Time is originally a purposeless, discontinuous, instantaneous arising-and-extinction, instantaneous arising of phenomena. We might say that the manifest shape of time is the infinite repetition of meaningless things. If we see that time is not a progress directed to a goal, then it does not advance in the direction of nothingness, death, and extinction. On the contrary, time is continually connected with nothingness. In the discontinuous chasm of no beginning and no end, the bottomless abyss of nothingness is yawning. The time of repetition is nothingness. This can indeed be called nihilism...
Time is the endless repetition of meaningless things rooted in nothingness. Human life, all phenomena, the whole universe, since they exist nowhere but in time, are in the end nothing, meaningless, and impermanence is clearly shown to be such nothingness and meaninglessness. Impermanence is a cold fact, an actuality quite unrelated to emotions of wonder, poetic sentiment, and the like...
Since humans cannot face this cold nihilism, they create all kinds of lofty ideas. The idea that time is infinite repetition without beginning or end robs the point in time we call “the present” of all meaning and value. Without meaning humans do not have the courage even to live. They adorn time in order to confer meaning, putting into effect various methods of creating meaning...
The first such adornment is the idea that “there is a beginning” in time. One searches for the “beginning” of “in the beginning was the logos.” Thus the whole myth of the creation of the universe is set up with the story of Genesis and image of a divine lord of creation. This is a strategy for giving security to one’s present self by linking it to remote ancestors.
Somehow here I think we have to qualify this concept as that which stems from human experience, interest, thought, emotion, biology etc.. From within all possible frames of the human as assembly of molecules, atoms, quarks and strings there can be no meaning - aside from those fabricated by humans - yet in the total thrust and movment of infinty, of the universe.. Well perhaps there is no meaning but there are forces - at their core forces of attraction and repulsion.. Therefor the meaning is in the ‘message’ the meaning is the movement - therefor it does not fit into a goal based, progression type of understanding which typically constitutes meaning for us.
Presence in total absence
To shed all and enter the beauty of nothingness
Perhaps then the crucial aspect of the experience - as an agent that ever so slightly shifts something - is that it allows a suspension of the fear (or heightening) of nothingness for long enough that you can appreciate its totality and therefor the beauty of existence, the complexity of infinity of meaningless attractions and repulsions, without meaning.
Time is the endless repetition of meaningless things rooted in nothingness. Human life, all phenomena, the whole universe, since they exist nowhere but in time, are in the end nothing, meaningless, and impermanence is clearly shown to be such nothingness and meaninglessness. Impermanence is a cold fact, an actuality quite unrelated to emotions of wonder, poetic sentiment, and the like...
Since humans cannot face this cold nihilism, they create all kinds of lofty ideas. The idea that time is infinite repetition without beginning or end robs the point in time we call “the present” of all meaning and value. Without meaning humans do not have the courage even to live. They adorn time in order to confer meaning, putting into effect various methods of creating meaning...
The first such adornment is the idea that “there is a beginning” in time. One searches for the “beginning” of “in the beginning was the logos.” Thus the whole myth of the creation of the universe is set up with the story of Genesis and image of a divine lord of creation. This is a strategy for giving security to one’s present self by linking it to remote ancestors.
Metaphysical impermanence
Karaki Junzō 1963, 209–16
Karaki Junzō 1963, 209–16
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| Codex Gigas, The Devil |
Somehow here I think we have to qualify this concept as that which stems from human experience, interest, thought, emotion, biology etc.. From within all possible frames of the human as assembly of molecules, atoms, quarks and strings there can be no meaning - aside from those fabricated by humans - yet in the total thrust and movment of infinty, of the universe.. Well perhaps there is no meaning but there are forces - at their core forces of attraction and repulsion.. Therefor the meaning is in the ‘message’ the meaning is the movement - therefor it does not fit into a goal based, progression type of understanding which typically constitutes meaning for us.
Presence in total absence
To shed all and enter the beauty of nothingness
Perhaps then the crucial aspect of the experience - as an agent that ever so slightly shifts something - is that it allows a suspension of the fear (or heightening) of nothingness for long enough that you can appreciate its totality and therefor the beauty of existence, the complexity of infinity of meaningless attractions and repulsions, without meaning.
