Each moment of time is discrete, yet passes away as soon as it arises; this helps create the illusion of the flow of time. Imagine a film; the celluloid kind that flows through a projector. Each frame of the film is an instant, which, when looked at in isolation, seems to have its own, independent existence. But once the film is running, one can see that those moments do not exist; they are all elements of a dynamic being-time, each frame a sort of abstraction of our mind's grasping at an instance. Each frame, each moment exists, fleetingly, but only until the next frame arises, then subside.
Or take music. If you listen to a CD, or to digital music, you are hearing the music as a continuous flow. Yet this music is "sampled" 44,100 times per second; each "frame" of the music is 1/44,1000 of one second, and each of these moments is too short for us to perceive. Yet as they flow together - from past, to present - they create an illusion of time flowing from past, to present; the future becoming present, and the present becoming past.
These digital music moments are too short for us to perceive; we can, in some cases, see the frames of a film when it's projected, twenty-four of them in a second. Try looking at a film in a cinema - though seeing an actual celluloid film these days is difficult - and blinking your eyes as quickly as possible. You will glimpse some frozen frames; the movement will seem choppy, because you are no longer seeing all the frames in a flowing river of images.
Just as these words flow, one after another, and can be read as a progression in time, so can our being-time be read as a series of moments connected yet independent, past, present, future, or future, present, past, firewood to ash, fish swimming through endless water, birds flying through endless sky.
"And the fire and the rose are one."
Gassho,
Kirk
Or take music. If you listen to a CD, or to digital music, you are hearing the music as a continuous flow. Yet this music is "sampled" 44,100 times per second; each "frame" of the music is 1/44,1000 of one second, and each of these moments is too short for us to perceive. Yet as they flow together - from past, to present - they create an illusion of time flowing from past, to present; the future becoming present, and the present becoming past.
These digital music moments are too short for us to perceive; we can, in some cases, see the frames of a film when it's projected, twenty-four of them in a second. Try looking at a film in a cinema - though seeing an actual celluloid film these days is difficult - and blinking your eyes as quickly as possible. You will glimpse some frozen frames; the movement will seem choppy, because you are no longer seeing all the frames in a flowing river of images.
Just as these words flow, one after another, and can be read as a progression in time, so can our being-time be read as a series of moments connected yet independent, past, present, future, or future, present, past, firewood to ash, fish swimming through endless water, birds flying through endless sky.
"And the fire and the rose are one."
Gassho,
Kirk
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