Free Time! from clock-watching to free-flowing, a Buddhist guide

Praise for Free Time!

In this new book, Vajragupta takes us on a tour of time in the light of Buddhist wisdom. He starts by pointing out the ways in which our subjective experience of time relates to our states of mind. Grasping and aversion change the pace of experience and the generosity with which we engage the world. He explores clock time and the changes in the cultures, technologies and economies of time over the last centuries. Reflecting on the three lakshanas, or marks of being, in Buddhist thought, he asks the fundamental question of how we can develop a healthy relationship to change.

What sense of self do we invest in? What are our stories and the attachments they engender? Are they true? Are they liberating? The book is easy to read, dealing with tricky philosophical issues in an accessible and enjoyable way and packed with everyday wisdom. You’ll find moving examples, fragments of dream and metaphor, anecdotes from Buddhist practice, and resources for reflection on your own times and mind. It’s a delightful and insightful read. – Dhammamegha, Buddhist practitioner and author of The State of Secularism

Today we’re all familiar with time-stress – how can Buddhist practices help us cope with it? What does Buddhism have to teach us about our experience and understanding of time? Vajragupta’s new book offers fresh perspectives on a problem that continues to worsen, and original ways to address it. – David Loy, Buddhist teacher and author

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According to Socrates, philosophy begins with a sense of wonder. The starting point of Buddhism, by contrast, is the experience of suffering, and the Buddha’s overarching concern was its alleviation. In this fascinating book, Vajragupta combines the two: his discussions of time evoke a sense of wonder, but he also shows how our relationship with time can either entrap us in suffering, or release us into ‘an expansive freedom’.

Vajragupta’s discussions of time are very stimulating.

Just what is time? We think we know of course, we take it for granted, but he points out that we don’t really know. It’s a deeply mysterious phenomenon, but that only becomes clear as we look into our experience more closely.

But this is also a practical book, pertinent to the Buddhist project of alleviating suffering, and the connection is the mind.

Mind and time are not two separate or separable phenomena.

Our states of mind determine how we experience time, and, conversely, the way we experience time conditions our states of mind.

Vajragupta’s new work is refreshingly original, beautifully written, and crystal clear. Although the book isn’t long, it took me some time to read because on almost every page there is something to reflect on. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I read a book that yielded so many insights. Go and get yourself a copy as soon as you have some time. – Ratnaguna, author of The Art of Reflection and Great Faith, Great Wisdom, and co-founder and director of Breathworks

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Vajragupta’s book offers deep insight into untangling the frenzy of time. We’re all caught in the accelerating currents of time, surrounded by labour-saving devices that paradoxically rob us of the free time we desire. His suggestions can provide a positive life change with less time stress. Clearly a book worth reading. – Stephan Rechtschaffen, MD, author of Time Shifting, a founder of Omega Institute and Blue Spirit Costa Rica

As someone who suffers from chronic, clock-watching, inbox-obsessing busyness, I found this a challenging, but ultimately inspiring, book. Vajragupta starts with the idea that we create our own experience of time, through either craving our current experience (which speeds it up) or aversion to it (which slows it down), meaning our relationship with time intimately reflects the quality of our lives. Critiquing the popular idea of ‘living in the moment’, he emphasizes that we need dreams and aspirations for possible futures, provided we do not become fixated on their eventual achievement. I revelled in how he dealt with the apparent paradox of (a) seeking a feeling of unbounded time, while (b) simultaneously acknowledging the need for prioritisation. Hints for experiencing timelessness, and stories of both contemporary acquaintances and the life of the Buddha, make it all very human and accessible, firmly rooted in experience. This is an excellent book, and I just hope it will improve my own relationship with passing time. – Sir David Spiegelhalter, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK.

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Free Time! from clock-watching to free-flowing, a Buddhist guide Vajragupta Staunton

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Windhorse Publications 17e Sturton Street Cambridge CB1 2SN United Kingdom info@windhorsepublications.com windhorsepublications.com © Vajragupta Staunton, 2019 The right of Vajragupta Staunton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Typeset by Ruth Rudd Cover design by Katarzyna Manecka Printed by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-911407-23-2 Basho, ‘Haiku’, in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa, trans. Robert Hass. Copyright © 2013 by Bloodaxe Books.

Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books.

All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the copyright holder of the poems ‘The washing never gets done’, by Jaan Kaplinski, in The Wandering Border, © 1995, by Harvill Press/ Penguin Random House; and ‘The wind does not blow’, by Jaan Kaplinski, in Through the Forest, © 1996, by Harvill Press/ Penguin Random House. The copyright holder is invited to contact us at info@windhorsepublications.com

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Space and time are part of my mind. My mind contains space and time... The ten thousand things are condensed into the space, as it were, of a cubic centimetre, filling the mind. Flowing out of it, they fill the whole of time and space.

Lu Zhiu-Yuan (1138–91)1

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Contents

About the author Acknowledgements Publisher’s acknowledgements Introduction

Part I: What’s our experience of time?

1 o’clock: Flexi time 2 o’clock: Clock time 3 o’clock: Tomorrow time

Part II: Perspectives and practices on time 4 o’clock: 5 o’clock: 6 o’clock: 7 o’clock: 8 o’clock: 9 o’clock: 10 o’clock:

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Story time Healing time River time Change time Reflection time Self and time Now time

xi xiii xv 1 5 9 27 41 57 61 77 85 93 101 117 135

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Contents

Part III: In the fullness of time

155

11 o’clock: Buddha time 12 o’clock: Play time

159 177

Appendix: Guided reflection-meditations Notes and references Index

195 209 227

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About the author

Vajragupta Staunton was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1994. Since that time he has been director of the Birmingham Buddhist Centre from 1997 to 2005, and director of the Triratna Development Team (helping to support a network of about fifty Buddhist centres across Europe) from 2006 to 2014.

These days he lives as a ‘wandering Dharma farer’, spending periods of time teaching and helping out at different Buddhist communities around the world, and also making time for writing.

Free Time! is Vajragupta’s fifth book; it follows on from Wild Awake, a book about the practice of solitude in wild and beautiful places.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Pippa and Sam Armstrong, Aryatara community, Richard Dell, Andy and Catherine Gorno, Manjupriya, Phil Marston, Nibbhaya, Sagaradana, Tejapushpa and Tom Lostday, and Vaddhaka for accommodating me during different phases of the writing of this book. Thank you Dhivan for some comments on an early draft of chapter 1, which pointed me in the right direction. Thank you to Richard Dell, Dhammamegha, Matthew Hibbert, Indradhanu, Kalyacitta, Nibbhaya, Prajnabandhu, and Krista Tomson for your valuable feedback on the first draft. Thank you also to Akasajoti, Amaladipa, Samanartha, and Bridge Williams for so generously sharing your stories. Thank you Ratnaguna for the opening quote and for sourcing one of the Pali-canon stories from the Buddha.

I want to acknowledge the influence of Rob Burbea’s Seeing That Frees on my approach in chapter 8, and also part of chapter 10.

I could not have written the book at all, were it not for my teacher Sangharakshita, from whom I learnt the Dharma. Sometimes I have had the experience of writing a paragraph and feeling rather pleased with what I had come up with, only to realize that I had quoted (subconsciously, and sometimes almost verbatim) from his writing and teaching. Any mistakes in what follows are my own responsibility, however. xiii

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Acknowledgements Thank you to all the team at Windhorse Publications for the good work you do. I am also very grateful for the editorial input of Cynthia Troup. Her suggestions have significantly improved the clarity and flow of the book, and I have learnt a lot from her.

Thank you also to Dhatvisvari for her highly skilled copy-editing.

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Introduction

Introduction

I have always had a restless, anxious side, an obsession with the future. A couple of years ago I dreamt about being in some kind of borderland, a port or harbour. A long queue of articulated lorries waited, perhaps to drive on board a ship. There were crowds of people, some in groups milling about chatting, some also queueing by the lorries, and groups of children playing. The scene was busy, somewhat chaotic, but mainly good-natured and peaceful.

Suddenly a character emerged from the background, riding on a quad bike that towed a trailer piled high with junk. He pushed through the crowds in a mad hurry. He was wearing black biker leathers and had long curly hair. His staring eyes were large, bulging, and startlingly intense. He was determined to reach the front of the queue. He seemed oblivious to everyone else, and to how dangerously his bike was weaving in and out of the groups of adults and children.

He then parked his bike at the front of the queue and proceeded to try selling the odd assortment of items on the back of his trailer.

It really was junk; trying to sell that stuff seemed rather desperate and crazy. People were also now complaining angrily to each other about how reckless he had been. But he seemed unaware, separate from everyone else.

1

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Free Time!

In the dream I was one of the people in the crowd and, whilst the turmoil had been unfolding, I had realized that I recognized the crazy biker. I knew who he was. And so I offered to go and have words with him. When I tried to speak with him, however, he deliberately turned his face in the opposite direction. ‘Please talk to me’, I said, ‘Don’t you remember me?’ Only then did he turn and look at me. And at that moment I woke up.

Who was he? He was, of course, me. As well as being an observer in the crowd, I was also the crazy biker man. Those two characters were representing different aspects of my psyche, the one trying to talk to the other and come into a better relationship with him.

That crazy biker man was always in a hurry, constantly trying to get ahead, pushing and rushing to the front of the queue. Head down, gritting his teeth, staring ahead whilst hardly seeing what was immediately around him, he became cut off from other people. When reflecting on the dream back then, I realized that I could be like the biker man. I saw how my restless striving was partly about proving myself, justifying myself by being seen to be making things happen. What I was engaged in at any given time was just a means to some future state. I thought that the quicker I could complete it, the sooner I would arrive at that bright future. Therefore I pushed at the hours, days, and weeks, and that pushing had gradually become an entrenched habit.

I am exaggerating to make a point. There were also positive motives behind that proactive and ambitious side of my character.

Nevertheless, inwardly, there was a near-constant tension, as though inside me was an athlete on the starting blocks, bent forwards, muscles straining, pumped with adrenaline, waiting for the starting pistol to fire. My mind was nearly always leaning forwards into the future, planning the next thing and then the next thing, calculating how I could fit the maximum useful activity into the space of the day. Repeated over years, that leaning forwards had become part of my inner ‘posture’, a strong tendency or 2

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Introduction inclination, a weight always heavy on my shoulders. I felt what the Sūtra of Golden Light refers to as ‘the oppression of the fleeting mind [...] the oppression of time’.2 On other occasions, however, my experience was completely different. Particularly when immersed in more wild and beautiful landscapes, I found I could stop, rest, and experience a deep ease and contentment. One of the characteristics of this experience was that I forgot about time. No longer was I constantly ratcheting up the future. This meant the present loosened too, opened out, and deepened into a rich, brimming fullness.

Noticing these stark contrasts, I became increasingly interested in my relationship with time. I saw that I viewed time as an external container, into which I tried to stuff as many activities as possible. The result was that my time had no flexibility, and I had no room for manoeuvre. I felt that I never had enough time. This also meant not having enough time for other people, for closeness and connection, for seeing what other people really needed.

I began to understand how time isn’t something separate from us; the state of mind we live in also creates our experience of the time that we live in. Depending on my mental and emotional state, time would tighten or loosen, race or crawl; it became more hard and solid, or more fluid and flowing. And the more I looked, the more I saw just how deeply and fundamentally mind and time are interconnected, mutually dependent. How I lived created the time I lived in: time in an urgent arrhythmia, or time whose pulse was more easy and natural.

In our fast-moving world, many people can feel their time is wound tight, their lives constantly hassled and hectic. Fastforward seems to be the collective default setting. So often we can be overbusy and overstimulated, and this can send stress levels higher and higher.

I have come to believe that investigating our experience of time, and considering our relationship with it, can be deeply 3

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Free Time! and powerfully transformative. Noticing the feel and texture of our time can help us see more clearly, and understand more profoundly, the anxiety and restlessness that so often dominate our minds.

This book explores time from a number of different angles, in order to see how we can have a more healthy and human relationship with it. The first three chapters look at our actual day-to-day experience of time. The middle section of the book uses a variety of Buddhist ideas and practical teachings in order to explore what time really is, helping us to ‘do time’ in a way that is not oppressive and restrictive, but more free and flowing.

The final chapters draw all the themes of the book together and consider what a fully transformed relationship with time might look like.

There are also extensive endnotes. Sometimes these point you to a text or other source I have drawn on, sometimes they define words or terms I have used, and occasionally they add a bit more information, or extend what is being said in the chapter concerned. At other times (particularly with chapter 9), I have used the endnotes to explore potential objections to my argument, and to answer those objections without making the main text too cumbersome and convoluted.

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