impermanence by susan kahn

7/29/2019 Impermanence by Susan Kahn

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Impermanence: The Emptiness of Time and the Timeless BySusan Kahn

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 asense 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 ofor 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 inthis 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.

InterdependenceAll 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,


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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 selfand 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 self-

generating. 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.

Time and Interconnection

Look around. What phenomenon does not involve a relationship to time? Whatphenomenon lacks all history, all signs of a past that have conditioned the present?

Because everything lacks its own being, everything depends upon changing

conditions, which involves time. Even thought does not arise causelessly, timelessly.

Nondual experiences and realization too, are discovered and learned over time due to

many conditions.

An example of the dependent and impermanent existence of time would be a flame

that never endures from moment to moment in the same way, being continually

subject to changing conditions that are not of the flame itself and that the flame

depends upon. Nothing is its own thing or lasts even for an instant. Time is empty and

yet relevant in addressing the ever-changing interrelationship of all things.


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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 seeconventional 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.

Can You Climb Outside Your Body?

To try and transcend the relative, conventional and temporal existence of phenomena,

as if one could climb outside of the mind-body and claim pure objectivity, is to

propose a supreme, absolute knower. This would endorse there being perception

without a perceiver, as an unperceived perception. Likewise, there is not an objective

world out there that we passively observe. Subject and object are interconnected.

No matter how extremely subtle or seemingly indistinguishable the relationship

between subject and object appears, anything that is recognized must be perceived by

a subject. To see this is to resist reifying even the most subtle mental state as

indicating an independent presence to cling to as truth.

Likewise, the autonomous separation between subject and object cannot be found

either, as they interpenetrate. Interdependent things are neither the same nor different

from each other. The absence of essential thingness or difference, as well as the

absence of an inherent sameness, are part of the insight into emptiness. This insightacknowledges a rich diversity that is nondual nondual because of not existing

inherently, as well not being utterly void or vacuous.

Everything is an empty, essenceless interreflection, including a self of persons and all

other phenomena. This is the interrelatedness of phenomenal and temporal diversity,

so that nothing is seen to inherently create itself, endure as itself, or create inherently

existent otherness. There is no such superentity.

The Past in the Present

The past too, cannot be conceived of separately, but only in relation to the present.

How else can either notion be recognized? Furthermore, how could phenomena from

the past become extinguished? Where would they go? The past, being empty, does not

endure in itself, but neither does it drop off into some separate, inherent nonexistence,

into an actually existent oblivion. After all, nonexistence doesn't exist.

There is no independent past that actually ceases before some present could magically

be said to appear out of nowhere. Additionally, there is no essential thingness to get

stuck in time, nothing that stops and becomes timeless. It is in this sense that the

empty and merely relational past lives in the present, conditioning it. If things existed

independently, all phenomena would be their own things, in a frozen and dualistic

mode of existence.

Everything is part of an ever transforming life that reflects relationships among

phenomena that are empty of self. Even the present does not inherently exist as an

essence called presence. The instant of a present, or of a now cannot be captured.


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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 memoryto 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.

Memory and the Separate Self

In considering a past, the related topic of memory needs to be included. This is a very

important topic as it is so commonly believed to give evidence to an inherent

continuity of a solid self, i.e., of a separate self temporally contained from a past to a

future.

Like everything else, memory is a relational phenomenon, functioning through an

endless web of dependent relationships. Without ongoing interconnection, memory

could not operate. Without connecting to present conditions, memory could not be

recalled or added to. In the same way, the present needs memory to be interpreted,

comprehended. It could be said that past lives within the present.

Memory is not stored and then retrieved. It is kept alive through present conditions, as

part of and dependent upon ongoing interconnections.

Memory and Place

In his writings on memory, Edward S. Casey emphasizes place or the landscape of

places experienced in the world as an interrelated and extended body of memory. He

points out that memory is not simply a mental function, but that place commingles

with memory. Memory and place, in other words, cohabit one another, are collocated.And just as the past extends throughout the present, so memory lives everywhere in

the broader human world.

It is not difficult to see how people remember experiences of life through life. While

memory appears to be located in the brain, as part of a singular continuity of a self, it

is not. Yes, the functioning that is called the brain is involved, however we are always

dealing with multi-directional and vast occurrences. Even the physical body is

constantly remembering as a part of its functioning. In short, there is no memory

without a memory of something that is not memory.

Without its connection to current and countless conditions, memories could not arise.

Memory must be kept in motion, however subtle, through interrelationships. Only

past events of ongoing significance and relevance provide the conditions to continue

as memories in the present.

The Emptiness of Memory

Memory then cannot strictly be said to be memory, as a separate thing, just as the

past, present or future cannot. Memory is a relative and conventional label, abstracted

and constructed from a web of ever-changing interrelations. Mind and matter are

interrelational, as everything else is. Neither is grounded as its own entity.

It is in this sense that the Buddhist saying Form is emptiness and emptiness is form

can be understood. In emptiness teachings lies the recognition that while all appearing


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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, thateven 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 anindispensable 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.


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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 |

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