference to a 'specific focal setting' is a good way of putting it - our range of physical experience is limited by what our senses tell us.

 

This is of particular interest to me because of the type of deep healing that I do.  It's done by tapping the memory from childhood that got the snowball originally rolling, and drawing the plumb line to today and why they're manifesting what they're manifesting.  To do an imprint which reverses the original memory, I have to 'see' the dynamics I'm dealing with - more often than not, I'll have to 'transcend' the factor of time, just like the author said, and see the person's dynamics without the interference of time.  All laid out there on the same table....

 

Any further understanding from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by manitou

[natural]

My quick and limited understanding is "local time" is what I am currently present to, involved in.

I struggle to understand that different levels or planes of time exist. 

My ignorance limits me, I hope it does not you.

[manitou]

2 hours ago, natural said:

My quick and limited understanding is "local time" is what I am currently present to, involved in.

I struggle to understand that different levels or planes of time exist. 

My ignorance limits me, I hope it does not you.

 

The book is a mind bending experience because of the vastly multiple planes of both time and space.  I just got to the 'time' section.  My mind is still boggled from the 'space' section.

 

Our ignorance doesn't limit us, I don't think.  I think the thing that actually limits us is our conditioning.

 

[mostly_empty]

Not an expert, and haven't read the book....

 

But 1) I would take (consistent with his other writings and other sources) that he is very much thinking about local in the sense of close to and from a particular vantage point. I would say close to "you", but "you" are not unified in that sense if you are talking to this flavour of buddhist. If you think of yourself as being a particular point of focus of a greater possibility (or the entire universe), not as a self-existing being, then local really refers to what is perceived by the focal point that is you.

 

2) Great time is the "space" in which all local, or local-ish, temporal orderings of perceptions can unfold. Again, if you were an orthodox buddhist you wouldn't want to assert that it is a clock-time of a physical universe. That is not what we experience, although we can certainly engineer things that work on that basis. What is experienced, the locality of our experience", is arising and falling. But experiences which transcend time - happy samadhi everyone! - still take place within a potential temporal space. Overcoming Great Time would be, according to theory, part of enlightenment. I wouldn't know, myself!

 

I hope this helps, not really my cup of tea, but I did spend a little time thinking about the buddhist points of view during my mis-spent youth.

 

Cheers

[manitou]

17 hours ago, mostly_empty said:

Not an expert, and haven't read the book....

 

But 1) I would take (consistent with his other writings and other sources) that he is very much thinking about local in the sense of close to and from a particular vantage point. I would say close to "you", but "you" are not unified in that sense if you are talking to this flavour of buddhist. If you think of yourself as being a particular point of focus of a greater possibility (or the entire universe), not as a self-existing being, then local really refers to what is perceived by the focal point that is you.

 

2) Great time is the "space" in which all local, or local-ish, temporal orderings of perceptions can unfold. Again, if you were an orthodox buddhist you wouldn't want to assert that it is a clock-time of a physical universe. That is not what we experience, although we can certainly engineer things that work on that basis. What is experienced, the locality of our experience", is arising and falling. But experiences which transcend time - happy samadhi everyone! - still take place within a potential temporal space. Overcoming Great Time would be, according to theory, part of enlightenment. I wouldn't know, myself!

 

I hope this helps, not really my cup of tea, but I did spend a little time thinking about the buddhist points of view during my mis-spent youth.

 

Cheers

 

 

I'll bet my youth was every bit as mis-spent as yours was  

 

I am in awareness of the buddhist thought you speak of.  I'm trying to pin down a particular spin of 'local' that is used in metaphysical writings.  I can't remember at the moment how it applies - but it's there somewhere.  It's not quite 'local' in the traditional sense.  It's a different dynamic.  It was used by the old metaphysicians of the 1880's - 1940's.

 

I think you're right about the point of focus.  One of the things Tulku talks about is this phenomena being a result of our point of focus.  The inference being that there are countless other points of focus that we can't sense.  I can't remember where I saw this - maybe Avatamsaka Sutra - "all of time and space is yours".  I think of that often.

 

One of the ways of developing the sense of Great Space or Great Time is to remember that whenever you're looking into the eyes of another human or some other critter - that you are gazing into the eyes of 'god', the Awareness.  Even if that person is less than impeccable, you're still looking into the eyes of the creator/maintainer/planner, another version of You.

 

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

I like the Taoist notions of time and timelessness, existence and non existence. the complementary and opposite components of the eternal.

 

According to Taoism, and Chinese thought in general, the cycles of nature are movements of qi as it is shaped by alternating patterns of yin and yang and the Five Phases.  Qi moves outward to create or be transformed, and returns inward to regenerate.  Time likewise moves through regular cycles, such as day to night, spring to summer to winter to fall.  The moon, stars, and planets also move in regular cycles.  All of these cycles are regenerative: day turns into night, night turns back into day; spring moves toward winter, and winter leads back to spring. 

 

Time and timing is great tool. When we work with the time all is well. When we do things at the wrong time things go sideways. 

 

We are perishable and eternal at the "same time".

 

I don't understand time as always continuing in one direction because it would become exhausted and die out.

 

[natural]

Well, if nothing else results in this for me, I will be a bit balder (as a result of scratching my head, lol). Thanks  ;) 

[doc benway]

I also like to think about time.

I’ve come to feel that time is not something that moves. Rather time is an overlay, a way of expressing and measuring the movement we experience in our bodies, mind, and environment.

I share the challenge to time “moving” in one direction. I suspect the directionality of time relates to our unique human condition, not to the nature of time itself.

There’s an interesting though challenging book that touches on this called Time’s Arrow and Archimedes Point by Huw Price, recommended.

 

[manitou]

1 hour ago, steve said:

I also like to think about time.

I’ve come to feel that time is not something that moves. Rather time is an overlay, a way of expressing and measuring the movement we experience in our bodies, mind, and environment.

I share the challenge to time “moving” in one direction. I suspect the directionality of time relates to our unique human condition, not to the nature of time itself.

There’s an interesting though challenging book that touches on this called Time’s Arrow and Archimedes Point by Huw Price, recommended.

 

 

That's the way Tulku refers to it - as overlays.  He also analogizes  the process to individual cells in a movie reel.  The individual cells, if I understand him correctly, are as you say - almost a photograph, a situation, a moment in time.  What I wonder, is if those individual cells (which aren't a continuous flow) are put together by our brains to make it 'appear' that time is moving along smoothly.  Just as our eyes 'fill in' the blind spots in our vision.   Our brains are really talented about making things make sense when our input doesn't actually give us sufficient information.

 

I like to think also about the fact that, if it weren't for the fact that this planet and other heavenly bodies were 'rotating', there wouldn't be any sense of time at all.  Sometimes I wonder if the fact that half the planet is dark as the other half is light is a way that the planet sleeps, always energized because of the periods of rest.  A yin-yang of the planetary brain.

 

So, as I see it, rotation is the key.  And that rotation is a remnant of the big bang (if that is still the theory?).  And the big bang was an idea coming to fruition, the accumulated ideation bursting forth and supplying the energy for the planetary rotation.  

 

How incredible this all is.

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by manitou

[helpfuldemon]

Time is time, for all things.  All things experience the same passage of time.  

[old3bob]

Time is different for different order of beings,  for instance the lifetime of an insect may be measured in days or weeks on the human time scale, while our lifetimes as human beings may be measured in days or weeks on the time scale of very long lived beings in the higher astral,  and the lifetime of the higher astral beings may be measured in days or weeks by beings in the god realms, then there is the lifetime or cycle of the universe and Lord Brahma or whatever name one gives the creator God,  cosmic creation, or "The One" is of the longest lifetime. ("the First and the Last")  Thus  no particular so called "immortal" being of subtle form can live longer than the lifetime of the universe which also comes and goes.  Lastly the Supreme Being, who is not born and who is also "the eater of death" meaning death can not impact it, is the only true immortal per-se;  so to be the truly immortal is to find and know That which is beyond any relative identities in any scales of time.

Edited February 1, 2021 by old3bob

[doc benway]

19 hours ago, manitou said:

 

That's the way Tulku refers to it - as overlays.  He also analogizes  the process to individual cells in a movie reel.  The individual cells, if I understand him correctly, are as you say - almost a photograph, a situation, a moment in time.  What I wonder, is if those individual cells (which aren't a continuous flow) are put together by our brains to make it 'appear' that time is moving along smoothly.  Just as our eyes 'fill in' the blind spots in our vision.   Our brains are really talented about making things make sense when our input doesn't actually give us sufficient information.

 

 

When I look at my own experience, what I find is multiple adjacent blocks of activity of the mind, linked by this concept of time. These blocks are periods of disconnection from the present moment, whether by thought, perceptual experience, emotion, concentration, whatever; linked together by awareness of the changes that occurred during such periods. These changes can be measured by counting in a steady fashion, which is time.

 

Formal meditation practice highlights this pattern and allows us to dissect it and change our relationship to it.

In my tradition of meditation we cultivate the ability to maintain connection to the present moment in a smooth, continuous fashion. There is often discussion about the role of thinking and not thinking during meditation. 

In my most stable and unbounded experiences of meditation, the common thread seems to be not whether thought is present or absent but whether awareness is smooth and continuously connected to the present moment irrespective of thought as it comes and goes. That is, the thoughts may be there or not, attention to sensory stimuli may be there or not, but whatever arises does not lead to discontinuity of awareness. As this skill develops, all sorts of things in my experience change profoundly - the very sense of time, space, solidity, self, other, etc...

 

I don't mean to suggest any authoritative statements about what meditation and time are or how they are related, just sharing experience of my practice.  I read part of the book you reference some years ago. A copy was in the library at the retreat center I frequent (pre Covid of course).

Wonderful book, perhaps I need to finish it someday.

 

[doc benway]

17 hours ago, helpfuldemon said:

Time is time, for all things.  All things experience the same passage of time.  

 

How do you know that?

My own experience of the passage of time changes frequently and dramatically.

[doc benway]

20 hours ago, natural said:

Well, if nothing else results in this for me, I will be a bit balder (as a result of scratching my head, lol). Thanks 

And as a result of the passage of time!

[natural]

Lol!

[manitou]

2 hours ago, old3bob said:

 Thus  no particular so called "immortal" being of subtle form can live longer than the lifetime of the universe which also comes and goes.  Lastly the Supreme Being, who is not born and who is also "the eater of death" meaning death can not impact it, is the only true immortal per-se;  so to be the truly immortal is to find and know That which is beyond any relative identities in any scales of time.

 

 

You emphasized the word 'particular'.  Do you think of the immortal being as having a separate form from you?

[Limahong]

32 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

You emphasized the word 'particular'.  Do you think of the immortal being as having a separate form from you?

 

 

 

Hi Barbara,

 

I just have a cursory glance of page 124 of this book you have shared...

 

Time, Space, and Knowledge, (A New Vision of Reality), by Tarthang Tulku.

 

Tarthang Tuiku's thoughts are too deep for me.

 

But your thread has me thinking in a 'particular' way ~

 

The difference between 'universal' and 'local' time.

 

For me ~ 'universal' time belongs to Nature re sunrise and sunset...

 

 

 

'Local' time is 'particular' (specific) to each of us.

 

Now it is time for me to sleep.

 

Good night.

 

- Anand

 

 

[RobB]

Local can mean something quite specific in physics when related to a frame of reference. Perhaps he means 'local' with reference to time as this page explains 'local' in reference to space http://www.kwon3d.com/theory/transform/refrm.html

[Limahong]

48 minutes ago, RobB said:

 

Local can mean something quite specific in physics when related to a frame of reference.

 

 

 

Hi RobB

 

Mutual respect for all things 'local'?

 

 

 

 

 

Yes/no?

 

 

- Anand

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Limahong
Enhancement

[RobB]

@Limahong, to be honest, I have no idea. I've only just got your 'particular' joke...if, indeed, I have got it.

[Limahong]

3 minutes ago, RobB said:

I have no idea. I've only just got your 'particular' joke. 

 

It is good to be lightheartedly honest. I appreciate.

 

[old3bob]

3 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

You emphasized the word 'particular'.  Do you think of the immortal being as having a separate form from you?

 

from each other as in or per subtle or soul bodies, so yes, particular souls are still separate or differentiated  beings to whatever degree, including the souls of  gods/goddess...btw I've been fortunate to see that thus I'm not speculating about it.

Edited February 1, 2021 by old3bob

[helpfuldemon]

4 hours ago, steve said:

 

How do you know that?

My own experience of the passage of time changes frequently and dramatically.

 

You may experience the passage of time differently, but that doesnt mean it doesnt pass at the same speed and method for all things.

[natural]

I don't know for sure, but truly expect there is some plasticity in time.

Just as gravity is different, on different planes, places, planets etc..

So time maybe plastic relative to its local conditions.

 

 

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, helpfuldemon said:

 

You may experience the passage of time differently, but that doesnt mean it doesnt pass at the same speed and method for all things.

 

That’s just the clock mechanism or whatever arbitrary standard we set.

Defining time is tricky and relative, at least for me.