“What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” – Werner Heisenberg

“What is divine escapes men’s notice because of their incredulity” – Heraclitus

On a winter afternoon, in February 2001, on Brighton pier, I photographed some seagulls hovering and scavenging around.
The fact that the Lomo camera had no viewfinder meant that I could literally “shoot from the hip” – a very intuitive, eye-hand interaction with the birds around me – reaching out towards them, and tracing their flight – Hand and arm movements that I consciously equate to a sort of abstract Zenga (Zen painting). In total I shot 18 photos – 72 moments¹.

Looking at the frozen movement of a film or video still, I always wonder what lies hidden in the interstices. And don’t all photographs, apart from showing the richness of the moment, also have that holographic quality of pointing to the invisible, irretrievably lost preceding and following moments – creating the melancholia of evanescence. A mood that became all the more pervasive when I re-animated the 72 stills at roughly 4 stills per second. The fragmentary, re-animated movement on video, and the inherent temporal fragility of the still combine to highlight the beauty of the momentariness of existence.

Following the doctrine of universal momentariness (ksanikavada) and the concept of the point-instant (svalaksana) the Buddhist understanding of the instant is so thoroughgoing, that it leaves no room for any category of existence that is not instantaneous. 

Universal time is rejected, and only the instant is real. Nothing endures, at every instant, an entity causes, and is replaced by, another. The conception of time as instant at once implies the notion of being as instantaneous; in fact, being and time are viewed as ontologically inseparable following the conclusion that time is never empty and being never un-temporal. 

Within this universe – “Movement consists of moments, it is a staccato movement, momentary flashes of a stream of energy.”²

For me, there is a strong analogy between the above-mentioned paradigm, and the mechanics of film or video³. Each frame contains a complete world – only to be replaced, a moment later – by the complete world of the following frame. There is however a major difference between the mechanics of film and the Buddhist paradigm, in the fact that one film-frame-world does not cause the next – contrary to their theory of causality (pratityasamutpada).⁴

Nevertheless I find the Buddhist Moment, and the analogy to film or video, very worthwhile exploring. An interesting question is, “If existence is only momentary, how long is the moment?” In “film reality” the answer is 1/24^th of a second⁵.
The history of Buddhist philosophy has seen people trying to establish a temporal value for the Moment. In the Abhidharmakasabhasya, for example, it is stated that there are more than 65 moments in the time it takes a strong man to snap his fingers⁶. Even though Stcherbatsky describes these undertakings as, “mere attempts to seize the infinitesimal”⁷, I am tempted to search through neurophysiological literature to find this momentary reality – my layman’s theory being that: The duration of the shortest perceivable (auditory, visual, tactile etc.) impulse, would in theory constitute the Buddhist Moment – the logic being that if something can’t be sensed, it can’t be experienced, and therefore can’t exist – at least not for humans⁸. 

The seagull, as arbitrary and insignificant, as it is an eternal and spectacular experience. It may seem strange calling a seagull an “experience”, but I do so to highlight the tangential, selective nature of perception and language.
Even a brief exploration of the question, “What is, defines, or constitutes a seagull?”, dilutes the definitions and makes us realise that it is (but) an aggregate of ever-fluctuating, sensory-and memory-based “aspects” – which creates our perception and conception of a seagull.
Fr. Pavel Florensky describes the problem thus: “Let us repeat: the window in itself is not a window – because the very idea of window (like any culturally constructed thing) possesses a “carrying-over” or transference, for if it did not, it would not be a thing fashioned within a culture. Thus, a window is either light or else mere wood and glass, but never simply a window.”⁹
What Florensky doesn’t say is that every percept, every referent, is culturally “constructed” or at least modulated, and that therefore no thing is simply a thing. To paraphrase Magritte – Not even a real pipe is a “pipe”.

But, SO WHAT?
Aren’t these just hollow, semiotic, pseudo-intellectual games that erode and deny the richness of experience and our relationship to the earth? Just another symptom of the artificiality of modern life?
That is certainly the case in a society, with science as religion, where our anthropocentricity has been banished from our knowledge of the world. 

Nonetheless, contemplation – whether spiritual, or philosophical – does reveal contradictions and inconsistencies in our reality. But that doesn’t need do detract from, or contradict our corporeal experience. In fact, it only confirms the endless potential of our world of the ten-thousand things – to generate seemingly endless aspects to enjoy and ponder – including ourselves.
“Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise” – says one of the most profound Buddhist statements.

Despite being momentary, mortal, and evanescent; experiences like a seagull, putting on a coat, biting into a ripe apple, watching waves breaking on a shore, or running for a bus… These things delineate our selves – like an animator – constantly drawing, erasing, and redrawing; and make us cast our shadows on the world.

Postscript:

I have long been exploring the differences between a still image, and a static video recording.

If you enjoyed this video, I could recommend the following videos which are all based on stills: N|Ontope and Sunset. If you’re feeling bold, I can recommend the short and intense Bhumisparsa

On the other hand, you might enjoy the following short static videos:
Nike and Summoning

Footnotes

1: A Lomo ActionSampler camera that, on shutter-release, takes four, 1/100th of a second exposures at roughly 1/4 second intervals, as four mini images on one 35mm film negative.

2: Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic Vol.1, Dover Publications, New York. Quoted in, Anindita Niyogi Balslev, A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Dehli, 1999.

3: And more broadly – all digital technology – where analogue flux is converted to discrete, sampled, digital units – very much resembling Stcherbatsky’s “staccato” description of movement.

4: “The criterion that distinguishes the real from the fictitious, the Buddhist argues, is causal efficiency. In other words, that which is real is essentially of the nature of a cause, i.e. it gives rise to effects.” – Balslev, A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy p.82

5: The fact that there are actually various film- and video frame-rate standards hints at the can of worms which such an inquiry opens.

6: Quoted in Paul J. Griffiths, On Being Mindless – Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem, Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi, 1999.

7: Quoted by Griffiths, see above.

8: This reasoning of course ignores issues relating to memory, inward vision, and the imagination; and their contributions to our reality.

9: Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis, 1922, translated by Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev, SVS Press, 1996.

Quotes at start:

Werner Heisenberg, Physics + Philosophy, Harper + Row, 1962, p.58

Heraclitus, The Cosmic Fragments, quoted in Jacob Needleman +David Appelbaum, Real Philosophy, Arkana 1990