The past and future are nothing more than fabrications made by our thinking. They don't exist outside our thinking. That's easy enough to see when we talk about the future. We know it hasn't happened...yet. But we fully expect it will, withy us playing fortune teller creating a narrative in which we are already participating. The past is in many ways equally concocted, with us still creating a narrative based on a selection of events that we use, once again to fit the narrative, and again with ourselves as active participants.
We try to use the Five Skandhas--form, feeling perception, impulses, and consciousness--to immerse ourselves in this imaginary world we try to make sense of, it having existence and permanence. With all things created by thinking, past, future, the skandhas, self, etc, we remove ourselves from the indeterminant present moment, which never leaves.
Master Ma and Baijang were out walking one day, and a flock of ducks few overhead. Master Ma asked him where the ducks were. "They've flown away," came the response. For the ducks, they never left their present moment, just flying as ducks do. Baijang created a narrative of them flying somewhere before being overhead, being overhead, and then going into the future where they were no longer overhead. Confused? Don't ask Mazu, lest you want tour nose to suffer the same fate as Baijang's. And all of that I just made up, selectively picking and choosing from memories I have a a story I may not remember correctly. The good news is that if Mazu or Baijang were to tell you what happened, they'd be making it up too!
Robert Koho Epstein gave the Dharma talk on November 11, 2023 at One Mind Zen. At least in my mind he did.
