Zeit: Anfang und Ende / Time: Beginning and End

Time does not have a beginning nor an end in time. Therefore the question about the limits of time inevitably leads to the philosophical mystery of its origin. Does the existence of time require an absolute which is beyond time? Or is it at least connected to the beginning and the end of certain inner-worldly beings: of living beings, of perceiving beings, of human beings? Is time possibly even a function of the misunderstanding, the deception, or the illusion, of suffering and alienation? Are 'beginning' and 'end' themselves categories of illusion - and if so, what is beyond this illusion: an absolute which cannot be experienced, a transcendental subject, the nothingness?
In a dialogue between 'Western' and 'Eastern' positions, this compilation of essays discusses the coining dichotomies which have developed by the dealing with the mystery of time - transitoriness and eternality, cyclic and directed time, linear and lived time, relational and substantival time - and explicates them on the basis of classic texts. Thus it represents an interdisciplinary dialogue dealing with the basic concepts in the philosophy of time in Western and Eastern thought.