The Buddha used various images and illustrations to convey a sense of the immense stretch of time — called a kalpa — that might encompass the birth and evolution of universe after universe. Here are a few.

Suppose an eagle’s wing brushes against the top of a high mountain once a century. A kalpa is how long it would take for that action to wear the mountain entirely away.

Suppose a wooden yoke with one hole, is thrown into the ocean to float. If a one-eyed turtle rises to the surface of the ocean once a century, a kalpa is how long it would take before the turtle just happened to rise through the hole of the yoke.

Suppose that every hundred years a piece of silk is rubbed once on a solid rock one cubic mile in size; when the rock is worn away by this, one kalpa will still not have passed.

Suppose, said the Buddha, that there was a huge rock of one solid mass, one mile long, one mile wide, one mile high, without split or flaw. And at the end of every 100 years a man should come and rub against it with a silken cloth. Then that huge rock would wear off and disappear quicker than a Kalpa.

Suppose a celestial woman touched a 10 cubic mile stone with her garments once every three years. A kalpa is longer than the time it would take to wear the stone to a mere pebble.

These images of inconceivable lengths of time - kalpas - are, to me, strangely comforting, liberating, soothing.

I get similar pleasure from looking through my binoculars or telescope at galaxies and star clusters in the Milky Way on a warm summer’s night.

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