Opinion
Sense and nonsense of time
My father asked me a question when I was little: what is the fastest thing in the world? Like any other kid, I tossed up a rocket, and he responded in the negative, and affirmed that the fastest thing is the mind. The notion that the movement of thought is the fastest, astonished me.
There is no doubt that the analysis of time is a complicated thing; I am here merely drawing attention to facts and fictions that are combined to portray an impression of time. For example, the time taken by a train to get to a city is derived from events which are in time. This is physical time (kalika) that is measured by the clock. ‘Going to a city’ by mind does not involve physical events in between, so, it must be psychologically derived by past experiences.
Use of physical time in day-to-day life makes sense, but the use of psychological time to become something (by desire) that is not present here and now does not make much sense. We appear to do just that by mixing up psychological time with physical time to cause all sorts of stress and anxiety. Do we think around existence in psychological or physical time? Does neither time exist?
Kalavadins, a group of eternalists in contemporary of the Buddha, claimed that time is an absolute reality and strictly distinct. Even for Isaac Newton in 17th century, time was absolute and universal. Albert Einstein in 1905 disputed Newtonian time by the theory of Relativity in which he specified that time is not independent of the universe, but elastic and relative to the motion of an observer. For Einstein, the passing of time was an illusion. Moreover, he wrote that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.
Two millenniums before western philosophers, the Buddhist thought expounded by answering to Kalavadins that time has no objective reality and has no existence outside the world of phenomena (dhammas). In other words, time does not exist in real sense—avijjamana pannatti—like dhammas that arise and cease through causes and conditions. The theory of causality (an equivalent term for Paticcasamuppada) categorised that past, present and future are a concept of time and the Buddha advised us not to entertain views around the past and the future. The mind is designed to operate in the present because everything we experience is a product of six internal bases and six corresponding sense objects.
If we cannot talk about time without causally produced events, thinking about future is nothing but extrapolating the past or present with imaginary or predicted causes and conditions. As such any notion of deterministic future cannot stand in the Buddhist thought. For this reason, I think the Buddha never talked about the future in absolute accuracy, apart from a few exceptions, for example heinous crimes in which effect will be without intervals (anantarrika-kamma).
To replace the belief of absolute time, the Abhidhamma had invented a few entities in various scales such as khana (moment), santati (continuum or moving now) and addhan (duration). Any attempt to extend these entities into samsaric cycle, phenomenal integration by an observer—a self—is necessary to place them in temporal scale. All these entities, as far as I see, should be understood in relation to phenomena. A phenomenon is not a function of time and self, but vice versa. Without such a consideration, these entities sound more metaphysical than empirical and may well fall into the line of Kalavadines.
For example, if ‘khana’ is defined as a moment in physical time, it should have a duration. Any division of the duration should have characteristics of the whole duration. If ‘khana’ represents the entirety of its divisions—many consciousnesses as advocated by the Abhidhamma—to cognise what ‘khana’ is, one needs to go into all divisions at once, which is impossible. If we were to say it does not have a duration, several moments have no duration either. Therefore, ‘khana’ cannot be understood in terms of physical time. The exact nature of santati—continuum—is also debatable and cannot be grasped easily by us, due to the fact that phenomenal overlaps between successive santati are needed for ‘moving now’. It is nevertheless accepted in the commentarial tradition and recognised as perceptible time.
Since time is a conceptual construct that cannot be distinct outside of phenomena and their observers, I think ‘samaya’—confluence of conditions (paccaya samaggi)—is the most sensible way to put time into psychological perspective, in which no chronological sequence can be recognised. Samaya has widely been used in the early Buddhist literature, for examples, “ekam samayan” (at one time) in the Sutta Pitakaya, “tena samayena” (at that time) in the Vinaya Pitakaya and “yasmin samaye” (at which time) in the Abhidhamma Pitakaya.
Life is nothing more than the confluence of conditions one after the other. Attachment to time by always attempting to become ‘something’ in the future seems a major issue for us not being able to realise the Dhamma. In this life, we are fulfilling our time (‘kalam karoti’) in both physical and psychological senses, and before fulfilling our time (‘kalakiriya’), eradicating our attachment to time is necessary to put an end to becoming (bhava).
DR KEMACHANDRA
The first and only tsunami that Sri Lanka experienced was on Boxing Day(26th) of December 2004. My wife and I, as usual, went down to Modara in Moratuwa to purchase our seafood requirements of seafood from our familiar fishmonger, Siltin, from whom we had been buying fish for a long time. Sometimes we used to take a couple of friends of ours. But on this day, it was only both of us that went on this trip.
We made our purchases and were returning home and when we came up to the Dehiwala bridge, many people were looking down at the canal from both sides of the bridge. This was strange, as normally if there was something unusual, it would be on one side.
Anyway, we came home unaware of anything that had happened. A school friend of mine (sadly he is no longer with us) telephoned me and asked whether I was aware of what had happened. When I answered him in the negative, he told me to switch on the TV and watch. Then when I did so and saw what was happening, I was shocked. But still I did not know that we had just managed to escape being swept away by the tsunami.
Later, when I telephoned Siltin and asked him, he said that both of us had a narrow escape. Soon after we had left in our car, the tsunami had invaded the shore with a terrifying wave and taken away everything of the fishmongers, including their stalls, the fish, weighing scales and money. The fishmongers had managed to run to safety.
This had been about five minutes after we had left. So, it was a narrow shave to have escaped the wrath of the demining tsunami( the name many Sri Lankans came to know after it hit our island very badly}
HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE
Sri Lanka has recorded a staggering 375 elephant deaths in the past eleven and a half months due to a multitude of causes, according to the Department of Wildlife Conservation. U. L Thaufeeq, Deputy Director – Elephant Conservation said the deaths include 74 from gunshots, 53 from electrocution, 49 from hakka patas (explosive devices hidden in food), seven from poisoning, 10 from train accidents, three from a road accident, and six by drowning. It makes such diabolical reading!
“The causes of other deaths are due to natural causes or causes that could not be identified. Most of the elephants that died were young,” the official said.
Meanwhile, the human-elephant conflict has also taken a toll on people, with 149 human deaths reported this year.
Accordingly, human-elephant conflict has resulted in 524 deaths of both elephants and humans in 2024.
In 2023, a total of 488 elephants and 184 people have died consequent to the conflict, according to Wildlife Department statistics.
The human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated to unprecedented levels with reasons like habitat destruction, encroachment, and the lack of sustainable coexistence measures contributing to the issue.
This is an indictment of the Wildlife Department for just giving the sad yearly statistics of shocking losses of our National treasures !
Given the fact that Sri Lanka boasts of 29.9% of the country declared as protected forests, Sri Lanka is a haven for nature lovers. Boasting 26 national parks, 10 nature reserves including 3 strict nature reserves, and 61 sanctuaries, the national parks in Sri Lanka offer an incredible variety of wildlife experiences.
Taken in that context, the million dollar question is why on earth the Wildlife Department is not being proactive to capture these magnificent animals and transport them into protected sanctuaries, thus effectively minimising dangers to villagers ?
Being a Buddhist country primarily, to turn a blind eye to these avoidable tragic deaths to mankind and wild elephants, we should be ashamed !
As a practising Buddhist myself, I think our clergy could play a major part in calling upon the Wildlife Department to get their act together sooner rather than later to protect human elephant conflicts !
Sri Lanka being a favourite destination amongst foreign tourists, they are bound to take a dim view of what is happening on the ground!
If the top brass in the responsible department are not doing their job properly, may be there is a case for the new President to intervene before it gets worse!
All animal lovers hope and pray the New Year will usher in a well coordinated plan of action put in place to ensure the well being of wildlife and villagers !
Sunil Dharmabandhu
Wales, UK
This has reference to the article from the Aircraft Owners and Operators Sri Lanka, titled ‘Closer look at regulatory oversight and its impact on Tourism’, published on Tuesday, 24th December 2024.To explain further, in the beginning there was the Air Navigation Act No 15 of 1950 which was followed by the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) of 1955. This was long before the national airline had acquired pressurised aircraft, intercontinental jets, sophisticated navigation equipment, satellite communication and automatic landing systems, and ‘glass’ flight-deck instrumentation.
Today, civil aviation in Sri Lanka is governed by Civil Aviation Act Number 14 of 2010. Yet the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) promulgated back in 1955 remain in force.
These outdated regulations still stipulate rules forbidding the carriage of passengers on the airplane’s wings or undercarriage (landing gear). In short, they are neither practical nor user-friendly. In contrast, the Air Navigation Regulations of other countries have progressed and are easy to read, understand, and implement.
To overcome the problem of outdated regulations, as an interim measure in 1969 the then Minister of Communications and Transport, Mr E.L.B. Hurulle issued a Government Gazette notification declaring that the Standard and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) in Annexes to the ICAO Convention signed by Ceylon in 1944 shall be made law.
Even so, nothing much was done to move with the times until updating of the Civil Aviation Act 14 of 2010, while the Air Navigation Regulations remained unchanged since 1955. However, these regulations were modified from time to time by the promulgation of Implementing Standards (IS) and General Directives (GDs) which were blindly ‘cut and pasted’ by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL), from the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Annexe ‘SARPS’ without much thought given. To date there are literally 99 IS’s starting from 2010.
The currently effective air navigation regulations are not in one document like the rest of the world, but all over the place and difficult for the flying public to follow as they are not regularly updated. This sad situation seems to have been noticed by the current regime.
The National Tourism Policy of the ruling NPP states, “Domestic air operations are currently limited due to high cost and regulatory restrictions. The current regulatory and operational environment will be reviewed to ensure domestic air connectivity to major tourist destinations. The potential of operating a domestic air schedule with multiple operators is proposed. Additionally, domestic airports and water aerodromes in potential key areas will be further developed, for high-end tourism growth.”
“The tourism policy recognises Sri Lanka’s potential to develop Sri Lanka’s aviation-based specialised tourism products, including fun flying, hot air ballooning, paragliding, parachuting and skydiving, and scenic seaplane operations. To facilitate the growth of these niche markets, existing regulations will be reviewed with the aim of attracting capable investors to develop and operate these offerings.”
It remains to be seen whether the NPP government lives up to those promises.
Note:
That OPA report talks of two funds: ‘Connectivity’ and ‘Viability’ for a limited period like three or five years to help jump-start the domestic aviation industry.
The ‘Connectivity Fund’ will cap the seat price for local passengers to a more affordable value to destinations while the ‘Viability Fund’ will assume that all seats are occupied and compensate the operator for any unutilised seat. The intention is to popularise domestic aviation as a safe, quick and convenient mode of transport.
Capt. Gihan A Fernando
RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines.
Now A Fun Flier
Two die in Sydney to Hobart yacht race
Deepti’s all-round heroics hand India series sweep
Australia maintain full control despite Jaiswal’s 82
-
Sports6 days agoPathirana set to sling his way into Kiwi hearts
-
News4 days agoOffice of CDS likely to be scrapped; top defence changes on the cards
-
News7 days agoSL issues USD 10.4 bn macro-linked bonds
-
Editorial7 days agoRanil’s advice
-
Editorial6 days agoThe games they play
-
Features4 days agoAn Absurd play in Parliament: Qualifications versus education
-
Opinion5 days agoWhat AKD and NPP should bear in mind
-
Features6 days agoThe Government’s Term Tests & Results: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly