Time in Buddhism

One of my all-time favourite novels is Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse in 1922. The story follows the life of the main character Siddhartha, and it parallels the life of Buddha on his journey to enlightenment.
Born the son of a Brahmin (a priest caste in Hindu society), Siddhartha was an intelligent, handsome and charismatic young man, who yearned to find the meaning of life. Siddhartha leaves his home join a group of ascetics, fasting and living without possessions. He then meets Gotama the Buddha, and realizes that the ascetic life is not the path to enlightenment, but he also declines joining the Buddha. Instead, he opts for reentering the "real world" hoping that he can learn more about himself, but his life becomes one of decadent hedonism, debauchery and materialism. He becomes disgusted and once again flees.
In the end, he meets a wise ferryman named Vasudeva, who lives by the river. Siddhartha becomes an apprentice to the ferryman, but Vasudeva is a teacher who does not teach; Vasudeva gives Siddhartha food and roof over his head, however, he does not actually impart any of his own wisdom on his apprentice. Vasudeva is a kind of agent for seekers of wisdom (like Siddhartha), who venture to the river to pass from the ordinary world to the world of enlightenment. The ferryman guides Siddhartha back and forth across the river, encouraging him to continue his search for spiritual progress by "learning from the river".

One lesson that Siddhartha learns from the river is that time does not exist; the present is all that matters. Just as the river is in all places at the one moment, life is unified.

" ... the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?"

By using this symbolism, Hesse is invoking the concept of the Buddhist Void (or sunyata). The Void is not nothingness; it is the source of all life and the force that flows through and connects everything in the universe. It is comparable to the Tao in Taoism and the Absolute of Hinduism; it is the indescribable essence of all life in the universe. It also seems comparable to the concept of "dark energy", which is popular in modern cosmology.

Siddhartha compares his own life to a river:

"... I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man were only separated by shadows, not through reality. Siddhartha's previous lives were also not in the past, and his death and his return to Brahma are not in the future. Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence."

So, Siddhartha comes to the realization that time does not exist and all knowledge exists in the present time and place; thus he can achieve enlightenment.

Eastern philosophies and religions have a different notion of time from what we are used to. In a previous post I quoted a Zen Buddhist to illustrate that, in Buddhism, time cannot be separated from the things that are ever-changing. For example, we like to say "it snows in winter", as if there is a time called "winter". Instead, if we adopt Buddhist thinking, we would say that things like snowfalls, freezing temperatures, and cold winds are the time called winter; there is no time called winter apart from these things, and no time apart from phenomenal things. Time and things are inseparably connected to one another. In Buddhism, there is no concept of a God that created the universe; God as the creator and ruler of the universe does not exist; time and everything in the universe are not creations of God; there is no beginning and no end - no creation and no final judgement.
Since time and things are inseparable, time has no substance and is empty because all things in the universe are impermanent so have no substance. This is completely different from the Christian notion of time; in Christianity, time is real because it is a creation of God. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed God to be outside of time, so He is able to see all his creation in the past, present and future at once. According to Aquinas, even though we can make choices, our futures are predetermined, and God already knows what choices each of us will make.

So if time doesn't really exist, how is it that we come to speak of past, present and future? According to Buddhist thought, we humans discriminate between past, present and future, and we give them substance by attaching name and meaning to them. This everyday notion of time is not reality and is based on fundamental ignorance (or avidya). Unlike the Christian concept of time, time in Buddhism has no beginning and no end.
In order to awaken to true reality, one must do as Hesse's Siddhartha did - i.e. eliminate the concept of time by realizing that it has no substance. This is how Hesse's Siddhartha attained wisdom and enlightenment.
Buddhism does not discriminate between life and death; they are considered instead as one reality. Throughout our lives, each of us is living and dying at the same moment; we are, if you like, living-dying (samsara). It is believed that every moment is a beginning and an end. Time begins and ends at each moment. Time is not seen to be a a one-directional sequence of events, but a series of infinitesimally small independent moments that can move in relation to each other. The whole process of living-dying is concentrated in this moment. As Hesse's Siddhartha said (and quoted above), "Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man were only separated by shadows, not through reality".

What about the question of consciousness? At the very least, consciousness requires one to have thoughts in serial order, and this implies a concept of time similar to the one we are accustomed to, right?. Of consciousness, the Dalai Lama has said the following:

"As for consciousness, it has neither past nor future and knows only present moments; it is the continuum of a present moment being transformed into another present moment"

It's all very heavy stuff, and time is still a mystery; perhaps the ultimate mystery. It seems impossible to try to explain the concept of time without invoking the word "time".
In attempting to answer the mysteries of the universe - time, consciousness, free will, the origins of life - it is instructive to learn about Eastern philosophies, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, and apply their teachings to modern science. I think that Albert Einstein said it best when he said:

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."

In future (if such a thing exists), I intend to write about time in modern physics.
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