What we call time is not real time. It is chronological time. Time can be divided, classified, in three ways. One is "chronological," another is "psychological," and the third is "real" time, existential.

The real time is no time at all, because the real time is eternity. Let me explain it to you.

Zeno of Elea

The chronological time is arbitrary. In the West Zeno proved it long before. In the East Nagarjuna proved it so deeply that he has never been refuted. In fact Zeno and Nagarjuna, two persons, have remained irrefutable. Nobody can refute them; their arguments are so deep and absolute. Zeno and Nagarjuna say that the whole concept of time, chronological time, is absurd. Let me tell you a few things about these two persons and their analysis of chronological time.

They achieved the highest peak of time analysis. Nobody has ever been able to surpass them or improve upon them. They say, "What is time?" You say, "It is a process. One moment moves into the past, disappears; another moment moves from the future into the present; remains there on the threshold for a time; then again moves into the past, disappears." This is the time process. You have only one moment at one time, never two moments together. Past, future, and just between the two, the threshold, the present.

Now Nagarjuna and Zeno say, "Where does the moment come from?  Is the future already existent?  If it is not existent, then how can the moment come out of the nonexistential?"

Now they create trouble. They say, "Where does the present moment move to in the past? Does it still remain accumulated in the past?"

If you say it still remains in the past, then it has not become past yet. If you say it was there in the future and just now it has been revealed to us, it has always been there in the future; then, Nagarjuna and Zeno say, then you cannot call it the future; it has always been present. If the future is, then the future is not; because the future means that which is not yet. If the past is, then the past is not; because the past means that which has gone out of existence.

So whatsoever alternative you choose.... If you say the future is not and suddenly out of the blue the present moment appears, they both laugh. They say, "You are talking nonsense. How does from out of nonexistence can existence come? And how can the existential move into nonexistence again?" They say, "If there is nonexistence on both sides, then just in the middle, how can existence be? It must also be nonexistential. You got deceived."

Then they say, "You take time as a process? You say one moment is joined with another?" Nagarjuna and Zeno ask you, "There are two moments; how are they related?  Is there a third moment between the two which relates them?"

Again they create a difficulty because, to relate, a link is needed. To relate two things - to relate the past with the present and the present with the future - links are needed. Then where do those links exist?   What are those links? They can only be of time. So between one moment and another there is another moment to join these two. So instead of two there are three, but again they will have to be joined. Infinite regress arises.

Infinite regress

The chronological time, Nagarjuna and Zeno say, is utilitarian. It is not substantial. The real time is not a process, because, Nagarjuna says, if time itself is a process, then it will need another time. For example, you walk. You need time. You have come to me, to this Chuang Tzu Auditorium from your home. It took fifteen minutes for you to come here. If there is no time, how will you come here, because walking needs time? Walking is a process; you need time. All processes need time. Now Nagarjuna says, "If you say time itself is a process, it will need another time, a supertime. And that too is a process. Then a super-supertime...." Again infinite regress arises. Then you cannot solve it.

No. Time - real time - is not a process. It is a simultaneity. Future, past, present are not three separate things; so there is no need to join them. It is eternally now, it is eternity. It is not that time is passing by, by your side. Where will it go? It will need another medium to pass through, and where will it go and from where will it come? It is there; or rather it is here. Time is. It is not a process.

Because we cannot see the total time - our eyes are confined, limited; we are looking out of small slits - that's why it seems you can see only one moment at a time. It is your own limitation, not a division of time. Because you cannot see the whole time as it is - because you are not yet whole - that is the reason why.