The Buddha-thought furnishes a reading of the concept of time and space.
Time and space as something existent in themselves are only possible
where one is working with “bodies” in the physical sense, where one is
operating with identities. Such bodies have need of a space existent
in itself in order to perform movements; and, as a matter of fact,
physics so completely objectifies the conception of space that it does
not hesitate to make the attempt to determine the curvature-measurement
of space. Such bodies, further, require time as something objective in
order to traverse this space. An objective time and an objective space
represent, so to speak, the ordinate and abscissa of the artificial
system “body” as conceived of by the physicist. If one does not work
with such “bodies,” but, as a philosopher, with things regarded as
mere “appearances”--like Kant, for instance--then time and space, from
being things purely objective, must become just as much things purely
subjective--forms of perception given _a priori_; the one view as
erring as the other!
“Avoiding both extremes, the Buddha points to the truth in the mean.”
This continually-recurrent phrase applies, as everywhere, so also here
in the strife of opposites. Actuality has no opposites. It is the
union of opposites itself. And wherever contention reigns of or about
opposites, it only shows that both parties alike have become entangled
in pseudo-problems of a purely dialectical nature. This the seeker for
truth may depend on, as a rule that has no exceptions: Where there
are opposites, there is nescience! Whence it follows that there is no
solution from the side of things, but only from the side of thinking,
in the rectification of our mental assumptions.
So also is it here.
Where the actual play of world-events is comprehended as a summation
of individual combustion-processes, time and space are things neither
purely objective nor purely subjective, but belonging equally to
both--a _Becoming_, like everything else. They arise, spring up, in
the effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world
wheresoever the preliminary conditions are such that they can and must
unfold themselves; in just the same way that consciousness arises in
the effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world
wheresoever the preliminary conditions are so regulated that it can and
must unfold itself.
So much for the Kamma-teaching, and its bearing upon the claims of
modern physics.
Immediate passing over does not contradict actuality, but only the
artificial premises of science. All that is actual is immediate. For
this reason a passing over of the actual in time and space is an
absurdity, since time and space are, first and foremost, functions of
the actual, forms of experience, hence never can be made to serve as
measure of this experience.