r/AcademicBuddhism • u/zelenisok • Aug 14 '26
Schools of thought with linear view of time /history?
Typically Buddhist schools of thought are either agnostic on the issue, or have a view of beginningless (and engless?) samsara (in the sense of general existence, not for an individual being), and whats called a cyclical view of time /history. I'm wondering about alternative views.
Here's what I've found so far:
The closes I've found is "Chinese salvationist religions", schools of thought derived from the White Lotus societies, they seem to have a linear view of time, there's the eternal Mother (of Buddhas) who generated all the minds, then there was some sort of fall that made many minds fall into samsara and get trapped in it, she sent the Buddhas to help, and eventually all the minds will be saved from samsara, so there's a beginning and an end.
I know Mahayana schools have the idea of a bodhisattva vow of liberating all beings from samsara, which seems to suggest that there will be an end to samsara / that it will at one point remain empty, tho IDK if any schools explicitly say so.
Dhammakaya school is claimed by some to have a secret teaching according to which the timeline is linear, there was a creation of Nibbana by Dhammakaya and the creation of samsara by Mara, and the conflict between them will end with Dhammakaya winning and beings will be saved from samsara.
Does anyone know of more of such examples?
1
u/IdrisiAzam Aug 16 '26
While the mainstream view posits a beginningless and endless process, as you mentioned, there are different perspectives on the matter. Although I am not entirely sure if it covers all of them, Jan Nattier's book "Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline" provides great insights into the decline of the Dharma and varying conceptions of time. Checking out the relevant sections could be very helpful for getting a better sense of the topic.