Time, Space & Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality

by Tarthang Tulku

Time, Space, and Knowledge – A New Vision of Reality by Tarthang Tulku, introduces a new vision of reality based on fundamental elements of experience and free from any religious perspective. Inviting readers to look freshly at the fundamental principles that govern human experience, Time, Space, and Knowledge explores the possibility that our current understanding of reality represents only one particular "focal setting" on experience. As an alternative to the dichotomies of conventional thought, it offers a unified vision that unfolds from the interplay of space and time with knowledge and exhibits boundless creativity―the nexus of human freedom and opportunity. Thirty-five thought experiments transform inspiring theory into direct experience, revealing that time and space can manifest differently, with liberating and lasting implications for human consciousness.

Genres: Philosophy, Buddhism, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Psychology, Meditation

314 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1978

About the author

Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche (དར་ཐན་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ dar-than sprul-sku rin-po-che) is a Tibetan teacher ("lama") in the Nyingma ("old translation") tradition. Having received a complete Buddhist education in pre-diaspora Tibet, he taught philosophy at Sanskrit University in India from 1962 to 1968, and emigrated to America in 1969, where he settled in Berkeley, CA. He is often credited as having introduced the Tibetan medicine practice of Kum Nye (སྐུ་མཉེ sku mnye་, "subtle-body massage") to the West.

In 1963, he founded Dharma Publishing in Varanasi, India, moving it to California in 1971. The main purpose of the publishing house is to preserve and distribute Tibetan Buddhist teachings and to bring these teachings to the West.

Neither Rinpoche nor Tulku are surnames; the former is an honorific applied to respected teachers meaning "Precious One," while the latter is a title given to those who have be recognized an the reincarnation of a previous lama.

Reviews

[Kenny B.]

Put your abstract thinking caps on. Although a bit convoluted in it's delivery, this is definitely a thought-provoking read informed by a highly realized man; Tarthang Tulku. The exercises found within, if thoroughly practiced, have the potential to bring about an experiential realization of the material presented as opposed to mere intellection. Heartily recommended for anyone who is interested in getting a glimpse of the Dzogchen view through the lens of Western science and philosophy. It's a pity that it's so widely overlooked.

"No tragedy can compare with the situation of having our human intelligence - our discerning capacity - channeled, locked away, shut down. This capacity is our greatest treasure and our one chance for fulfillment."

[Genndy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was amazed with what I found in this book, considering my expectations. Before I started reading it, i considered it to by just one more cheap and shallow self-help book that leans on transcendentalism. What i found was much, much more.
This work is an actual deep and revealing philosophical text, and there's nothing 'trendy' in it's approach. It's main concern is explaining the nature of reality, and it's doing so by examining time, space and knowledge as universal and all-including components that make existance possible.
Though buddhistic in it's core, this book interestingly avoids constant popular and overly exploited themes such as karma and rebirth, and it is very unique in it's approach, and in a way very scientific. It doesn't exhaust it's theories by claiming some supreme force, god, or panteism as ultimate instance.
With philosophical theory it presents, this book also gives a list of mental exercises. Their goal is to understand as truth some of the most abstract concepts of Tarthang Tulku's work.
Don't be fooled, when I say this book is original, abstract and not popular in approach - it means it's very hard to grasp, and it's very demanding read. It's presentation is very serious, and it's certainly not something to read to kill some time, or to read it just because you think spiritual literature is 'cool'.
This book provides very interesting and different insight just by reading it. I can't imagine how would it change me if I practiced by it's exercises.
One of the next books I will read will be a scientific work about theory of multiverses, string theory and parallel realities. I expect to find out that theories from this 'spiritual' book and that next scientific book will supplement each other in a fascinating way, and to notice thet they add to each other's theories.
I would recommend Time, Space & Knowledge to all agnostics who are still exploring nature of reality, and to all strict atheists who think buddhism has nothing to offer to modern knowledge of humanity.

[Frederick Woodruff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do not read this book if you're overly attached to a managed view of the world, a view dependent on conventional reality to keep a structured stage set in place. The wisdom within T,S & K will move towards you rather than vice versa -- a tangible experience of Great Knowledge displaying its boundless unicity -- or what Plato referred to as 'remembering.' You'll feel this experience as your mind recognizes and responds -- astounding!

[As Ostras Clube · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarthang Tulku: a rare pearl among the Lamas.
His work: a rare preciosity.
And he doesn't trick you into idolatry.
As a matter of fact, he doesn't trick you into anything.
Real honesty and integrity.

[André Pais · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is truly a unique, fascinating and mesmerizing book. The Vision here presented is something that resonates with many philosophical, religious and scientific traditions; and yet, while including them, it transcends them all. To be true, I don't think this vision goes beyond the wisdom of the buddhist tradition - after all, its author is a Tibetan buddhist Lama. But the way it is phrased and conveyed, and the profundity that is pointed to - frontally and without timidity - is rarely found even in most buddhist works (mind you, I am a sincere practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism).

However, the work is not without its difficulties. The text is profound and complex, and sometimes hard to penetrate. It is written in superb English (Steven Tainer, student of Tarthang Tulku and editor - perhaps co-author - of the text, has done an amazing job), but it's nuanced and abstract, requiring attention, devotion and repetition. Sometimes one is left with the sense that things could've been said in simpler ways, or perhaps that the goal of this vision is the same as that of other - more straightforward - approaches. The Vision itself is magical, psychedelic and inspiring, but its mindblowing nature may leave us wondering if it is real or even possible. 

This is, of course, not a self-help or new age book. It aims at nothing less than omniscience and, although somewhat gently, it marches straight to it. The aim of Buddhism (and all spiritual traditions worthy of that name) is to lead the aspirant to the full blossoming of her most profound potential (and birthright). This book tries to do so in very subtle, profound, gentle, but viscerally challenging and radical ways.

The book, or the Vision, feels like a mystery or Zen koan. It unveils itself very slowly with every reading, through a great deal of cognitive effort and introspection. Some passages of the text feel entirely impossible and outrageous, but at the same time entirely true and honest - in a very existential way. As it says in the back cover, Tarthang Tulku "presents a vision that will capture the imagination of us all."

Perhaps the book truly is a Terma. Wikipedia says that termas are "various forms of hidden teachings that are key to Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhist and Bon spiritual traditions. Tradition holds that terma teachings were originally esoterically hidden by eighth-century Vajrayana masters to be discovered at auspicious times by treasure revealers." It makes sense that perhaps now, in these modern times, a Vision such as this can come to light to inspire some of us into new ways of seeing and being in the world.

Although the book seems to have been written for people of all backgrounds, familiarity with non-dual ideas and inquiry, mystical traditions and intuitions, and buddhist teachings like no-self and emptiness seems to be helpful when navigating the deep possibilities made available here. Works by Rupert Spira, Greg Goode (especially his Direct Path: a User's Guide) and Rob Burbea may provide an interesting foundation for these contemplations. In general, this Vision will evoke parallels to the buddhist traditions of Madhyamaka and, especially, Mahamudra and Dzogchen. I like to think of this book as "buddhist non-dual inquiry." Recently, I found serious similarities (in tone and meaning) with the writings of 2 Nyingma khenpos in a book called "Essential Journey of Life and Death."

The book works with three main facets of reality - and our being: space, time and knowledge. Usually the ordinary and dualistic understanding of each aspect is presented (first level of insight), followed by more open and accommodating appreciations of experience (second level), until finally one reaches an understanding of the true nature of reality (and our selves), which is the inseparability of Great Time-Space-Knowledge. As I understand it, Great Space is the non-dimensional boundless openness of reality that allows, and constitutes, all appearance; Great Time is the non-distributed, non-sequential, non-linear energy and actively dynamic presence of reality; Great Knowledge is the bright and luminous knowing nature that makes the interplay of Time & Space self-revealing. In fewer words, our Being is infinitely spacious, dynamically creative and intrinsically luminous. Now, due to dualistic notions and restrictive "focal settings," this non-dual vision is distorted, dimensionalized and made manifest as the ordinary experiential landscapes familiar to us: space as vacant extension and distance; time as mere sequentiality and an abstract grid for indexing events and memories; and knowledge as the felt sense of a separate self navigating a fixed world, using its "knowingness" in an attempt to obtain fulfillment through its interaction with 'objects'. Again in fewer words, space and time become a mere static and dead background where a separate knower strives to exist.

The book comes with 35 exercises - some more intuitive, others quite abstract and difficult to put our finger on. The exercises are interspersed along the text. The Time section seems to be the most difficult and less intuitive, but also the most amazing - at least the theory part. I've read the book 4 times (in a little over a year) and some sections or chapters 5, 6 or 7 times; I've highlighted at least 2 thirds of the book and put many exclamation marks throughout. Finally (perhaps), I think I'm starting to understand what the book is saying, intuiting a glimmer of insight. What I mean is that this is a Vision that requires effort, openness and dedication; it is most definitely not for the faint-of-heart. It reminds me of the Zen notion that, to reach awakening, great faith, great effort and great doubt are required - and, the greater the doubt the greater the awakening! On the other hand, it feels astonishingly awe-inspiring, transformative, magical and imaginative. I believe it is due to such profound and challenging ideas that this book has remained mostly unknown; thus, the possibilities it offers await true appreciation and exploration. 

To bring this long confession to an end, and making the words of another reviewer my own, "Maybe the greatest book I have ever read."

Some excerpts:

These frustrating features [of existence] are not just 'the way it is', the human condition. Nor is the suffering and lack of fulfillment we experience merely our lot in life, or a punishment visited upon us by some universal overseer or by a merciless time.

There is another way of knowing—one which we can learn to open to and directly experience. We have remained unconcerned about the problems caused by 'lower [dualistic] knowledge' because we are actually afraid to question them.

We are afraid that we might indeed discover an alternative—we might actually find the answers to questions which convention deems unanswerable. We might end up with 'knowings' which go far beyond the scope of the self's territory.

The self does not want to know at the cost of losing its primacy in the overall scheme of things. It will not let itself acknowledge such 'knowings'; it would rather keep on playing with belief systems which seem to deal satisfactorily with the problems it has, but which instead—due to the inherent limitations of these beliefs—create a deep sense of estrangement, guilt, fear, and limited ability.

-

What there is is entirely open in a way that remains an undimmed radiance, an infinitely textured radiance that is magic. Everything is undone and even impossible--since there are no things or causes, and no space or time to occur in. This `impossibility' is itself the immediacy or presence of everything as wonderment . There is no perceiver to wonder at this wondrous play, and this fact is itself the all-knowing appreciativeness of Great Knowledge.

-

We live in a very fantastic, magical world. There is no 'doer' or performer of the magic. That is why it is magical.

We have learned to live with this magic, to tame it and make it 'law-like' and rational. Or to put it differently, we are the tame, law-like, rational seeming that is... magic. Even the devices and partitions employed in this service to a rational, linear world are doorways to wonder. They too are Space, Time, Knowledge, and have no intrinsic limits, despite their ordinary staid appearance.

-

At this level [of realization] we completely transcend a self-centered orientation and become fully with everyone and everything else.

Locations and attitudes, problems and confusions, no longer bind us. They are seen as a beautiful play of Great Space (without Great Space being viewed as the external creator of the play). Life and death also provide an interesting play without binding our possibilities in any way.

We have no improvement orientation, and yet are fully available to help other people-or to improve things—by phrasing and exemplifying our appreciation of perfection in terms of others' improvement-oriented views.

-

With Great Knowledge, the tendency no longer remains to get stuck in the more negative and frustrating aspects of experience, or in our hopes and expectations.

So we can become increasingly positive and responsive, which will in turn stimulate similar resonances in others.

Life can become a love affair, a honeymoon. This is not just a sentimental fantasy. We can accept the challenge of relating to Space and Time, and find out for ourselves.

What is being suggested is not an absolute position describing the truth about a world order, but rather a way of growing without ever falling into a stagnant orientation.

Space, Time, and Knowledge are not a fixed set of terms, or a determinate system, but a kind of vehicle to infinite opening.

They do not 'mean' something in only a one-dimensional sense, - rather, they constantly stimulate us to discover new insights and ways of relating to experience.

-

Great Knowledge truly removes all doubts and uncertainties. But it does not know 'the truth'.
It does not limit reality in that way. However, it is accurate and well-informed of what is going on.

Throughout all the play of Space and Time, Great Knowledge is fully appreciative, and free from confusions and mistaken attributions of values. It knows everything as being open, as non-created non-being. But given such an open play it can distinguish perfectly—according to the evaluations cherished within a particular realm—between illusion and 'reality', between one thing and another, between 'existence' and 'mere appearance', value and trivia.

The unshakable clarity of Great Knowledge comes only after we see that the inflexible awareness and claims to reality of a particular realm of experience are actually a play of 'time', and not an absolute. This requirement and challenging character are natural processes which are intrinsic to the structure of the path (Time) to Great Knowledge.

It is therefore important, both for accuracy within our realm and also in regard to appreciating the infinity of Space and Time, to continually examine the truths and evidence we encounter. And we have to be careful not to prematurely cease this investigation. This is especially important for religious and meditative aspirants.

Sometimes incomplete experience of the read-out insight leads meditators to think that 'everything is just illusion', only 'experience', 'mind', or 'subjective'. But that is stopping too soon. There is no solid, unchallengeable nature to any of these foundations either, if time is appreciated with respect to them. There is also no 'everything' to be 'just experience'.

-

Once all temporal partitions are down, and 'time' is at the disposal of 'knowingness', we can be released from all fear, anxiety, and strain. Even the fear of death can be transcended, since in this more comprehensive view of 'time', there is no death. An infinity of directions is open to us—even the direction which leads to our personal death is seen as leading to no real death or 'ending' of anything intrinsic to our 'being'. Space, Time, and Knowledge have none of these arbitrary and egocentric boundaries; and we, through 'knowledge', have access to the unqualifiedly positive and all-inclusive character of Space and Time.

We ordinarily relate to life as a stream of transactions and are always 'on the move'. As a result, we are confronted with a realm pervaded by transitoriness, continual shifting and collapse. Death serves as an overall summary of our limited approach to life as involving a restless leaping from thought to thought, moment to moment. By opening each thought and presentation to Space-Time-Knowledge, the linear cause-effect and transaction view gives way to an appreciation of the vastness of Being within and as each thing. The transitory is then itself not transitory. The moment of death does not involve a real 'passing away'.

This message of 'infinite Being' and of 'no death' might seem to be proposing a condition of 'eternal life', life as quantitatively infinite duration. But this interpretation is not at all in accord with the significance of 'infinite Being' or 'no death', for these are injunctions meant to open us beyond all self-orientation. The message of 'no death' is a message of openness and balance which relieves us of the fundamental sorrow of human existence.

-

Eventually, we can discover a space that involves no concepts at all, since concepts are simply indications of the relative opacity and resistance of a particular space.

Thoughts, concepts, and distinctions are the product of a 'space' which could be considered similar to an enclosing chamber that filters and inhibits input from the 'outside'—casting shadows and causing echoes or impingements, bombardments, and fragmentations to occur within its walls.

Space should accommodate, be open to, and make room for things. But in our ordinary space, 'making room' has become 'making a room'—lower space is like a walled enclosure.

If these walls can be somehow rendered transparent without thereby setting up new walls and points of view, the notion of inside and outside is thus deactivated, and the experience of internal collisions and interactions ceases. This is then something like Great Space.

Though it may seem to be an extremely different condition from our usual one, such distinctions and comparisons do not apply in this more open and accommodating space. They are only perceived from within the limited point of view of lower space.

This does not suggest that Great Space, unlike lower spaces, has no concepts and distinctions operative 'within' it. Great Space is not a particular condition, characterized by certain things being present or absent. There are no concepts and also no "Great Space which is distinguished by an absence of concepts." Great Space is not a 'thing' and is not different from our lower space.

The accommodating quality—which is represented at its peak by Great Space—is complete at precisely the point where the notion of a space, which to a greater or lesser degree allows or accommodates a 'thing', collapses. The openness and allowing qualities of Great Space are greatest when not filtered through a 'thing which allows'.

-

Reality is Great Space and Time, and there are no inhibiting factors for these dimensions. Since Great Space is open and accommodating, the lack of inhibiting influences is itself sufficient for appearance to be.

Since time is infinite, the being of appearance need not involve filling a post in a unique series of discrete moments. That is, there are no such finite moments which give rise to one another in serial fashion.

Ordinarily, states of affairs appear in such a way that they seem to constitute their 'slice of time'—they seem to fill it up completely. Anything else that is to happen must therefore take up a subsequent temporal position.

This applies even to the fundamental character of our lives. If we want to be, we must apparently continue to move along the line of time. Our being is then a very restless affair, always requiring going.

By challenging this emphasis on going, we may find that time supports a new, non-distributed way of being. The 'going' picture can be replaced with alternatives.

Moreover, we can see that 'going' does not 'go' even when it seems to do so. Directedness is something to combat, but it is also something which simply does not obtain at all. Ordinary linear time is itself not linear, although the appearance of linearity is easily accommodated by Great Time.

Great Time and lower time are not contrary conditions. One of the more straightforward ways of picturing this is to consider that the different 'times'— 'now', 'then', 'before', 'after', even two billion years from now—may not stand as evidence of any fundamental change in time.

Different times do not violate the non-distributive nature of Great Time. They are not linked, in a way that irrevocably separates them, by their respective positions in a temporal series. The 'series' is a fiction.

'Now' and 'two billion years from now' are essentially the same time. They are both 'here and now' without their being involving existence—an exclusive and aggressive occupation of a temporal niche. The partition that separates them is not one which constitutes a condition of temporal distance. We can open that partition.

-

Central to the very heart of reality,
a beautiful vision is available
—when we can 'see'
without adopting limiting positions.

This vision concerns Space,
which is primordially peaceful, open.
In its openness,
it is an open-ended accommodating
of various views, all welling up,
floating, gathering within Space.

Although undisturbed,
it is filled with appearance.
Space is therefore not static,
but is instead a serene explosion
of expanding creativity,
filling all the eons of pasts and futures,
without exhausting its openness
or its capacity for exhibiting
a further wealth of presences.

All that emerges does so as part
of a ballet performed by Space.
The dance is vast, far-flung, even illimitable.
But each dancer leaps up, draws apart, and retires,
while remaining inseparable
from the nourishing expansiveness of Space.

Colors, forms, all experience,
art, music, philosophy
—are expressions of Space.
While engaging in an intertwining,
completely interpenetrating dance,
they are still a free-flowing presence
of translucent outlines and surfaces.

Each engagement is a profound
and mysterious enactment of central import,
marking out the traceless,
centerless center of reality.
Each individual presence is
this open-ended centerless center
. . . Space.

When a single feather
and a thousand worlds
Are equally this Space,
Who can say which contains which?
Who can find limits
To life's richness?

[CC · Rating 5 out of 5]

TSK takes a direct approach to questions about the nature of reality, which allows it to be deeply philosophical without leaving the ground. That is, in fact, the point of the work; the abstractions of philosophy normally prevent it being effective, whereas TSK tries to make such abstract questions immanently practical.

After all, we're living in space, through time, with knowledge at every moment; and yet, like our own death, we pay the least attention to them.

[That said, as I work through it, it's also not particularly readable; you take it in small, concentrated doses, and having a class or discussion for it helps tremendously.]

[Kunal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by this word "Space" .....I am not fascinated with the Universe and Stars kinda Space per se...That's just one meaning of this word

Space,With its original meaning is an entity which is absolutely devoid of any foreign existence in it.When Matter starts existing in it...it gets polluted. Space ...to me, is the absolute purity.Matter, Gravity, Energy, Light....all are basically thriving "In" the space.

Nothing can exist if there is no space. Nothing. But space on other hand,exists, in it's unquestionable divinity, totally on it's own.

I'm surprised there is no religion based on this?? There are instances When God's existence can be questioned...but Space.....it's Unquestionable.....and It cannot be destroyed. Because even if everything present in the universe is destroyed...we'll have empty blank space....pure space....pure canvas....but Space will be there. Just like before Big - Bang.

THis book happens to opens up new dimensions in my mind. THis by far should be one of the toughest and different books I have picked.

And I picked it up from street of course, in 30 rupees :)

[Sergei_kalinin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Очень хорошая книга по буддийской теории и практике познания. Автор пишет о нашем обыденном опыте, называя его "малым" пространством, временем и знанием. В противовес этому ограниченному познанию существуют большие Пространство, Время и Знание.

В терминологии Кена Уилбера эта книга о том, как от личностного уровня познания перейти на уровень интегрально-визуальной (визионерской) логики. Например, научиться познавать мир вне (в более широкой перспктиве) связной пары "субъект познания - объект познания". Это, конечно, не полное руководство :))) по достижению не-дуального сознания, но точно подводящая к нему практика и теоретическое обоснование этой практики.

В книге содержится 35 упражнений; некоторые из них вполне узнаваемы, т.к. встречаются в традиционных практиках, например, раджа-йоги. Но сама подача этих упражнений очень интересна, т.к. автор намеренно пытается выйти за рамки традиционного религиозного дискурса - просто потому что это уже привычные нашему обыденному опыту рамки, а постижение "большого" (Пространства, Времени, Знания) предполагает выход за эти самые рамки.

Некоторые упражнения привели меня в полный восторг - например, связанные с постижением времени; с переходом от обыденного времени, которое мы пытаемся контролировать и которого так боимся к Большому Времени. Сделать некоторые из них оказалось очень трудно, а некоторые вроде бы получились :). /Возможно, отчёт об этих экспериментах напишу у себя в блоге, т.к. тут явно места не хватит :))/.

Из минусов книги: написана ОЧЕНЬ тяжёлым языком :(. С одной стороны, наверняка это сделано специально (автор ломает привычный дискурс). Но с другой стороны, явно плохой перевод и редактура. Некоторые предложения просто не согласованы (в стиле "казнить нельзя помиловать"), и разгадывание их смысла очень тормозит чтение.

В целом надо настроиться на очень неспешное чтение - особенно если пробовать предлагаемые автором техники и упражнения. У меня чтение этой книги заняло более 3 месяцев. При этом из 35 предложенных упражнений у меня более-менее получились 12 (как мне кажется :)). Так что книга прочитана, но она ещё в работе...

В целом очень сильная книга, которая меняет взгляд на себя и на мир. Позиция автора не идеальна :) и критикующая часть моего разума периодически начинала вопить :)). Но чем больше я проникался Большим Знанием, тем легче было увидеть ничтожность этих сомнений и "перегородок"... Книга: отличный сборник инструментов для расши��ения сознания!