Impermanence
Impermanence. It's such an essential aspect of our lives, yet we live as each moment can be solidified into some static experience either through our memory, photographs, or video. But we can't solidify life. Each moment moves sharply onto the next present moment. We cannot stop it. Time is a mind-created concept. If one were to ask an animal or bird of the sky: "What time is it?" They would laugh: they do not know time, because it is nothing more than a conceptualized institution created by the compulsive mind which dims the light of the true beauty of the world. I have found quite a deal of instability in the external world: places once thought (naively by the egoic mind) to be mortar and brick really nothing more than a facade. The mind wants to grasp and hang on to every moment it can. It tries to define itself in these external moments. How insane is this, though, that the human mind attempts to define itself out of impermanent, external circumstances? It sounds completely ludacris, but is how the mind functions, and is why we can never find the ever elusive "happiness" we all seek.
It can be said that we all are seeking happiness. This happiness, though, is not easily defined, and in fact is often the pursuit of pleasure: the opposite of true happiness. True happiness has no opposite, but pleasure: the mind's "happiness," does have opposites. You can never draw true happiness from external circumstances. Sex, materialistic goods, wealth, success: none of it will bring lasting happiness, because it is based on external circumstances: and all external circumstances are impermanent.
If all is impermanent, one may inquire: what is permanent, then? The only permanent aspect of existence is the essence within every single one of us; that which connects every single one of us; that which is greater than every single one of us. It is the ever-knowing awareness that animates the essence of our bodies; it is the consciousness that can be aware of the thoughts and compulsive mind. That is the only permanent aspect of our existence. Buildings will crumble; bodies will age; the world will continue to evolve and morph. The essence though, of pure consciousness, that which we are all a part of, cannot be grasped by the mind or conceptualized.
I struggle with my path to awakening because it is hard to conceptualize the truth: but the truth cannot be grasped by thought, by the compulsive mind. The truth, which can be seen in the glowing stars at night, in the beauty of chaotic nature untouched by man, in the beauty of sensing the awareness of another human being: the truth, where true joy, contentment, and peace live: is eternal, and within every single one of us.
Stop the automation for one moment, and stop in your footsteps outside. Turn around and watch the gentle snow flakes fall onto the ground; feel the cold air enter your body and transmute. Look, for once, without the buffer of the mind, and notice the beauty of true joy in the world: observing the external without the internal queue.
It can be said that we all are seeking happiness. This happiness, though, is not easily defined, and in fact is often the pursuit of pleasure: the opposite of true happiness. True happiness has no opposite, but pleasure: the mind's "happiness," does have opposites. You can never draw true happiness from external circumstances. Sex, materialistic goods, wealth, success: none of it will bring lasting happiness, because it is based on external circumstances: and all external circumstances are impermanent.
If all is impermanent, one may inquire: what is permanent, then? The only permanent aspect of existence is the essence within every single one of us; that which connects every single one of us; that which is greater than every single one of us. It is the ever-knowing awareness that animates the essence of our bodies; it is the consciousness that can be aware of the thoughts and compulsive mind. That is the only permanent aspect of our existence. Buildings will crumble; bodies will age; the world will continue to evolve and morph. The essence though, of pure consciousness, that which we are all a part of, cannot be grasped by the mind or conceptualized.
I struggle with my path to awakening because it is hard to conceptualize the truth: but the truth cannot be grasped by thought, by the compulsive mind. The truth, which can be seen in the glowing stars at night, in the beauty of chaotic nature untouched by man, in the beauty of sensing the awareness of another human being: the truth, where true joy, contentment, and peace live: is eternal, and within every single one of us.
Stop the automation for one moment, and stop in your footsteps outside. Turn around and watch the gentle snow flakes fall onto the ground; feel the cold air enter your body and transmute. Look, for once, without the buffer of the mind, and notice the beauty of true joy in the world: observing the external without the internal queue.