Being Beyond Temporality
Video Explaining Shamatha Meditation Included
The teachings of the Buddha are timeless (akaliko), not only because they are still as valid and applicable as when the Buddha was alive, but even more so that the truth of it has been valid and true forever. These timeless truths are not mere accepted on face value but in realization were verified by the Buddha:
“These, monks, are those other matters, profound, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond mere thought, subtle, to be experienced by the wise, which the Buddha, having realized them by his own super-knowledge, proclaims, and about which those who would truthfully praise the Buddha would rightly speak.” — DN I.22
In the Samyutta Nikaya I.11-13 a spirit (yakkha) asks the Buddha what it means when the Dhamma is designated as timeless (akaliko), i.e. eternal.
The Buddha gives the answer that it is only by understanding of what-can-be-said that eternal life can be attained: "Those who pay attention only to what can be told in a literal sense (akkheyyam), who hold out on what can be told in the full sense, who do not fully realize and understand what can be told, these people remain under the influence of Death: but one who fully understands and realizes what can be explained, do not argue about about the story teller, reflecting “It is not his [story]”, and so commits no error.”
The spirit (yakkha) does not understand what is meant and asks the Buddha to explain in detail the meaning of what has been said in brief. The Buddha then explains in detail the designation of timeless Dhamma and at last it is understood that the Buddha's designation of timeless can only apply to a teaching that has not been taught by someone, or any one person; the Dhamma is timeless, not as the spoken word here-and-now by a person, but regardless of who speaks it or when it was spoken, it remains valid in the past present and future.
Neither the transcendent Buddha nor the Dhamma are within time, but only when it manifests as the spoken word, and spoken by such-and-such, which should not be taken as an absolute truth without having penetrated and realized it for oneself [seen, verified, and realized].
In the Buddhist texts in the same way we find the Dhamma described both as here and now [within time] when it is spoken, and as timeless [not in time]. It is important to realize that the Buddha did not ‘invent’ this truth as such, but re-discovered the ancient Way, as it had been taught by previous Buddhas and since that time has been forgotten. Wisdom is not ‘made’ by someone who attains it, or manifests as such as an ‘original idea’, but it is at this present time re-discovered and true, as it has ever been, and will be forever.
“So too, monk, I saw the ancient path, the ancient road travelled by the Perfectly Enlightened Ones of the past. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road? It is just this Noble Eight-fold Path.” — SN II.106
These two modes or natures of the Dhamma as within time and timeless also applies to the Buddha, as being the vocal Buddha when he teaches, and the transcendent Buddha when he is ‘silent’. The Buddha’s ‘silence’ can be seen as transcendent truth that can not be applied when asking categorical questions that fall into the extremes of nihilism and eternalism.
From Wisdom Publications: Alan Wallace Shamatha Live Interview, Talk, Q&A
The Nine Successive Cessations In buddhist Meditations - Part 3
The Nine Successive Cessations In buddhist Meditations - Part 2
The Nine Successive Cessations In buddhist Meditations - Part 1
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