The Buddha was asked how long a kalpa was, and he answered with a metaphor. He said a kalpa was the length of time for a stone, 16 miles on each side, to be worn away if touched with a cloth every 100 years. Another metaphor explains a kalpa as like a large empty cube 16-miles square. If you insert a tiny mustard seed every hundred years, the stone would be filled before the kalpa ends. It appears to mean an immense period of time. The period must serve to encompass all the ages of creation and dissolution of a world system.
