Time and Non-duality
Being and time are really the same.
Time doesn’t stand, doesn’t flow, it dwells
The paradox of change is that for something to be different from something else (which is necessary if we want to talk about change from one thing into another) it must be a real entity with a real self, or an independent self-nature. If something does have a real independent self-nature however, change is impossible, since a self-sufficient entity does not by definition change. But we do see change. In fact, change is constant. So what is going on here?
The change that is apparent is real in the sense that it is the patterned fluctuation of entities in interdependence (all cause and condition each other so that they are neither the same nor different, so that the basic characteristic of appearances is that they are not separate) but that these entities (including most importantly by implication what we take as ourselves) are non-substantial. They are simply appearances/phenomena without any particular underlying substance. They (we) have our fundamental basis for existence with/as everything else. The world is therefore not really the collection of static objects which our analytical consciousness presents for practical/expedient purposes. It’s characteristic is a total dynamism of phenomena which are all self-empty.
A wonderful term to express the common essence of existence is the term ‘circuminsessional interpenetration’. This means that any one thing is a particular appearance whose ground is the forceful presence of everything else. The totality of existence according to this view is an organic, dynamic whole rather than a dead mechanical or logical construction.
The splitting of time and being is linked to the particular conditions of experience for human phenomenon. Human intelligence as a tool for survival breaks the vista of phenomena down into parts of relative significance in order to preserve it’s life and negotiate it’s environment. This is the basis for dualistic thinking. But since the human phenomenon is truly a phenomenon, and phenomena are truly phenomena, the fundamental essence of human/humanity is force of presence of the dynamic totality of all phenomena of the cosmos.
To put this in Kantian terms, the noumenon of one thing is everything else so that there is no substantial difference between any phenomenon and any other- or between phenomenon and noumenon.
These dualistic distinctions en toto are the fabrications of discursive thinking which elaborate beyond proper usage on the products of functional intelligence.
This is the problematic of the human condition; seizing on and reifying the products of the dualistic, analytical, and even the imaginative/creative mind- most importantly the distinctions between self-and-world, self-and-other, subject and object- as absolute.
The Vimalakirti Sutra presents non-duality by dismissing a series of dualities eventually leading to silence. The message being that ultimate reality is not expressible in words, and that all objectification (which is the basic position for the functioning of human intellect) is abstraction and hence unreal.
Much more easily said than realised!