"Buddhist Meditation and the Consciousness of Time" by Philip Novak
 

Buddhist Meditation and the Consciousness of Time

Philip Novak, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Dominican University of California

Abstract

This paper first reviews key Buddhist concepts of time -- anicca (impermanence), khanavada (instantaneous being) and uji (being-time) -- and then describes the way in which a particular form of Bhuddist [sic] meditation , vipassana, may be thought to actualize them in human experience. The chief aim of the paper is to present a heuristic model of how vipassana meditation, by eroding dispositional tendencies rooted in the body-unconscious alters psychological time, transforming our felt-experience of time from a bind to a liberating force.