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发帖数: 1037 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Inspiration_from_Nagarjuna 俱乐部 】
发信人: WRON (五郎), 信区: Inspiration_from_Nagarjuna
标 题: 过去，当下，将来： 论大乘的‘时间‘
关键字: Mahayana，time,past,future,present
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Mon Mar 16 20:37:02 2015, 美东)
Discussion of time in Mahayana texts
Lewis R. Lancaster
Philosophy East and West 24, no. 2, April 1974, pp.209-214
(c) by The University Press of Hawaii
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In the early Mahaayaana suutras, the discussion of time (adhvan) does not
mention the term in the singular, only in the plural: the three times of
past, future, and present.(1) The problems of the triple time had occupied
Buddhists long before the advent of the Mahaayaana texts and such schools as
the Daar.s.taantikas had proposed that the three times exist and are
permanent while the conditioned entities which move through them are
impermanent. They described their view by giving the analogy of three houses
one beside the other. From the first house a man emerges and goes to the
second, that is, he leaves the future and enters the present, then he moves
from the second house to the third, thereby going from the present to the
past.(2) Man is the impermanent and fleeting one while the three houses of
time are fixed and stand always ready to receive the constant flow of
impermanent things.
Since this idea of permanence and fixed state of the three times belonged to
the non-Mahaayaana schools, we could expect to find arguments in the
Mahaayaana suutras attacking such positions. However, a careful reading of
the earliest suutras from the Mahaayaana shows that they did not directly
refer to or attack such doctrines. That is, they did not try to disprove
through debate or rhetorical devices the existence of one, two, or three
times. Their approach is a positive one and not a defensive stance. The
Mahaayaana suutras merely state what has been understood and cognized by the
Buddha;(3) it is not presented as a matter to be proved or disproved, but
only as a statement of what is. The Buddha as an enlightened one possessed
all-knowledge, the supernormal power developed through samaadhi or trance
and in this special state he was able to penetrate and comprehend the nature
and essence of the three times.(4) When the triple times were viewed in
this special way, they appeared to the Buddha as equals, (5) the same, (6)
without distinctions or separations.(7) The times did not oppose one another
,(8) for there was nothing in the present which was different or distinct
from the future. This being the case, the suutras say, the three divisions
of time, the three characteristic marks of time, are limited to the mundane
world, to those who lack the insights of the all-knowers(9); but, on the
higher level the transcendent plane, these marks are shown to be an illusion
. Therefore, the Buddha taught that the three times only possess one mark,
the mark of lacking any distinguishing characteristics.(10)
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