Saturday 13 September 2008

Time, Good Riddance


Tick Tock, Tick Tock. Time. Our modern lives revolve around it. I schedule it down to the last minute of my day. I'm on a timetable, a timeline, a time crunch and when I'm out of time I am borrowing time. These events in my life I measure by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades. I spend so much time worrying about time I lose track of time.

We have seasons, cycles, terms and millenniums. All this measure of time, to measure all sorts of events all so we can use our time more wisely. There is a time for everything weather it's the best of times or worst of times. Time is money, we are told to value time, to make the most of time because we don't want to waste time!

Hurry up and wait, hurry up and get in line, hurry before we miss it. But time creeps along. Time flies as time waits for no man.

My modern life is enslaved around time. I look to the past to predict my future. I sniff the sweet air of tomorrow and feel the bitter cold of yesterday. What if, only if....

Wait!
Stop!
What if time isn't really real?
What if time is merely a concept?
What if time is just an object of mind?
What if time is nothing more than a measure of change?

But...... I spend so much time thinking about time. If time is merely some illusion of my mind...then what do we really have?

Allow me to take this moment to think about it.

4 comments:

  1. I've read recently in a physics magazine that time actually is a 'substance' within the universe. That brings up some really interesting implications. When I get more time (haha) I'll provide the source of the information.

    Oh.... and that podcast was awesome. Thank you very, very much. I was hoping to download some of the actual lectures at the event, but I couldn't find any of them. One of the best lines is where Maples is having trouble getting over the precept of "Do not kill" and being a police officer. One of the nuns present took her aside and told her that, "Who else would we want to carry a gun except somebody who will do it mindfully?"

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  2. LOL I'd certainly rather have a cop that is mindful than one who isn't if I needed help. Thanks for the comments!

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  3. I'm glad you liked the podcast - it really impressed me too. I'm very interested in the subject of being a practitioner who is very much 'in the world'. My practice for example includes dealing with a very difficult ex-wife.

    I think time is just the way we describe regular patterns we identify in impermanence.

    I would comment more but I don't have time.

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  4. Indeed, time is not of the essence.

    Great post

    PIkey

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