Is Time Real?

Yes. Therefore, there is no time to delay. Enlightenment (the realization of the Truth that sets one free) is easy. It can be accomplished in three steps:

• Freedom from remorse (blamelessness, ahimsa, sila)
• Concentration (samadhi in terms of jhana) based on a clear conscience
• Insight (examining rupa-nama: ultimate materiality and mentality)

This path to freedom from suffering -- nirvana, liberation, emancipation, salvation -- is possible because the Dharma still exists in the world. It is extremely rare that the Dharma is present here at all. How much time does anyone have?

Time

(Pink Floyd)

.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over,

.

Thought I'd something more to say.

"Scientists prolong 2008 with 'leap second'"

AT THE GREENWICH PRIME MERIDIAN, England – Eager to say goodbye to the worst economic year since the Great Depression? You'll have to wait a second.

That's because the custodians of time are preparing to tack a "leap second" onto the clock on Wednesday to account for the minute slowing of the Earth's rotation — meaning champagne toasts and Auld Lang Synes will have to come a second late.

The leap second has been used sporadically at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich since 1972, an adjustment that has kept Greenwich Mean Time the internationally agreed time standard. More>>

VIDEO: 2008 will be an extra-long year (AP)