Present
Another post to clarify this for myself.
There is only the timeless, eternal Present, within which the world of phenomena unfolds, always new, fresh, different. The past and future is only an abstraction, only a story.
To be relatively precise, we can say that the past and future do not exist and never did. There is only this eternal, timeless Present, always. This is the Absolute. The past and future is only a story, only an abstraction.
Going into the relative, and using the framework of time, we can say these are stories of how the world of phenomena previously unfolded within the Present and may unfold within this Present later on.
We can grasp this intellectually, even while identified as an object in the world, although it tends to sound overly abstract or even naive.
This realization - and the implications of it - only unfolds more clearly in our immediate experience when the belief in the story of past, of future, and of I, starts to erode. Then, it is revealed as what always is, was and will be. Simple. Very simple, very clear. Difficult to describe precisely in words, yet also the most simple.
It is of course a liberating discovery or noticing. I can always deal with the Present, and that is all there is. There really is no past or future to deal with, only the stories of them.
Labels: relative and absolute, timeless present