GOLDEN TIME, LEADEN TIME, WASTED TIME
Those whom summer’s heat tortures yearn for the full moon of autumn
Without even fearing the idea
That a hundred days of their life will then have passed forever.
BUDDHA SHAKYAMUNI
Time often resembles a fine gold powder that we distractedly allow to slip through our fingers without ever realizing it. Put to good use, it is the shuttle we pass through the weft of our days to weave the fabric of a meaningful life. It is therefore essential to the quest for happiness that we be aware that time is our most precious commodity. This does not mean we should get rid of what is meaningful in life but rather of that which causes us to waste our life. As Seneca says: “It is not that we have so little time, but that we waste so much of it.”
Life is short. We always lose when we put essential things off. The years or hours remaining to us are like a precious substance that crumbles easily and can be frittered away without noticing. Despite its great value, time has no way of protecting itself, like a child that can be led away by any bystander.
For the active person, golden time is when he can create, build, accomplish, and devote himself to the welfare of others. For the contemplative, time allows him to look clearly into himself to understand his inner world and rediscover the essence of life. It is golden time that, despite the appearance of inactivity, allows him fully to appreciate the present moment and develop the inner qualities that will permit him to better help others. In a hermit’s day, every instant is a treasure and time is never wasted. In the silence of his hermitage, he becomes, in the words of Khalil Gibran, “a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.”
The idle person talks of “killing time.” What a dreadful expression! Time becomes a long, flat, dreary line. This is leaden time; it weighs on the idler like a burden and cripples anyone who cannot tolerate waiting, delay, boredom, solitude, setbacks, or sometimes even life itself. Every passing moment aggravates his sense of imprisonment or dullness. For others, time is nothing more than the countdown to a death they fear or which they may even wish for when they tire of living. To paraphrase Herbert Spencer, the time they are unable to kill ends up killing them.
Experiencing time as painful and insipid, and feeling that we’ve done nothing at the end of the day, the end of the year, the end of life, reveals how unaware we remain of the potential for development we carry within us.
BEYOND BOREDOM AND LONELINESS
Boredom is the fate of those who rely entirely on distraction, for whom life is one big entertainment and who languish the minute the show stops. Boredom is the affliction of those for whom time has no value.
On the other hand, she who understands the inestimable value of time uses every break from her daily activities and outward stimuli to sample the delicious clarity of the moment. She has no knowledge of boredom, that drought of the mind.
The same is true of loneliness. Fifteen percent of Americans report experiencing an intense feeling of loneliness once a week. Anyone who cuts himself off from others and the universe, trapped in the bubble of his own ego, feels alone in the middle of a crowd. But those who understand the interdependence of all phenomena are not lonely; the hermit, for example, feels in harmony with the entire universe.
For the distracted man, time is just Muzak droning its notes into the confusion of his mind. This is wasted time. Of such a man Seneca wrote: “He has not lived long—he has existed long. Would you say that a man who had been caught in a fierce storm as soon as he set sail, and, buffeted to and fro by a series of winds raging from all sides, had been driven in a circle around the same course, had had a long journey? It was not a lot of journeying, but a lot of tossing about.”1
“Distraction” here does not mean the tranquil relaxation of a hike in the woods, but pointless activities and interminable mental chatter that, far from illuminating the mind, mire it in exhausting chaos. This distraction sets the mind to wandering without any respite, misdirects it into side roads and dead ends. Knowing how to use our time to the full does not mean we always have to be in a hurry or obsessed by the clock. Whether we are relaxing or concentrating, resting or intensely active, in all circumstances we must be able to recognize the true value of time.
A RETURN TO GOLDEN TIME
Why don’t we devote even the briefest of moments once a day to introspection? Are we really satisfied by clever conversation and a little mindless entertainment? Let’s look within. There is much to do.
It is worthwhile to spend a moment each day cultivating an altruistic thought and observing the workings of the mind. This investigation will teach us a thousand times more—and far more lastingly—than an hour spent reading the local news or sports results! It’s not a question of ignoring the world, but of putting our time to good use. In any case, we don’t need to fear going to that extreme, living as we do in an era of ubiquitous distractions, and where access to general information is at the saturation point. We are stuck, rather, in the opposite extreme: zero contemplation. We may devote a few seconds when emotional or professional setbacks make us “put it all in perspective.” But how, and for how long? Often enough we’re just waiting for the bad moment to “pass” and anxiously looking for some distraction to “take our mind off things.” The actors and the sets change, but the show goes on.
Why not sit beside a lake, on top of a hill, or in a quiet room and examine what we are really made of deep inside? Let us first clearly examine what counts most in life for ourselves, then establish priorities among the essential things and other activities that intrude on our time. We can also take advantage of certain phases of active life to commune with ourselves and turn our gaze inward. Tenzin Palmo, an English nun who spent many years in retreat, has written: “People say they have no time for ‘meditation.’ It’s not true! You can meditate walking down the corridor, waiting for the traffic lights to change, at the computer, standing in a queue, in the bathroom, combing your hair. Just be there in the present, without the mental commentary.”2
Our time is limited; from the day we are born, every second, every step, brings us closer to death. The Tibetan hermit Patrul Rinpoche reminds us poetically that
As your life runs out like the setting sun sinking away,
Death closes in like the lengthening shadows of evening.
Far from making us despair, a lucid awareness of the nature of things inspires us to live each passing day to the full. Unless we examine our lives, we will take it for granted that we have no choice and that it’s easier just to do one thing right after the other, as we’ve always done and always will do. But if we do not abandon futile entertainments and sterile activities, they certainly will not abandon us; they will, in fact, take up more and more space in our lives.
When we keep putting off our spiritual life to tomorrow, we end up copping out every single day. Death draws near with every step we take, every tick and every tock of the clock. It could strike at any moment and we can’t do a thing about it. While death is certain, its moment of arrival is unpredictable. As Nagarjuna said seventeen centuries ago:
If this life assailed by many ills
Is yet more fragile than a bubble on the stream,
How wonderful it is to wake from sleep
And having loosed one’s breath, to breathe in once again!3
At the practical level, if we wish to experience our relationship to time more harmoniously, we must cultivate a certain number of qualities. Mindfulness allows us to remain alert to the passage of time and prevents us from being unaware as it flows. The proper motivation is what colors time and gives it value. Diligence allows us to put it to good use. Inner freedom prevents it from being monopolized by disturbing emotions. Every day, every hour, every second, is like an arrow flying toward its target. The right time to start is now.
EXERCISE
Appreciate the Value of Time, Savor the Present Moment
Turn your mind inward and appreciate the richness of every single moment that passes by. Instead of being an endless succession of feelings, images, and scattered thoughts, time becomes pure awareness, like a luminous stream of melted gold.
When past thoughts have ceased, and future thoughts have not yet arisen, in the interval is there not a perception of nowness, a pristine, clear, awake, and bare freshness? Remain in it for a while, without grasping at anything, like a small child looking at a vast landscape.