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EDITOR's NOTE: This essay by Susan Kahn is about how to realize the self as empty by realizing that time is empty. Susan challenges the notion that there is a transcendent realm of timelessness, and she argues that such a notion contributes to a sense that we exist as a separate, independent entity. So often, we think of ourselves or the past as somehow frozen beyond time. This kind of conception helps keep the sense of the inherent existence of the self alive. It closes us off from the wonderful dynamism and creativity in life. But if we see how time is empty (and Susan shows this in several unexpected ways) we can more easily realize that the self is empty. See more of Susan's writings on her Emptiness Teachings website. "I used to believe there was no time, that there existed a beyond time and that this nowhere would be the ultimate view. But I could not find a nowhere that was not referenced by a somewhere. I could not conceive of or experience timelessness without considering its contrast to time. I do not accept a beyond time as something that can be independently identified anymore. Nor can inherently existent time be established either. This article addresses from the perspective of emptiness teachings." Susan Kahn Nothing dies absolutely, nor is truly born, nor endures, not independently, not in and of itself. While phenomena appear as inherently separate things, they are not. Everything lacks independent existence, an essential nature, its own being. It is in this sense that everything is said in emptiness teachings to be empty. Emptiness does not mean nothingness, nor does it imply a vast permanent, undifferentiated substance or substratum. It means that not a single thing exists substantively or independently. Instead, everything arises from empty, dependent conditions. Nothing is uncaused. This also means that nothing can be fixed or static. And this is why it is said in emptiness teachings that everything is impermanent.
Interdependence
All phenomena arise dependently, interconnectedly and exist impermanently. However, despite the absence of true thingness, an interdependent universe functions quite well. In fact, dependent existence enables functioning because it enables change and transformation. If anything existed independently, fixedly, it would not be dependent upon other things. There would be no way for it to be influenced by anything else. There would be no way for it to be affected by causes or conditions. Being totally independent, it would be sealed off from everything else. It would have no way to arise, grow, change, or pass away. Its separation would necessitate that it be inaccessible,
unchanging and therefore absolutely timeless. Yet this is often just how we think things are. The teaching of dependent existence is altogether different from the notion of an independent, unchanging reality. If something exists dependently, it cannot also exist independently. If anything is impermanent, it cannot also be permanent. That would be contradictory. Sometimes it is said that the relative world is born out of an ultimate reality. But if something inherently existed, it could only be its own indivisible self and no change, no transformation would be possible. It would make no sense for something to change into itself, or to become what it is not. Without interdependence and mutability there is only permanence and time can have no place.
Timelessness?
Because nothing exists as its own thing, nothing can be static, enduring only as itself. Instead, everything arises from impermanent conditions as there is no thingness to endure. Timelessness implies an existence beyond all dependent interaction and change. Inherent timelessness implies an absolute foundational, fixed presence, which begs the question of what created this absolute or of how something could create itself. Without an appreciation for impermanence, we grasp and cling in fundamentalist fashion without recognizing that nothing is solid and certain to begin with. The realization of impermanence is a great antidote to the belief in inherent existence, including a separate, independent self. In emptiness teachings, everything is seen as temporal, however not inherently so, meaning that time cannot be its own thing either. Time is also interrelational. Without its relationship to changing phenomena, there could be recognition of time. The idea of time existing apart from phenomena is inconceivable. They are interrelated. Allowing for the impermanent and relative notion of time counteracts the idea of a self or any phenomena, mental state or realm, as fixed, static, fundamental or selfgenerating. It challenges the existence of eternity, as if anything could be separate and divided from the temporality of the relative. This is partially why it is said in emptiness teachings that even emptiness is empty. There is no escaping the relativity of time. The only timelessness is in the enduring of the relativity of time.
Due to inescapable interconnectedness, everything is said in emptiness teachings to exist in name only. For as everything is interrelated, how could anything be singled out except through conceptual words? All phenomena can only exist nominally, a term that is also referred to as conventional existence. We say that a table is a table. But tables are not tables in themselves. They depend upon trees, which also depend upon earth, clouds, rain, etc. Table is a relative, conventional term. To realize emptiness is to discover the absence of inherent existence and to see conventional existence as merely conventional. It is not an ultimate vantage point, not an absolute or transcendent truth. It is important to be aware that there is no foundational reality to land in. It is easy to claim non-conceptual meditative experiences, for example, as true representations of a final, objective reality.
It is an interdependent experience requiring, among countless conditions, an experiencer. The present is a conventional term. It cannot be truly singled out and yet conventionally (and valuably) functions. Death then is not some entity, foreign and distant, off in the future. It is always right here, in the emptiness of every moment as it comes and goes. Not one moment is identical to another. It just appears that way when one tries to jump from one form of solidity to another, from one known to another, one certainty to another, one memory to another, not noticing that everything, being empty and therefore ungrounded, is impermanent. Realizing this is to see the big picture and break free from attachment.
forms are empty of their own independent being, there is no absolute essence that transcends form. One is not to weigh in on the side of nihilism by saying that form doesn't exist and is totally illusory, or on the other hand, that form can be nailed down. Both nihilism and essentialism are great pitfalls. It is the belief in my memory that causes so many of the problems leading to a separate sense of self. There is no separate self that is the owner of memory (or any aspect of the mind and body for that matter). That is an important thing to realize, that even though no one has the exact same memories as yours, this is not evidence of a separate self. Memory simply reflects relatively diverse interconnected formations. Understanding of the lack of an independent memory can help address this misconception that says, I am the story of me. People try to keep this story alive, without recognizing that time is empty and that no moment is kept alive. There can be no separate self that can claim its own inherent continuum through memory. For memory does not even exist in itself, let alone endure.
Concluding Remarks
Understanding the emptiness of time is critical in overturning the mistake of inherent existence. It provides the opportunity to see through the belief in a separate continuity of self and all phenomena, an error that lies at the root of suffering. However, to negate time altogether, as if a transcendent and true reality has been discovered, is to support the notion of permanent existence. It is easy to become attached to this. To believe in a separate self is to see oneself timelessly. The notion of inherent timelessness can also lead to a dualistic split between a nihilistic view of life and what is seen to be the truth beyond life. Realizing impermanence is the opposite of attachment and fear. It is to break free from ideas of what is and should be and to open to the continuous change and fluctuations that are life, as nothing exists statically, as its own thing. People spend their lives trying to hold onto things as solid. People want to maximize what they see as gain and to minimize what they see as loss. People want to hold on most especially to their identity and not to die. When impermanence is recognized as life, then life and death are seen as mutually dependent and the fear of loss loses its ground. This is why it is so important to challenge beliefs or experiences as if fixed in time, reflecting a fixed reality. It is freeing to see through the essentialism of permanence. The recognition of impermanence nurtures the acceptance of what comes and goes, instead of resisting ever-changing waters. Resistance turns suffering into a runaway train. Opening up to impermanence is an indispensable response. There is no need to resist anything that is already ungrounded, unbounded, and impermanent. Suffering does not inherently exist. Unnecessary suffering is the result of the mistaken view that phenomena such as time and selves inherently exist, and that anything can be essentially timeless, existing in a fixed and pre-determined way.
References
Jay Garfield, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's .Mulamadhyamakakarika. Oxford University Press, 1995 Edward Casey, Keeping the Past in Mind, The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 77-95, 1983. Jeffrey Hopkins, Emptiness Yoga: The Tibetan Middle Way, .Snow Lion, 1995 Excerpted from Impermanence: The Emptiness of Time and the Timeless | http://emptiness.co http://www.emptiness.co/susan_kahn_impermanence READABILITY An Arc90 Laboratory Experiment http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability