Time and re-inarnation

[hefalump]

This might be a stupid question, but is time linear and only moving along one direction in Buddhism (i.e. past to future in a straight line)?

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now. If you are living now, when you die, could you be reborn at a point in the past? Or back into the present? Or is rebirth only consecutive? I was imagining what would happen if, for example, a meteorite hit the Earth at some point in the distant future and mankind was obliterated. Would we all then be able to be reborn back into earlier points in time repeatedly until eventually achieving enlightenment, or would that be that..?

What do you think..? Again, apologies if there's a really obvious answer to this that everyone here already knows.

[Astus]

Since causes are followed by consequences, this is quite linear and makes it impossible to return to a previous state that was the cause of the present state, since the previous causes are already gone.

[zAnt]

Modern Physics has taught us that time is very much so linear. In the talk of time travel, there is theories that you can create a loop hole through the fourth dimension (time) by physically warping it. If you saw the fourth dimension, everything would be a line, from it's creation point to it's end point. And sense matter can never be created nor destroyed, the lines would be infinite. As far as Science goes, you cannot return to the past... yet. But who knows what supernatural forces can alter the dimensions we know.

[viniketa]

Consult your Abhidharma... time is a relative, mental construct. No reason for things to be linear, except our minds tend to interpret them that way.

[lobster]

In the future you will be a Buddha. In the Pureland, time is non-existent. In the past is suffering.
Now in the present we can choose our call . . .
http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/post/17546193968/fairy-dust

[lowlydog]

Hi all,

When you die it will be the present, when you are born it will be the present, in the future when you are a Buddha it will be the present.

[Konchog1]

I remember reading a wonderful short story about a man who dies and meets God. In the course of their talk God says the man will be reborn and that he has had the same conversion with the man before. Then God reveals that the man will be reborn as everyone who has ever lived. He is everyone. Everyone is one person. When the man has experienced all of humanity's existence, he will become God's son.

Cool story, but no. Time is linear.