living and dying within time's arrows
We have these spiritual guideposts that tell us stuff like, "Live as though today were your last," and "Live always within each moment," but we also observe both causality and retrocausality.
What if our spiritual advice flowed from the paradox of time's bidirectional (or even multidirectional) arrows?
Live as though you're already dead. Live as though you'd never been born. Live as though you'll never die. Live as though you were born as somebody else. And do all four of these tasks simultaneously.
In other words, live within the entire scope of time's multidirectional arrows. Respect the pasts, presents, and futures as you encounter each moment. This present moment is connected to both the pasts and the futures, cannot be disconnected from either the pasts or the futures. All possible universes, past, present, and future, are contained within this moment. Act accordingly.
It's an awesome directive. How could you do such a thing? But this is how the Buddhist Precepts are properly derived, by thinking of your present moment as an unbreakable link between all possible pasts and all possible futures, and as a similarly unbreakable link between the experiences of all sentients and objects within these pasts and futures. Because this is our reality within each moment. And we should contemplate living through these unbreakable links as an awesome task.
What if our spiritual advice flowed from the paradox of time's bidirectional (or even multidirectional) arrows?
Live as though you're already dead. Live as though you'd never been born. Live as though you'll never die. Live as though you were born as somebody else. And do all four of these tasks simultaneously.
In other words, live within the entire scope of time's multidirectional arrows. Respect the pasts, presents, and futures as you encounter each moment. This present moment is connected to both the pasts and the futures, cannot be disconnected from either the pasts or the futures. All possible universes, past, present, and future, are contained within this moment. Act accordingly.
It's an awesome directive. How could you do such a thing? But this is how the Buddhist Precepts are properly derived, by thinking of your present moment as an unbreakable link between all possible pasts and all possible futures, and as a similarly unbreakable link between the experiences of all sentients and objects within these pasts and futures. Because this is our reality within each moment. And we should contemplate living through these unbreakable links as an awesome task.