AtDtDA(28): A Heavenwide Blast of Light

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Laura:
          In both cases, some sort of disruption of the time dimension 
          allowed objects to  be observed as they really are or in some 
          mystical way.  Kind of the spiritual equivalent of pinning down 
          a butterfly for observation.  Robin, or anyone:  is there a 
          Buddhist concept of time freezing or being distorted as a 
          means to illumination?

Again remember, "I'm a Novelist, not a theologian!!!" Pynchon's 
themes often have the willfulness of dreamstates, giving the 
result the power of poetry.

Is Buddhist time, somewhere, some how frozen?  Yes, it most certainly is. 
There are the themes of timelesssness and of reincarnation. The 
essentially solar and cyclical prayer wheels certainly point to a state of 
timelessness, meditation serves to place one in this timeless state:

http://tinyurl.com/yt49yb
http://tinyurl.com/2578lc

          The Avatamsaka Sutra says - we cannot say there 
          was a time "I" was not, even the times before birth 
          and after death. "Existence" means being in the 
          present. "The miracle of existence means to be 
          aware that the universe is contained in each thing, 
          and that the universe could not exist if it did not 
          contain each thing...All is One."

          "Have you ever meditated on the subject "Who am I?" 
          Who were you before you were born? At the time 
          when there was not the slightest trace of your 
          physical existence, did you exist not? How can you 
          become something from nothing?"

          "Look into your hand and see all that have come
           before you, relatives, ancestors reaching back into 
          time and think of the future and all the hand holds - 
          all is at the present moment, past and future - looking i
          nto your hand."

          - "The Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh", by Thich Nhat Hanh

          http://www.starstuffs.com/articles/iam.html