What could be more unpredictable than our thoughts and emotions: do you have any idea what you are going to think or feel next? Our mind, in fact, is as empty, as impermanent, and as transient as a dream. Look at a thought: It comes, it stays, and it goes. The past is past, the future not yet risen, and even the present thought, as we experience it, becomes the past.
The only thing we really have is nowness, is now.
Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Everything in life changes. The path to true happiness is one of integrating and fully accepting all aspects of our experience. This integration is represented in the Taoist symbol of yin/yang, a circle which is half dark and half light. In the midst of the dark area is a spot of light, and in the midst of the light area is a spot of darkness. Even in the depths of darkness, the light is implicit. Even in the heart of light, the dark is understood, acknowledged, and absorbed. If things are not going well for us in life and we are suffering, we are not defeated by the pain or closed off to the light. If things are going well and we are happy, we are not defensively trying to deny the possibility of suffering.
Sharon Salzberg
In my hermitage in France there is a bush of japonica. During the night a cold snap arrived and brought with it frost. The next day I noticed that all the buds on the bush had died. A few weeks later the weather became warm again. I saw new buds on the japonica manifesting another generation of flowers. I asked the japonica flowers: “Are you the same as the flowers that died in the frost or are you different flowers?” The flowers replied to me: “We are not the same and we are not different When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not we go into hiding. It’s as simple as that.”
When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again. Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it doesn’t exist.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Snow, rain and low clouds on the Jura. The weather moves from Spring to Autumn, confusing the plants and the birds. A useful lesson for us in working with our inner changing moods:
High winds do not last all morning
Heavy rain does not last all day
Why is this? Heaven and Earth!
If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal
Why do we think it happens for us?
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise. But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves – that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.
Ajahn Sumedho
Photo Harald Hoyer
Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive
Pablo Neruda
