On Buddhist views of devouring time

·期刊原文
On Buddhist views of devouring time

John M. Koller
Philosophy East and West 24, no. 2, April 1974.
(c) by The University Press of Hawaii
p.201-208

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p.201

In thinking about Buddhist views of time and
temporality it is important to remember that Buddhism
is essentially a practical quest aimed at overcoming
dukkha and not a system or set of systems of
metaphysics. In the Majjhima Nikaaya, Sutta 63, the
Buddha responds to Maalu.nkyaaputta's request for
metaphysical theories with the parable of the man
wounded by a poisoned arrow, drawing the conclusion
that constructing metaphysical systems is not the way
to overcome dukkha. Referring to his refusal to
engage in the metaphysical speculation necessary to
answer Maalu.nkyaaputta's questions about the
eternality or finitude of the world, relation between
the body and soul, and the possibility of life after
death, the Buddha says, "And why, Maalunkyaaputta,
have I not elucidated thus? Because Maalunkyaaputta,
this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamentals
of religion, nor tends to aversion, absence of
passion, cessation, quiescence, the supernatural
faculties, supreme wisdom, and nirvana; therefore
have I not elucidated it?"(1) Further, in Sutta 72 of
the Majjhima Nikaaya, Vaccha, a wandering ascetic,
tries to get the Buddha to commit himself to a
metaphysical position on these same questions and is
told, with respect to each of the suggested
metaphysical theories, that the theory "... is a
jungle, a wilderness, a puppet-show, a writhing, and
a fetter, and is coupled with misery, ruin, despair,
and agony, and does not tend to aversion, absence of
passion, cessation, quiescence, knowledge, supreme
wisdom and nirvana."(2)
This point, that not only is metaphysics merely
useless but that it is actually harmful to the quest
for nirvaa.na, made so forcefully by the Buddha in
these discourses needs to be kept in mind when
discussing Buddhist views of time and temporality,
for, as I shall maintain, time is a theoretical
construct to explain temporal becoming, and therefore
is itself a metaphysical view,the elaboration of
which was implicitly discouraged in Buddhism by the
Buddha himself.
To the extent this negative attitude toward
metaphysics was characteristic of Buddhism, one would
not expect to find an elaborate metaphysics of time.
By the same reasoning, when metaphysical theories
were put forth-such as the views of Dharmatraata,
Gho.saka, Buddadeva, and Vasumitra examined by
McDermott-one is not surprised to find other Buddhist
philosophers such as Saantarak.sita and Kamalasila
issuing sharp rejoinders, which as McDermott points
out, charge these Sarvaastivaadins with having
embraced the total existence of everything in a
changeless, timeless moment as a result of having
taken the dharmas of analysis to be ontological
existents. This is the root of their
"everything-exists theory" (the literal meaning of
sarvaastivaada), and having made this mistake they as
exemplified by Dharmatraata--try to account for
temporal becoming in terms of changing appearances.
But having

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already effectively denied change by postulating
unchanging being as the basic reality, they get not
real, but only apparent, becoming. In effect, they
have denied temporal becoming.
Now, since the implicit rejection of temporal
becoming found in Sarvaastivaada is obviously at odds
with the Buddhist emphasis on becoming and cannot be
squared with the centrality of the principle
expressing the inner connectedness of temporal
becoming, known as pratiitiyasamutpaada within
Buddhism, it is considered an erroneous view by
Sautraantikas, Yogaacaarins, and Maadhymikas. To come
to grips with the question of whether or not the
Sarvaastivaadins have a mistaken view of time and
becoming requires an analysis of these concepts. In
the following paragraphs I will develop an analysis
of time and temporal becoming which I do not wish to
attribute to any historical person or school, but
which I feel squares with the already mentioned
Buddhist aversion to metaphysics and also with the
importance attached to a process or becoming view of
existence and the centrality of pratityasamutpaada.
If the account seems inspired by Naagaarjuna, I admit
such inspiration, but this is not the place to argue
the historical question of Naagaarjuna's views on the
subject, though I will suggest later that the thrust
of this analysis is not at odds with Naagaarjuna's
views.
Time is generally understood to have something to
do with change, as evident in the common view that
changes take place in time. In fact, it has been a
historical commonplace to move from the view that
changes take place in time to the view that time is a
container of changing entities. This, in turn, has
led to questions concerning the kind of thing this
container is, and whether or not this thing is itself
contained by a prior time. As has been done
historically-in both East and West--one can continue
to generate not only an unlimited number of times as
containers for previous times but also a host of
philosophical problems in trying to account for the
natures of these times, and the relationships between
these various times, on the one hand, and between any
of these times and changing reality, on the other.
However, this is a well-known story to anyone
familiar with the history of philosophy, and if, as I
believe most Buddhist philosophers do, you view the
various historical attempts to take time to be part
of the ontological furniture of the universe as a
mistake, then the important thing is to see the
genesis of this mistake.
If we begin with the common view that changes
take place in time and that therefore time is, in
some sense, a container of change, it is the
innocentsounding phrase "changes take place in time"
that we must examine first. The phrase suggests that
there are two things---change and time. But as soon
as one reflects that the concept of change already
involves the notion of time in some sense-- for
change logically involves succession, which is a
time-laden concept--it is obvious that either the
concept of time is already contained in the concept
of change as a logical feature or part--in which case
there is a

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redundancy in saying that changes take place in time,
or else the "time" implicit in change is different
than the "time" in which changes take place. If the
"time" in which changes occur is the same "time" that
is implicit in the concept of change and if that is
the only concept of change recognized, it would seem
that to take time as a container of change is a
mistake. The source of the mistake is the
entification of the conceptual elements present in
the elucidation of change: The mistake consists in
assigning ontological \ status to features of
conceptual construction. On this account it might be
said that although change is real, time is not. This,
however, is misleading for it suggests that time is
understood to be something more than the experienced
succession in temporal becoming. If, on the other
hand, at least two different senses of time are
recognized--one the temporal becoming or succession
involved in change, and the other, the container in
which temporal becoming takes place--one is faced
with the problem of relationship between these two
supposedly different but related temporal concepts.
Again, either one or both of these "times" might be
thought to be fundamental ontological entities, or
else features of the-conceptual ordering of
experience.
In working toward a resolution of these issues it
might be worthwhile to note that apparently everyone
agrees that "time," in any of its senses, involves an
ordering--an ordering of "nows" and "thens." This
starting point does not enable one to escape the
charge of circularity, for "then" and "now" are
clearly temporal concepts. But it would be quite
unreasonable to expect an analysis of time to reduce
time to something nontemporal, for while circularity
would be avoided, the reduction of the temporal to
the nontemporal would be committed. Neither will this
starting point resolve the question of whether the
ordering involved is a part of reality independently
of the workings of the human mind, or whether this
ordering is a mental construction placed on a reality
that in itself is devoid of such ordering. Since the
history of debate between realists and idealists--in
both East and West--makes clear that even if this
issue is capable of resolution, it certainly has not
yet been resolved, it might be best to start from a
position that is neutral in this respect. Fortunately
such a neutral position is available, for both
realist and idealist begin with the admission that
human experience reveals certain orderings in its
contents. Reality as experienced is shown--by
self-conscious inspection of this experience--to
contain at least temporal and spatial orderings. The
contents of experience reveal that some items are
"here" rather than "there," and "then" rather than
"now." If this be granted, it would seem that the
proper place to begin an analysis of time and
temporality is with the terms and relations "now" and
"then." These terms correspond to the temporal
ordering found in experience, and to provide a
rational explanation of these terms and the implied
relations, a conceptual system with certain
theoretical terms sufficiently powerful to generate a
satisfactory explanation is required.

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The theoretical term that suggests itself is "time,"
which means that, for the sake of clarity, some other
term is to be used for the experienced "now-then"
ordering. The proposal is that we use the term
"temporality" to refer to the experienced "now-then,"
which is not assignable ontologically to either a
mental or extramental realm, because it is prior to
these categories, and that we use "time" as a
theoretical term, to cover the temporal terms and
relations as these are understood conceptually.
One of the advantages of this analysis of time
and temporality is that it enables us to recognize
the universality of temporal experience as well as
the particularity of varying concepts of time.
Temporal experience is universal because
temporality is an aspect or feature of human
experience, and all experience contains ordered
"nows" and "thens." On the other hand, there are many
ways the temporal dimension of experience can be
approached conceptually in an attempt to arrive at a
theoretical understanding of it. Since, on this
analysis, time represents the conceptual
understanding and explanation of temporality, there
can be as many "times" as there are different
theoretical analyses of temporality as an integral
feature of experience. Viewing time as a theoretical
construct used to represent the interconnections
among the temporal relations found in experience (and
between these temporal relations and others, for
example, spatial) in order to achieve a rational
explanation of the temporal dimension of experience,
it is reasonable to expect that religious, moral,
political, etc. concerns present in the cultural
conditioning of the theorist will influence both the
sense of which aspects of temporal experience are
most important, and, therefore, central to the
theory, and the criteria of adequacy for the
explanation. In this sense time is a culturally
determined construct.
Before making some comparisons between
Naagaarjuna's views and the above analysis, it is
worth noting the similarity between this analysis and
the view expressed by van Fraassen in his recent book
on Western views of space and time. After reviewing
various problems of the theory of time he says, "Our
conclusion is that it is not necessary to say that
there is such a thing as time, but that if we do, the
best possible answer to the further question what
kind of thing it is, is that it is a logical
space."(3) By "logical space" he means something
similar to what I intend by the characterization
"conceptual construct to afford theoretical
understanding," as is clear from his remark, "We
characterize the nation of logical space by saying
that a logical space is a certain mathematical
construct used to represent certain conceptual
interconnections."(4)
This view of time as a conceptual construct or
logical space fits in well with Naagaarjuna's views
on the subject. His analysis of time in chapter 19 of
the Muulamadhyamakakaarikaa is, as Kalupahana notes,
directed primarily

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at the Sarvaastivaadin, who took time to be an
ontological container of change and divided the
container into three segments: past, present, and
future. The argument in chapter 19 that the
Sarvaastivaadin view that past time, present time,
and future time are three ontological entities is
fundamentally untenable, is concisely and accurately
presented by Kalupahana. However, even though chapter
19, taken by itself, supports Kalupahana's conclusion
that Naagaarjuna "... employed his dialectic to
demonstrate the unreality or nonexistence of time,"
it must be remembered that this conclusion (verse 3,
"tasmaat kaalo no vidyate") follows from the
Sarvaastivaadin view of time. All Naagaarjuna is
denying here is the reality of time as conceived by
the Sarvaastivaadins, that is, time as an ontological
reality containing change. It is entirely open for
Naagaarjuna to accept that time does exist as a
conceptual ordering of temporal experience. Indeed,
if one looks to the purpose of the
Muulamadhyamakakarikaa as a whole, it is hard to deny
that this is Naagaarjuna's view,for the purpose of
the entire dialectic seems to be to point out that
our views or explanations of experience are
conceptual constructs, and, therefore, should not be
mistaken for the direct experience of reality itself.
As Inada points out in the introductory essay
prefacing his translation of the Kaarikaa, "...the
argumentation lodged against all systems, positions
or viewpoints (d.r.s.ti) by Naagaarjuna is not
another way of establishing a standpoint, e.g.
relativism, but it is a unique way of calling to
attention the myriad and multiphased factors of
conditions at play in the immediate concretizing
karmaic present which, by the way, is the only locus
whereby concourse with reality as such (yathaabuutam)
can be had."(5)
The most important clues to Naagaarjuna's view of
time are found neither in chapter 19, devoted to
arguments against the Sarvaastivaadin view of time,
nor in chapter 2 devoted to the temporal notion of
"going, " but are found in chapter 1, where he
examines the conditions that are required for a
conceptual understanding of reality. There he points
out that understanding and description are possible
only when the relational conditions of the
experienced reality are determined. But, he argues,
there is no way in which the relational conditions of
our understanding can be equated with the relational
conditions of experienced reality itself, concluding
the chapter with the following assertion and
skeptical (perhaps rhetorical) question:
"Consequently, the effect (i.e., arisen entity) is
neither with relational nor without nonrelational
condition. Since the effect has no existing status,
where are the relational and non-relational
conditions?"(6)
Now, if it is the case that all concepts and
views are conceptual constructions placed on
experience, then it follows that the concept of time
is also a conceptual construction placed on
experience (in this case the temporal dimension
thereof). That Naagaarjuna accepts this position that
conceptual views

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are constructs placed on experience seems evident not
only in the Kaarikaa but also in his assertion, in
verse 20 of the vigrahavyaavartanii, that he has no
theories of his own to offer (granted the reason that
he offered no theory was his distinction between
truth and theory) . He does, of course accept
pratiityasamutpada, but it can be argued that this is
simply to accept the fact of a temporal and spatial
dimension of experience and not to accept a thesis
about the intelligible structure of this dimension.
Taken as a thesis about the connectedness experienced
in change, pratiityasamutpaada is 'suunya--as are all
views or theses. The acceptance of
pratiityasamutpaada as being the heart of the
Buddhist dharma, on the other hand, makes clear that
there is no rejection of temporality as the
experienced succession in change.
With this distinction between time and
temporality in mind we can move on to consider the
significance of the Jaataka vision quoted in
Kalupahana's essay: "Time consumes all beings /
including oneself; / the being who consumes time, /
cooks the cooker of beings." As pointed out, time
here is equated with Maara, the personification of
death, making time the dreaded evil in life. This is
an interesting picture, present in varying images in
most religions. Time, in the guise of change, devours
all things, and the only paths to salvation are to
either find an existence free from the influence of
time-which means eventually coming to regard the
temporal order as ultimately unreal or else to make
one's peace with time and change, in effect adjusting
one's lifestyle to "groove" with the fact of temporal
becoming as the ultimate reality. Either alternative
will enable one to escape the jaws of the monster,
Death. The first alternative involves fleeing the
realm of the monster, thereby escaping his clutches.
The second alternative involves taming the monster,
making time one's friend rather than enemy. The
Buddhists, for the most part, chose the latter
alternative, conquering time, whereas the Vedaantin
way consisted in choosing the former alternative,
leaving behind the terrible world of time for a
peaceful world of permanence.
The choice of either alternative requires an
analysis of time, with the Vedaantin having to
explain the unreality of time at the ultimate level
of reality, despite its apparent dominating reality
as temporal becoming, and the Buddhist having to
explain the nature of changing existence in such a
way that it is clear the temporal conditionedness of
existence does not imply dukkha when life is lived
"properly" (that is, according to the Dharrma). It is
this explanation of the relation between change and
dukkha that is crucial to the Buddhist philosopher.
When time is presented as the devourer of all
things, it can be interpreted in different ways. One
way is to take it as a metaphorical reference to the
inevitability of temporal succession and the
qualitative change found in this succession (for
example, succession of birth by death). But it can
also be interpreted to represent time as a real
entity of same kind-part of the onto-

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logical furniture of the universe. In this case there
might be an effort to show that the entire realm of
entities to which time belongs are nonultimate or
merely apparent, positing a realm of being beyond in
which time does not exist. But from a Buddhist point
of view such an interpretation, and the consequent
effort to escape to a becomingless realm, would be a
mistake resulting from the failure to understand that
time is simply a conceptual construct. Although as
McDermott convincingly shows through comparisons with
certain Western conceptions of time, as well as
citing the Sautraantika arguments against them, that
the Sarvaastivaadins did submit to the temptation to
entify temporal becoming, still, the main thrust of
Buddhism is away from such entification and in the
direction of seeing entities of all kinds as
constructs of the mind.
If time is a terrible monster (personified as
Maara) devouring all things, then dukkhta cannot be
eliminated until Maara itself is conquered or
devoured, and so the question is: Does time
inevitably devour man, or can man devour time? Since
the Buddhist position is that dukkha can be
eliminated, when dukkha is presented in the guise of
Maara, the answer is clearly that man can devour
time. As Kalupahana points out, "... the one who has
attained enlightenment is able to bring time under
his control." How is a person to "consume time" and
therefore "cook the cooker" of beings (or, in other
words, become enlightened?). Kalupahana gives two
important reasons (with which I agree): (1) Eradicate
the craving and attachment for existence or
nonexistence. This means that the loss of existence
in death is nothing to be feared in the least--in
fact, logically it cannot be feared, (2) put an end
to continued becoming (bhava) . This means that
neither death nor rebirth-with its consequent
redeath--are possible.
The answer seems incomplete, however, for the
question that nags is "how is it possible to overcome
becoming if becoming is an inevitable feature of
existence?" Here the distinction made earlier between
temporality and time is helpful. Temporality--and in
that sense, temporal becoming--is an inevitable
feature of existence, and as such can never be
overcome. But by the same token temporality is just
that, a feature of existence as it is. It is neither
evil nor good, but just temporality. It is neither
birth nor death, but simply becoming. Time, on the
other hand, as the container of becoming, when it is
taken to be an ontological container rather than
merely a conceptual container, can be taken as
terminating and originating becoming (transferring it
from the present to past, or from the future to the
present) , and thereby responsible for the
inevitability of birth and death. So understood, time
as the determining container of change is dukkha.
However, when time is understood to be simply a
conceptual ordering of temporality, with no real
power to originate and terminate becoming, one is
freed from time's bondage to an inevitable death.
When one transcends the entrapment of con-

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cepts and no longer ontologizes conceptual existence,
then the conceptual space of time loses its binding
power, and Kaala is "cooked."
_____________________________________________________

1. Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism in Translations (New
York: Atheneum, 1963), p. 122.

2. Ibid, p. 124.

3. Bas C. van Fraassen, An Introductios to the
Philosophy of Time and Space (New York: Random
House, 1970), p. 106.

4. Ibid., p. 104.

5. Kenneth K. Inada, Naagaarjuna: A Translation of
his Muulamadhyamakakaarikaa with an Introductory
Essay (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1970), p. 18.

6. Ibid., p. 42.