There
is no time to understand because time is just an idea. Time is nothing
more than a tool designed by the conceptual mind, so that it can have a
reference point. This tool is very helpful for navigating the
conventional reality of everyday life. We have all agreed that if today
is Monday, yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow will be Tuesday, that if
right now is 1 o clock, within 3 hours it will be 4 o clock.
This
way of organizing our lives prevents us from chaos and confusion. Like I
said before, it provides a reference point. However, using this tool
unconsciously for so long has made us forget that it really isn't there.
There isn't "something" that we can call "time." Is not a force or
tangible object, is not located any place and it doesn't have an effect
over anything, is jut another idea.
What
exists is change, impermanence. There is no form that can stay still
in-definitively. No thought, sensation, sound or physical object can
remain without changing and eventually disappear, from sub atomic
particles to complete galaxies, including of course human beings,
everything is always in constant change.
Then
where did our idea of time come from? One explanation is that form
follows certain general patterns of change. This has been explored by
science and is described mainly by the second law of thermodynamics,
which in summary demonstrates that everything tends to become more and more
complex and "disordered." This is why if we see a cracked egg on the
floor, we assume that it wasn't cracked before. If we see an ice cube
and a pond of water, we can identify the order of the events. A pond of
water doesn't freeze into an ice cube and a cracked egg doesn't become
un-cracked, everything tends to get "disorganized."
So
time then, is a concept we have designed in order to understand this
constant flux that we live moment by moment in our sensory experience,
it is a way to give meaning to this experience, it is something created
by our mind but that doesn't really exists.
In
other words, time is an invention that answers to our need to
"understand" what is going on. We are programmed to try to understand,
because understanding allows us to predict and therefore survive, which
is the fundamental impulse of every sentient being, a category that
human beings belong to.
However,
in a paradoxical way, this unconscious need to understand can turn into
an obsession that ends up making us prisoners of our own reason, it can
make us suffer, it can make us feel limited and helpless.
Zen
- like other contemplative traditions - allows us to get in touch with
that part of us that goes beyond the need to understand, that exists
before the arising of this need, that is free of
this need. Zen doesn't deny the existence of the intellect, it embraces
and transcends it, so that it can take us to a place beyond it, without
barriers or limits, without beginnings or endings, without reference
points, without time.
The
discovery of this place which is not a place in the conventional sense,
produces great change in those beings that experience and cultivate it,
giving rise to the possibility of a much rich and profound life, and
paradoxically, it creates the space for an increased rational
understanding. Acknowledging the limits of understanding pushes those
very limits to expand beyond what is known.
This is how true and free understanding goes beyond understanding and not understanding.
