Time and Timeless


revised on 2019-12-02


Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw; no date noted

Because of the sun and the moon, day and night times arise. With them temperature (utu) arises. With temperature ageing and sickness arise. Every day the temperature is eating and chewing the khandha. Eaten by time (kāla) and become old.

These are the change of the khandha. Time (kāla) is cold and hot temperatures. With them you can’t free from dangers. Therefore, I am urging you try to become Akālika – timeless. The Buddha didn’t like the beings were living with time. You have to make companions with ageing, sickness and death if you’re living with time.

The Buddha had arisen in the world for the beings became timeless – akālika. But when day time appears you all are happy. If night time arises also you all are happy with it. And you are taking rest at night time. These are not seeing the dangers of time. The mind wants to transcend time can’t arise.

It’s Akālika – timeless and can be experienced here and now (with the practice of the Noble Paths). This quality of the Dhamma is not for worshipping, but for practice. Akālika is Nibbāna – Timeless Dhamma. Therefore, the Buddha taught that in Nibbāna there were no sun and no moon.

There is no heat element to eat and chew the khandha, and no causes for ageing, sickness and death. You will have the sun and the moon if you’re running around the 31 realms of existence.

(Sayadaw gave the example for this as how living beings looked like in saṁsāra. It was like a dog following by a man behind and who was beating it with a stick inside a room but this dog just running around the room.)

Time eats all the living beings. (Sayadaw recited the Pali verses of the Buddha.) This is the path of people not knowing the truth. Therefore, we must consume the time. We never know the faults of time. The faults are very great indeed. (Sayadaw continued to use the D.A. chart to explain the dhamma of time). Some people when their children are born they advertise it in the newspaper.

They don’t know that it’s for avijjā and saṅkhāra. And it is for the sake of eaten by kāla. It’s clear that Nibbāna is free from the three periods of time. (See the twelve links of D.A. chart). People think that nothing exists in Nibbāna. It’s not so. It means the freedom from the sun and the moon – the three periods of time, and not becoming the eating and chewing stuffs.

Therefore, Nibbāna is free and safety from dangers. You have to go there. Is it Nibbāna far or near? (It’s near, Ven. Sir.) Why do people not arrive there? Because they do not encounter a good teacher and not knowing the way. At the ending of khandha Nibbāna exists. (At the end of section 2, i.e., viññāṇa → nāma/ rūpa → saḷāyatana → phassa → vedanā).

You have to practice between vedanā and taṇhā. The ending of khandha is Nibbāna. The ending of taṇhā is Nibbāna. If you attain maggan and time is eaten by you. If you don’t attain maggan and you have been eaten by time.


revised on 2019-12-02; cited from https://oba.org.tw/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4371&p=36333#p36333 (posted on 2019-04-16)


  • Content of Part 12 on "Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw"

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