On Time

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#1 - 0, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 10:49 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 10:49 AM

On Time

Posts: 104 Join Date: 8/8/10 Recent Posts
In order to counteract the complexity of many of these concepts, I'd like to discuss time and its relationship to practice, i.e. becoming free from all of our concerns.

Time and space are inseperably linked. Time has to do with the birth, maturation, decay, and death of phenomena. It doesn't have substance in its own right; it merely is a relative way of measuring these periods of development. Infinite space, however, is nothing - no substance in its own right, and thus transcends time. So all time-based forms exist within the stage of one eternal moment, a moment which is inseperable from space.

Once you clearly understand that, you start to perceive from "one moment" rather than the accumulated "many moments" of worldly life. That is, you see all things come and go, and you appreciate them in their present incarnation. You slowly become aware that since this moment is eternal and it only exists as the present - that is, the present moment isn't really a moment at all, as it's the only one - there's nothing to compare it to - there is simply no point in searching for happiness in anything else, because anything other than eternity will not persist - it will not satisfy as it is time, and must come and go. It is the realization of, "What the hell am I waiting for?!" A sort of incredulity at the notion of not being happy now, since nothing else can do it for you.

This makes the process much simpler, since you see that everything is right now and there is no need to "get" anything in order to be happy any more. You still need to get things in the ordinary sense - I need money to pay for food, housing, etc. in order to survive and live comfortably, but as far as happiness and fulfillment is concerned, it's just foolish to wait on anything to provide it for me since I'm here now. This resolves a lot of the apparent paradoxes that you encounter on the path to freedom, as well as the resentment of being here or anything, because you see that everything is temporary, everything only happens now and only once, and is thus precious beyond compare. This is "Living in the vast scheme of things."

This also brings the realization of your fleshy frailty, your nakedness and your utter incognizance of what this is really all about. Knowing this makes naiveté almost automatic. Seeing that the past and future have no substance means that right now, you can utterly expose yourself as being simply what you are, who you are, without fear. It means things already are accepted for what they are, including yourself. It means literally being one with everything around you - no longer bound by the nental accumulation of time.

(PS: I am not AF. I'm simply a good distance down the path and have found this to be useful. I hope it's useful to you too.)

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-Kevin
Felipe C, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 4:28 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 4:27 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 221 Join Date: 5/29/11 Recent Posts
This is great.

I can see the implications in relationships, for example.

A relationship is not actual. It is just an abstract contract in the mind of two persons. That construct was generated and accepted after an accumulation of moments, which brings the feelings of intimacy and love. In a relationship, then, one has the illusion of having acquired something fixed (constructed with the cement of time) and, in the same way, expect predictable outcomes according that fixed idea. Thus, the members of a relationship expect loyalty, fidelity, constant contact, care from each other, and, when things don't get done as expected in that timeline, comes the feeling of betrayal and injustice, as if doing some things over time guarantees one the right to own that person and make demands to her/him: "how could you do this to me after all I did for you and for both of us?!"

In a relationship based on a sequential notion of time, one sees actions as investments in order to get and justify a fixed (and illusory) result. As things and persons are constantly changing, tension is guaranteed.

Then one can explain why they call it "companionship" in the AFT website. If I am with a person (any person), the only fact is that I am with a person right now, without expecting anything from him/her. There is freshness and liberation in this idea, because everything is new, unpredictable, unfixed, subject to wonder. Life is then more like a question and not like an answer.
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Shashank Dixit, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 8:48 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 8:48 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 282 Join Date: 9/11/10 Recent Posts
I'm taking the concept of time a bit further these days and it brings in felicity pretty quickly. The idea that I'm using is that time
does not even exist in the first place. It is only felt to exist.
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Jon T, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 9:31 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 9:31 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 401 Join Date: 12/30/10 Recent Posts
I'm taking the concept of time a bit further these days and it brings in felicity pretty quickly. The idea that I'm using is that time
does not even exist in the first place. It is only felt to exist.


Modern science would disagree with you. At any rate, i don't think it's necessary to deny time in order to appreciate now.
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#1 - 0, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 10:24 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 10:24 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 104 Join Date: 8/8/10 Recent Posts
Well time clearly exists, if by time you mean the cyclical progression and periodicity of phenomena. But the "Feeling" of time passing - the urgency, the "i need more more more!" is really what we're concerned with. That is not time at all, but just a dream spurred on by desire.
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Jon T, modified 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 11:14 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/5/12 11:14 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 401 Join Date: 12/30/10 Recent Posts
the cyclical progression and periodicity of phenomena


that has a very pleasing ring to it. though i think i'd put and/or between the two even if it does kill the poetry.
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Dauphin Supple Chirp, modified 12 Years ago at 3/7/12 8:33 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/7/12 8:33 AM

RE: On Time

Posts: 154 Join Date: 3/15/11 Recent Posts
Jon T:
I'm taking the concept of time a bit further these days and it brings in felicity pretty quickly. The idea that I'm using is that time
does not even exist in the first place. It is only felt to exist.


Modern science would disagree with you


Of course modern science would disagree with an idea that brings felicity quickly, without generating a profit for the industry. After all, Who do you think pays for modern science?
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Steph S, modified 12 Years ago at 3/19/12 2:46 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/19/12 2:38 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 672 Join Date: 3/24/10 Recent Posts
spacetime, ftw!

the way i understand the concept of time as it relates to how human beings experience it - relates to past, present, future. as in, we can't phenomenologically experience anything other than what is currently happening. watching a movie about wwii? yeah, you're watching something about an event that previously occurred... but the current phenomenological thing happening is seeing pictures and hearing sounds. having a memory about something that happened earlier in the day? the current phenomological thing happening is a mental image (representational only, as all things that were actually happening during the event the memory represents are not recreated).

this might seem like a no duh explanation, but i'm a fan of being as simple as possible when it comes to stuff that seems super abstract, but might not be as abstract as we think it is (more representations!)

my current experience of time is that anything that feels like time passing, isn't. for example, any semblance of impatience that makes one feel like time is rushing past, is simply a feeling of irritation - perhaps the heartbeat speeds up. perhaps the sped up heartbeat is mistaken as things feeling like they are moving faster. that's heart rate, though, not time. if a heart beats 50 times in one minute or 60 times in one minute, that's still just one minute. something pretty fun to think about - if a day (measured by revolutions around the sun) somehow changed to 25 revolutions - how do you think we would notice or not notice that change? whether or not rates change, there is no ending of time, as an infinite number of revolutions are possible (supposedly. i will not live forever so i can't actually confirm this. maybe ray kurzweil will know the answer to this if he manages to live forever.)
Felipe C, modified 12 Years ago at 3/20/12 2:24 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/20/12 2:24 PM

RE: On Time

Posts: 221 Join Date: 5/29/11 Recent Posts
The thing is, even knowing this fact intellectually, how this sense of self seems to keep itself out of reach, locked in a vault. Time after time, I'm getting back in my head and in my heart to this identity and its strategies of keeping safe: preoccupied not only to construct itself through time but also erecting huge walls around that construction in order to defend it from others and from myself.

This is why is important the investigation of the social identity, specially the need to belong, and its more insidious son: shame. As Tarin and Richard put it, shame is what locks naiveté away. Shame is the sentinel at the post, watching for the security of the walls, looking constantly at the past and the projections for the future; examining the performance of the identity; and looking for breaks in the wall and its causes. He tries to repair them using tools like terrible feelings, rationalizations, and condemns; he even sees as a menace that internal voice that tells him about the silliness of his methods. He is the man in charge of the security of the insecurity.

One then has to dismiss him, take away his neurotic sight and its weapons.

So being sensuous and felicitous is the intent to reach clarity and get through and beyond the fortress, but it's the investigation of the socialization and its sentinel feelings what facilitates the job of naively experiencing now.
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Jon T, modified 12 Years ago at 3/28/12 2:24 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/28/12 2:20 AM

RE: On Time

Posts: 401 Join Date: 12/30/10 Recent Posts
Felipe Cavazos:
This is why is important the investigation of the social identity, specially the need to belong, and its more insidious son: shame.


I'm beginning to think that shame is an automatic response to a job poorly done or a job not done at all. which fits right into the need to belong. which fits into both desire and fear. I don't think any amount of deconstruction can get rid of it completely but an appropriate amount of deconstruction can get rid of the vast majority of it and this can take days to years.

On time. I think that the only safe thing you can say about time is that it is something that either doesn't exist or something that can only be deduced and not actually observed. either way time doesn't exist in human actuality even if it is real.
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Jon T, modified 11 Years ago at 4/17/12 11:13 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 4/17/12 11:13 AM

RE: On Time

Posts: 401 Join Date: 12/30/10 Recent Posts
time is counted by how many moments of unpleasant tension are noticed and how many such moments are anticipated before the next stage of annica can begin. i.e. a movie may bring boredom and the next stage of annica would be leaving the theater.

ps: i deleted a prevous post of mine from this thread. just in case anyone was interested.