Past, Present and Future in Buddhism

There are many fine distinctions that are made here in the analysis of karma. For example, Buddhism differentiates:

• The not-yet-happening of our being reborn as a frog. We distinguish that it’s not yet happening, so we’re focusing on the not-yet-happening of it. The not-yet-happening of what? Rebirth as a frog. 

• The not-yet-happened rebirth as a frog. It’s a not-yet-happened rebirth. 

Both of those are negation phenomena (dgag-pa), something known by negating or refuting something else, and we’ll get more into an analysis of what that is later.

• Then, there’s our rebirth as a frog – that’s an affirmation phenomenon (sgrub-pa) – that can or will happen but is not yet happening. This is an affirmation phenomenon (we’ll talk about the distinction shortly). 

We can do the same with the other three times: We can speak about the present-happening of our being reborn as a frog, the presently happening rebirth itself as a frog, and our rebirth as a frog that’s presently happening. We don’t speak so much about these differences, but we can. More relevant in the discussion of karma is what is no longer happening and what is yet to happen but not happening yet.

Buddhism likewise distinguishes the no-longer-happening of our being reborn as a frog, the no-longer-happening rebirth as a frog, and our rebirth as a frog that’s no longer happening. Also, Buddhism speaks about the previously-having-perished of something – that’s this word shikpa (zhig-pa) – the previously-having-perished of our rebirth as a frog, the previously-having-perished rebirth as a frog, and the rebirth as a frog that has previously perished. It is equivalent to a no-longer-happening. Unfortunately, there is no grammatically correct way of translating zhig-pa into English as a past tense noun.

All of these are discussed separately in the Buddhist analysis, and there are even further distinctions that are made. There’s also the never-happened of something that could have happened, such as our being reborn as a frog once we’ve become a liberated being. Right? That never happened, never can happen, but it could have happened. Then, there’s the never-happened of something that never could have happened, such as our rebirth as a truly existent frog. Right? These are also different phenomena.

Now, can we know our rebirth as a frog that can or will happen but which has not yet happened? That’s talking about a so-called future event. If it were truly nonexistent and thus unknowable, it could never happen, could it? Remember, we had this whole discussion on the voidness of results: If the result at the time of the cause was totally nonexistent, how could it change? Also, how could something truly nonexistent change from being nonexistent to existent?

But that is assuming that there is something that is the non-knowableness of the thing and that it’s there somehow blocking the knowableness.

Well then, is there an obscuration, a mental obscuration, a cognitive obscuration that’s preventing us from knowing the not-yet-happened rebirth? If, for example, we became omniscient, we would know it. However, that’s beside the point. Obviously, as we develop further on the path, with more and more concentration, we gain these extrasensory powers to know past and future lives. Currently, we are obscured from that.

Is there something on the side of the object that makes it knowable, a knowable phenomenon? No. That’s one of the big points in Prasangika philosophy, that not only is there nothing on the side of the object, a findable distinguishing characteristic that makes it a table or a chair or firewood, but there’s also no distinguishing characteristic findable on the side of the object that even makes it into a knowable object. There’s nothing that puts a big solid line or a plastic envelope around it, separating this item from the atoms and molecules of the air around it, and that makes it some entity there by itself that can be known by itself.

After all, when we view a sight, let’s say of this room, how do we know that this colored shape and that colored shape don’t go together to form an object? I’m putting all these colored shapes together and saying that it forms a sight of Katja’s body. However, I could put together a part of the colored shape of her jacket with the colored shape of the wall. Is there something inside that set of colored shapes that makes it a knowable object, Katja’s body? Well, no. That’s not an easy one, by the way.

If it were totally nonexistent and unknowable – this rebirth as a frog that can or will happen, but which has not yet happened – it could never happen. Then, can we know our rebirth as a frog that could have happened, but which never happened and never will happen (such as this type of worse rebirth once we’ve become a liberated being)?

By inference.

By inference? Maybe it could have happened that I was reborn as a frog, but it never will happen. Could I know the rebirth as a frog that possibly could happen but hasn’t happened yet? That’s an interesting question: How much detail would we have to know in order to know it? Can we know our rebirth as a truly existent person that never happened and which never could have happened? Could we know that?

We can’t know it because it’s not a phenomenon.

Right. We can’t know it because it’s not a phenomenon: it doesn’t exist. We could have a mental image that we incorrectly label as representing our rebirth as a truly existent person. We often have that when we have a simple-minded view of rebirth and we think, “Alex or Christian is now reborn as a frog,” so it’s a truly existent Alex reborn now in the form of a frog, but we couldn’t really know that validly.

There are not-yet-happenings of things that can happen, such as our rebirth as a frog. But what about our not-yet-happening of a possible rebirth as a frog once we’ve become a liberated being? Well, it doesn’t exist anymore. That is a type of cessation or stopping called an analytical stopping (so-sor brtags-pa’i ’gog-pa).

Then there’s also a nonanalytical cessation or stopping (so-sor brtags-pa min-pa’i ’gog-pa), that it is removed from the mental continuum not by analysis, like ignorance would be removed, but just by the fact of the circumstance. If we have been born in this lifetime as a human, there is a nonanalytical stopping of our not-yet-happening rebirth in this lifetime as a frog.

What about the not-yet-happening of things that could never happen, like being reborn as a truly existent person? Could that ever exist on a mental continuum? No, it could never happen; it’s not just that it could have happened at some time but now it can no longer happen. These are different types of phenomena that Buddhism differentiates. We can see that it starts to become very, very precise.

There are not-yet-happenings of things that have occurred before – for example, we might have been reborn as a frog before – and that can occur again, although each specific rebirth as a frog will be individual and different. This is very important in terms of the discussion, for instance, of anger. There’s a not-yet-happening of anger that happened before – we’ve been angry before. There can be another instance of anger that happens, but not the same instance that has already happened. During that period in between instances of anger, what do we have? Not-yet-happening anger. Then, we have to get into the analysis: Well, where is it? What is it? Is it some potential sitting in our unconscious, waiting to pop out? These are the things that are analyzed here in terms of cause and effect.

There are also the not-yet-happening of things that have occurred before and can never happen again, such as our rebirth in this life. Does that exist, a not-yet-happening of a rebirth in this life? No, that doesn’t exist; it’s happened already.

Think about these for a moment.

[pause]

Okay, we have all these differentiations. Now, let’s talk about the not-yet-happening, the present-happening and the no-longer-happening of something – what we would call in the West the past, the present and the future. What we were saying is that there’s a difference between past objects (the not-yet-happening rebirth) and the not-yet-happening of the rebirth. There are two points of view about whether these no-longer-happenings and not-yet-happenings are static or nonstatic phenomena (whether they change or not).

One point of view, the Sautrantika, Chittamatra and Svatantrika, is that they’re static (they don’t change). What could that mean? The no-longer-happening of something or the previously-having-perished of something doesn’t change. When there’s a no-longer-happening of a specific instance of anger on our mental continuum, it always remains the same – it’s no longer happening lasts forever. That specific instance of anger will never be presently happening again. Its lasting forever, however, doesn’t preclude another instance of anger arising. 

We shouldn’t confuse the not-now-happening of anger with the no-longer-happening of anger. So long as there is still the possibility for not-yet-happenings of instances of anger, the not-now-happening of anger, though static, is temporary. It comes to an end when another instance of anger occurs. But then there is a not-ever-happening-again of anger, which is equivalent to a true stopping of it, and this too is static – it never changes, and it never ends. 

Being a static phenomenon, a no-longer-happening of an instance of anger does not arise from causes. It is equivalent to the absence (med-pa) of the previous instance of anger and, as an absence, it is a nonimplicative negation phenomenon (med-dgag). It simply negates the present-happening of the previous instance of anger that has perished.  

A static no-longer-happening of an instance of anger starts with the ceasing of the present-happening of the instance of it but has no cause. Its attainment, however, has a cause. Then, of course, that gets into the whole discussion: Is there a mental factor of anger that sits on our mental continuum and each time an instance of anger occurs, it sends out an emanation of itself? Is there a defining characteristic of each episode of anger that by its own power makes it anger? 

Not-yet-happenings are also static phenomena according to Sautrantika, Chittamatra and Svatantrika. There is the not-yet-happening of the next instance of anger, which has a beginning at the same time as the no-longer-happening of the previous instance of anger. This not-yet-happening of the next instance of anger ends with the arising of the next instance of anger. The not-yet-happening of further instances of anger in general has no beginning since the mental continuum has no beginning, but it comes to an end with the attainment of a true stopping of anger.

Let me just briefly give the Vaibhashika and Gelug Prasangika points of view for now. According to these two tenet systems, a no-longer-happening, a previously-having-perished and a not-yet-happening are all nonstatic phenomena. Moment one of the no-longer-happening of something gives rise to moment two of a no-longer-happening, and moment two gives rise to moment three. Moment one of a no-longer-happening doesn’t continue forever, does it?

The same is the case with a not-yet-happening of something – for instance, the not-yet-happening of an occurrence of anger. We could have moment “x”-minus-ten of the not-yet-happening, and that gives rise to moment “x”-minus-nine, like the countdown for a rocket taking off, the not-yet-happening of the rocket taking off: minus ten, minus nine, minus eight... It’s a changing phenomenon. This fits in much more nicely with the explanation of subtle impermanence, that things are drawing closer and closer to their end or to their result or to a higher state of entropy, this type of thing.

According to Gelug Prasangika, the no-longer-happening of an instance of anger is not merely an absence (med-pa) of anger. The absence of anger is the basis for a negation phenomenon (dgag-gzhi), where the negation phenomenon is the no-longer-happening of the previous instance of anger. Technically, a basis for negation is the reliance from which and dependent on which the negation phenomenon emerges, but with which it remains in contact, like the earth as the reliance from which a sprout emerges. The absence of anger is the reliance from which and dependent on which the nonstatic no-longer-happening (equivalent to the nonstatic previously-having-perished) of the previous instance of anger emerges as an implicative negation phenomenon (ma-yin dgag). It has a cause, the perishing (‘jig-pa) of the previous instance of anger. 

As an implicative negation, after negating the present-happening of the previous instance of anger, it tosses both the negation phenomenon “the no-longer-happening of the previous instance of anger” and the affirmation phenomenon “the having come about from the ceasing of the previous instance of anger” (dgag-bzhin-pa-las byung-ba). Thus, as an implicative negation, the no-longer-happening is nonstatic. Likewise, the nonstatic not-yet-happening of the next instance of anger is also an implicative negation phenomenon. We’ll discuss this in more detail in our next session.

This has been a general discussion of past, present and future. However, the topic gets very weird if we think of it as past, present and future. If we translate the words for the three as past, present and future, and then we hear the discussion that the past is permanent and the future is permanent or static, then what? Then, we’re completely misled.

If you have any more questions, please ask. We can start next time with a much deeper analysis of the temporal sequence of karmic impulse, karmic action, karmic tendency and karmic result, and see what is actually involved here with no-longer-happening causes and not-yet-happened results: How do they actually exist? What are they imputed on? Are they imputed? What do we know? Can we know them? Finally, what does a Buddha know?

I have a question about anger being continuous or not. I’ve always heard that the root of our disturbing emotions is ignorance, so why can’t we say that the common denominator of the phenomenon is the cause? Can we say the cause is the common denominator of the effect?

Ah, very interesting question. Can we say that for many effects the cause is the common denominator? The example that he’s using is ignorance or unawareness being the cause of all the various types of anger or other disturbing emotions. Or can we say, if we shorten the causal process here, that a tendency for anger is a cause for various episodes of anger?

When we talk about a causal process, there are many different aspects of cause. Just because we’re confused about how things exist or don’t know how things exist, doesn’t necessarily mean that our confusion will give rise to anger. It could give rise to attachment. It could give rise to many things. Do they share something in common, these various episodes? Yes, they are all coming from the same source. 

What does “common denominator” mean? I think maybe I haven’t explained it very well, or perhaps in a confusing way. A common denominator of two things is something that’s both. More specifically, a common denominator of two things is something that has the defining characteristics of both. I can only think of a complicated example.

Would you say that ignorance was the common denominator of anger and attachment?

No, we wouldn’t say that ignorance is the common denominator of anger and attachment because ignorance is not both anger and attachment.

Let me give the complicated example, it comes from Chittamatra, so maybe you will appreciate it: The alayavijnana, the foundation consciousness, is a common denominator of a person and a mind. Are you familiar with that one? What does that mean? That means that a foundation consciousness has the defining characteristics of both a mind and a person. That’s an example of something that’s both – that’s a common denominator. Maybe common denominator isn’t the right word. It’s an example of something that’s both. Are there other examples, a more common example?

What would be a simple example? Is there a common denominator between a table and a chair? Yes, this item here has the defining characteristics of both a table and a chair: we could rest things on it, eat off of it and sit on it.

For instance, there’s no common denominator between a static and a nonstatic phenomenon; there’s nothing that’s both. There’s no common denominator between a disturbing emotion and a karma; again, there’s nothing that’s both. Is there a common denominator between nonstatic phenomena (impermanent phenomena) and ways of being aware of something? Yes, there are many items that are both. I don’t think common denominator is the right word. Common locus is perhaps a better translation. That’s what they’re talking about.

Your original question was: Is ignorance the common denominator or common locus for all the different incidents of anger? No. Ignorance isn't both ignorance and anger. We couldn’t even say the tendency for anger is the common denominator. It’s not that all the different manifestations of anger are sitting inside the tendency waiting to pop out. It’s not like that. That would be the Samkhya position actually: that the result is sitting in the cause in an unmanifest form and just waiting for the circumstances to make it pop out and be there, which is like predestination.

Our discussion was: Is there something that is a result that is a common-locus of the not-yet-happening, the present-happening and the no-longer-happening result? Is there something that is all of them? Is there something that changes in terms of what function it’s performing, its presence or absence, or it being manifest or unmanifest. Is there something that is there that has the defining characteristics, from its own side, of being the not-yet-happening, the present-happening and the no-longer-happening result? That was what I was talking about in our previous sessions. Or the not-yet-happening, the present-happening and the no-longer-happening year 2006? Or each person’s experience of 2006? Is there something that is both my year 2006 measured on my mental continuum and the year 2006 measured on the continuum of the space traveler? That’s what I was talking about or Buddhism was talking about: Is there something that is all of these? There isn’t. Tsongkhapa's earlier interpretation of Chittamatra says, “Well, conventionally there is.” Well, where is it?  Think about that.

This discussion arises because when we see the table, we’d have to say that not only does the visual consciousness see the table, but we’d also have to conventionally say that “I see the table.” Not only the mind experiences something, but also we experience something. What’s going on with that? These different interpretations regarding a common denominator or common locus of a person and a consciousness are various attempts to explain that. Is there something that knows the table that has the defining characteristics of both a person and a mind, that from one point of view, we can say the mind knows it, and from another point of view, we can say, “I know it”? This is the point here.