[No] one can fail to notice the obsession with time modern man exhibits…. To think about the literary masters of this century is to think in large measure about the temporal concerns pervading their work….

[All] have striven to celebrate and describe those moments in which the mind's experience of time is somehow absent, those moments in which it can be said of the mind that it shares in the timeless, in the eternal. Writers in the Orient too have partaken in the quest….

Invariably observed by commentators who attempt to distinguish between the mentalities of East and West is the former's generally subjective and the latter's generally objective outlook on living in the world. (p. 330)

If the generally introspective bent of the East is a symptom correctly diagnosed, such a disposition must have its consequences in the East's vision and handling of time. An introspective propensity would...