What Is Time? A Journey Across Science, Spirit, and the Soul
Time surrounds us like air – we breathe it, live
Sitting at dusk in Dharamshala’s high hills, I sip butter tea while Himalayan prayer flags flutter outside my window. Wearing my PhD student hat, studying non-duality in this Tibetan Buddhist enclave, I am daily immersed in traditions that teach time itself is fluid. In the Abhidharma writings I read, time “changes from moment to moment” and is not an absolute container. Each interval is an imputed phenomenon on the mind’s continuum. In practice, this means past, present, and future are inseparable; by examining each breath, I see the seeds of all lifetimes. In a previous essay, What Is Time? A Journey Across Science, Spirit, and the Soul, I explored how transcending linear time can heal our soul lessons. Here in the Dharma community of Dharamshala — under snow-capped peaks and beside old gompas — those themes come alive.
The figure of Maitreya is woven through Buddhist lore in every tradition. He is the great Bodhisattva who will become the next Buddha of our world. Classics like the Lotus Sutra and Pali Suttas foretell his coming at a time when the Dharma has faded; indeed, the Buddha taught that Maitreya will “descend to earth to preach anew the Dharma” when Gautama’s teachings have completely decayed. This prophesied return underscores the impermanence (anicca) even of sacred teachings. Tibetan Buddhists call him Pakpa Jampa, the “Noble Loving One,” reflecting his embodiment of maitrī (Pali metta)—loving-friendliness. The very root of his name comes from Sanskrit for “friendship” or “loving-kindness”. In this way Maitreya personifies the Buddha’s metta, the altruistic love every practitioner seeks to cultivate.
All schools of Buddhism revere Maitreya: from the earliest Mahayana sutras to the Theravāda canon. He was “mentioned in scriptures from the 3rd century CE” and became the only bodhisattva generally honored by Theravada tradition. In Tibetan monasteries and pilgrimage sites (even here in the Tibetan diaspora), statues or thangkas of Maitreya remind devotees of hope. Monks and laypeople celebrate Maitreya Day on Losar (Tibetan New Year), symbolically aligning a new year with the advent of compassion. I have watched local prayer wheels inscribed not just with Om Mani Padme Hum but blessings for the “future Buddha, Maitreya,” linking everyday practice to this future promise.
Modern teachers reinforce this symbolism. Lama Zopa Rinpoche writes that “Maitreya Buddha is the embodiment of each buddha’s loving kindness, and the symbol of all the bodhisattvas’ loving kindness for all sentient beings”. In other words, Maitreya is not only an external savior but an emblem of the love and peace we cultivate here and now. Each act of compassion is a tiny way that the Buddha of the future already comes alive in us.
In Vajrayana and all Buddhist thought, time is cyclical and impermanent. Walking through Dharamshala’s market or monastery, I see this everywhere: the melting winter snow, the ever-changing faces of pilgrims, even the way buildings rise and crumble. As the Dhammapada teaches, “All conditioned things are impermanent” — a truth that turning our attention to impermanence can free us from clinging. This is not mere pessimism; it is healing. Recognizing change with wisdom lets us let go of past suffering and open to transformation.
Buddhism frames life itself as samsara, a vast cycle of becoming. The classical doctrine of rebirth describes how our actions carry on beyond death: “the actions of a sentient being lead to a new existence after death, in an endless cycle called samsara”. This cycle, the Buddha warned, is full of unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and it only ends in Nirvana (liberation) when desire is extinguished. In practical terms, my hope for healing is to transform the karmic threads that tie me from one life to the next. Each lifetime is like a ring on the wheel of time, connected to the others by cause and effect. In fact, Abhidharma psychology teaches that a period of time is measured on a person’s mindstream between two events (for example, between committing a karmic act and experiencing its result). Time has “no beginning and no end,” because our mental continuum flows beyond any single life. In this light, the cycles of samsara are not abstract: they are lived in every heartbeat and choice.
Culturally, Tibetans have long conveyed this cyclical view. The Kalachakra (“wheel of time”) teachings portray cosmic ages of deterioration and renewal. Even celebrations align with cosmic cycles — for instance, the Tibetan New Year ritual Losar connects rebirth of the year with hopes for Dharma’s rebirth. Living here, I feel that each prayer wheel spin and meditation retreat is a tiny turning of the wheel of time toward awakening. Thus the prophecy that Maitreya will come “during an era of decline” reminds us that just as eras cyclically decay, they also cyclically revive. And the revival begins within each practitioner.
Studying non-duality has taught me that the ordinary split between past/future and present is a convenience of the mind. As one Tibetan text explains, time is not an absolute background — it is relative to the observer. In other words, time is “a function of, and therefore relative to, the mind that experiences it”. This insight dissolves the ego’s grip on time. When I meditate on “the future Buddha,” I find that the image dances on the edge of awareness: Maitreya resides not ‘out there’ in a remote future, but here in the spacious clarity of the mind.
Buddhist emptiness doctrine reinforces this: there is no independent “flow” of time apart from moment-to-moment consciousness. The Tibetan non-dual tradition (Mahamudra/Dzogchen) would say that our true nature is timeless awareness itself. In that pure mind, distinctions between past and future collapse. From this perspective, the promise of Maitreya’s coming can be read as poetic: the Buddhahood we seek is unborn and already present. Each realization — each glimpse of bodhichitta — is Maitreya awakening within us. This feels especially vivid at this altitude: the blue sky seems to hold all past and future in a single point of now.
The doctrine of karma ties these ideas together. Every intentional action leaves an imprint across the vast mental continuum. The Abhidharma notes that we can specify a temporal interval between a harmful act and the suffering it yields. These karmic sequences often play out over many lifetimes. In Buddhist lore, Maitreya himself is said to have practiced boundless compassion eons ago, patiently awaiting this cycle’s fruition. In our practice, we too accumulate wisdom and compassion seed by seed. Sometimes I imagine my own past lives: what traumas or achievements might have been carried forward? Whether these memories are literal or symbolic, they serve the same purpose — showing that time’s span is not limited to “this life.”
Scriptures say we can be reborn in any of the six realms depending on karma. Personally, I take this as a mirror: if I find myself suffering now, it may be the fruit of unskillful actions from before. Conversely, a sudden influx of insight might feel like seeds planted long ago finally blooming. Understanding karma in this way makes time a dimension of healing: we see how to respond to difficulties (as ripenings) and nurture wholesome seeds (to bloom in future). This is the integration of soul lessons across lives that my earlier article envisioned.
In Tibetan Buddhist practice here, we often chant mantras and engage in lojong (mind-training) to purify karma and cultivate wisdom. Each practice is an anchor in the present that gradually alters the entire timeline of mind. Just as a great tree might first have been a seed buried in soil, our current life is the continuation of countless past “moments.” Every act of generosity or patience has ripple effects, even into the unseen chapters of the soul’s story.
Ultimately, reflecting on Maitreya has become less about waiting for a distant savior and more about recognizing a personal truth: the future Buddha is the Buddha happening now. Every loving thought and action I offer feels like a tiny manifestation of Maitreya’s compassion. When I study Vajrayana art or witness puja (worship) in the Tsuglagkhang Temple nearby, Maitreya sometimes appears side by side with Avalokiteśvara and Manjushri. This reminds me that compassion and wisdom are inseparable — the two wings of the dove that will carry the Dharma forward.
In academic terms, one might say Maitreya is an archetype of metta, or loving-kindness, that matures within the pilgrim’s heart. Lama Zopa’s words resonate: global and personal peace “comes from the good heart, loving kindness,” and Maitreya is the symbol of this universal heart. In practicums, I have chanted Om Maitre Ma — a mantra of friendship and benevolence — watching the syllables soften my agitation. Each time, I glimpse how Maitreya’s arrival is a metaphor for the blossoming of such open-hearted presence in ordinary life.
As spring returns and prayer flags anew unfurl on the hilltops, I feel I carry Maitreya’s promise with me. It is not a future unreachable by linear time, but a living impulse toward awakening. Just as a snowmelt feeds the spring, each moment of insight feeds the coming of true Dharma anew. In the great circle of samsara, there is no line dividing now from then — the healer and the healed, the questioner and the answer, are one flow.
In the blend of scholarly insight and poetic reflection that guides my journey, I find Maitreya’s message is simple: the future of the Dharma depends on the wisdom that arises in each person today. His awaited arrival is both a vision and a mirror, showing us that the luminous wisdom of Buddha is timelessly present in every open heart. As the Tibetan mystic Padmasambhava taught, an enlightened mind is never bound by time. So as I write these words by the glow of a butter lamp, I know that the “Future Buddha” is really the present moment’s kindness, patience, and insight unfolding within me.
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Time surrounds us like air – we breathe it, live
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