The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word "Dharma" c19.s2.9

c19.s2.9

*Sautrāntika*.—The following point needs here to be established:-- if the past and the future exist in the same sense as the present, as realities, why is it, then, that, being existent in the same sense, they are future and past? If the substance of the same element is alone (permanently) existent, what is the reason that it is spoken of as "having not yet appeared" or "gone"? What is it that does not appear later on and whose absence makes us call it "past"?