The term ‘instant’ occupies a structurally significant position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a unit of temporal experience, a site of ontological disclosure, and a threshold for consciousness. The range of treatment is striking. In the Sufi theosophy of Ibn ‘Arabi as read by Corbin, the instant is cosmological: the Creative Being manifests at every instant in a new cloak, such that creation is not a past event but a perpetual theophany renewed moment by moment. Hadot’s excavation of Stoic practice, particularly Marcus Aurelius, locates the instant as the primary object of ascetic attention — life composed of nothing but a suite of instants, each mastered through exact definition and concentration. McGilchrist challenges the reductive atomism of clock-time, arguing that time is not made of duration-less instants any more than a line is made of points, insisting on irreducibility and the necessity of a leap. Watts and Suzuki, working from Zen, dissolve the instant into the eternal present — a flowing now that is neither permanent nor impermanent. These positions stand in productive tension: the instant as cosmic renewal (Corbin), ethical fulcrum (Hadot), ontological paradox (McGilchrist), and non-dual presence (Watts, Suzuki). What unites them is the conviction that the instant is not merely a division of chronological time but the very medium through which being, consciousness, and transformation become available.
Creation as the ‘rule of being’ is the pre-eternal and continuous movement by which being is manifested at every instant in a new cloak.
Corbin articulates Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine that the instant is the unit of continuous theophanic creation, not a static division of time but the recurring event of divine self-manifestation.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
we do not notice that there is existentiation and passing away at every moment, because when something passes away, something like it is existentiated at the same moment.
Corbin’s reading of Ibn ‘Arabi presents the instant as the site of perpetual creation and annihilation, imperceptible to ordinary consciousness yet constitutive of all apparent continuity.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
la vie n’est faite que d’une suite d’instants, que nous vivons successivement, et que l’on peut maîtriser d’autant plus que l’on sait les définir et les isoler exactement.
Hadot presents the Stoic-Marcian practice of isolating the instant as a fundamental spiritual exercise for mastering life by concentrating consciousness on the present unit of experience.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 2002thesis
la vie n’est faite que d’une suite d’instants, que nous vivons successivement, et que l’on peut maîtriser d’autant plus que l’on sait les définir et les isoler exactement.
In this parallel edition, Hadot reaffirms that mastery of the instant through precise definition constitutes the ascetic foundation of ancient philosophical practice.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 1995thesis
dans cet instant présent, nous possédons toute la réalité. Comme dit Sénèque, à chaque moment présent nous pouvons dire avec Dieu : « Tout est à moi. »
Hadot argues that the present instant is ontologically complete — to fully inhabit it is to possess all reality, aligning the individual’s consciousness with the universal Reason.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 2002thesis
dans cet instant présent, nous possédons toute la réalité. Comme dit Sénèque, à chaque moment présent nous pouvons dire avec Dieu : « Tout est à moi. »
The 1995 edition restates the Stoic claim that the instant is sufficient to contain total reality and that ethical happiness resides in the quality of present intention.
, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 1995supporting
time is not made up of duration-less moments, any more than the line that represents it is made up of points. A point has no extension, whether in space or time.
McGilchrist argues that the instant, conceived as a duration-less point, is a category error — time and motion require an irreducible leap that cannot be built up from discrete atomic moments.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
time is not made up of duration-less moments, any more than the line that represents it is made up of points. A point has no extension, whether in space or time.
This parallel passage reinforces McGilchrist’s critique of atomistic models of time and consciousness, insisting that the instant cannot serve as the foundational building block of experience.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still.
Watts presents the Zen ‘eternal present’ as neither a discrete instant nor an enduring permanence, but as a paradoxical now that dissolves the opposition between fleeting moment and timeless eternity.
, The Way of Zen, 1957thesis
These accidents have neither duration nor continuity; they change in every instant. For the Ash’arites this incessant change is decisive proof that the world is renewed and contingent.
Corbin contrasts the Ash’arite atomistic doctrine — in which accidents change in every instant to prove contingent creation — with Ibn ‘Arabi’s richer theophanic ontology of perpetual renewal.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Life delineates itself on the canvas called time; and time never repeats: once gone, forever gone; and so is an act: once done, it is never undone.
Suzuki employs the sumiye-painting metaphor to insist that each instant of lived action is unrepeatable and irreversible, demanding total presence without correction or hesitation.
, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 1949supporting
if each point moment of the mental flow is fully concentrated on its object during the brief instant it occurs, then why do the Buddhists promote concentration?
Bryant exposes a philosophical tension in Buddhist kshanika-vada: if each mental instant is already complete and self-exhausting, the very notion of sustained concentration becomes conceptually paradoxical.
, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, 2009supporting
the heavy veil of sorrow, that hath now this long time enveloped my heart, was in an instant removed.
The hagiographic text uses ‘instant’ in a soteriological register, marking the sudden illumination of the heart upon receiving sacred teaching as an instantaneous transformation.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016aside
The daimon’s transcendence places it outside time, which it enters only by growing down.
Hillman positions the daimon as inherently atemporal, entering temporal instantiation only through the biographical process of ‘growing down’ into embodied, chronological life.
, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, 1996aside
The most radical of these events, which disrupted time into a completely different Before and After, is the incarnation of Christ.
Von Franz frames the Incarnation as the archetypal instant that ruptures linear time, creating a qualitative threshold between a Before and After that orients all subsequent historical consciousness.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014aside