Not Coming, Not Going

Not Coming, Not Going

Here is a joke. When I try to compare ‘a few seconds’ to the popular term ‘This Instant’, my mind, being trained by Buddhist practice,

keeps shutting down. Since my brain has investigated and calculated

the existence of ‘a few seconds’, it does not know how to apply

‘This Instant’. Readers may feel confused by now.

Let me clarify it in the following example. Say seeing and

comprehending what happened take only a few seconds. When

trying to describe ‘a few seconds’ with ‘This Instant’, I question

myself right away, ‘Were it not for “a few seconds”, what would be

the percentage of “This Instant” in “a few seconds”?’  Ha! And then I

find myself too stupid to adopt this popular term because I realize

that it is about gathering of ‘a few seconds’, instead of about ‘This Instant’

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā’s ‘Not Coming, Not Going’, about time and

movement, analyzes issues of time staying. After analyzing it

critically, I am aware what minutes and seconds are like and will

follow and execute my recognition automatically. That is, my

recognition of minutes and seconds goes beyond this popular term,

stops me from adopting it, and thus I become too stupid to keep up

with the trends.

The bygone is gone,

‘This Instant’ is not staying,

The coming is not coming yet.

The three points above clarify Buddhist viewpoints of ‘not coming,

not going’, which is one of the essence of Śūnyatā. I keep observing

how time affects me and find myself having shaken a lot off and also

advanced a lot unconsciously along the way.

Ban Ji
Translated by Grace Tsai