Observe in your own experience the flow of time from one moment to the next. If the mind is calm and alert, you may notice that between two initially observed moments, lie other, intermediate moments…
At first, I settled in to ‘catch’ a moment, an event in time that I could establish as the starting moment, but every time I tried to catch a moment there was another. I saw that things were moving too fast.
Later, I took up a position that seemed to alternate for awhile between observer, and thinker being carried away with the content of thoughts, feelings and images. After awhile, space became a feature I was more aware of, and that simple space recognition was a more relaxed and open perspective. I saw that I had a thought and it would end, and there would be space before another thought came up. I realized I could interpret that space between thoughts as a space between moments; and that those thoughts were events marking time. Looking into the space between thought revealed previously unnoticed events or levels of activity; a multiplicity of depth of subtle sensual activity in different forms that sometimes opened to a very full ocean of sensual form, but not often. I realized that the discrete moments that I thought divided up my life was just structuring, for there was what seemed a vast depth of continuous activity there.
I realized that the discrete moments that I thought divided up my life was just structuring, for there was what seemed a vast depth of continuous activity there.
As to the question of the self and linear time, I was thinking the self performs as a device that functions as a position on a stream of sensual and mental data, from which to measure as if. The very nature of this device is to act as if separate, to position me-here-now, from other than this. Once me-here-now, takes a position, it’s by necessity in relation to other, you-it-then, positions. With these positions a field of interactions, interrelationships, and inter-dependencies continue to refer in space. But I saw directly how these positions are devices on a moment in a stream of mental data, and are not fixed, they time-out as new input streams in. The me-here-now, must take new fixes or positions (moments), to maintain the continuous referral activities that act as a partial bridge or link from the previous moment. But the me-here-now is moving too, and not fixed either. Every new moment involves a new fix along structured points, as well as a new me-here-now point. I saw that where I structure these points establishes the lineage of the self and its story, and I was reminded of this resonating quote: “A lineage of previously arisen circumstances refers forward in a specified way, transmitting possibilities along a measured-out continuum.” (Dynamics of Time and Space, p.80)
“A lineage of previously arisen circumstances refers forward in a specified way, transmitting possibilities along a measured-out continuum.” Tarthang Tulku, Dynamics of Time and Space, page 80.