The more things stay the same...
I was on a long drive today, around 400 miles round trip, helping a friend retrieve his car from repossession. So, I had a long time to think and watch the road and nature move past my vehicle.
I noticed new buildings where trees once stood and houses where there were farm fields the last time I drove past. Many many things had changed.
The centerpiece of Buddhist teaching, if I have it correct, is that nothing is permanent. We come we go, things die and things are born, nothing lasts or stays exactly the same. I learned today that the Buddhist Zen Master Seung Sahn, whose' book I was reading a few weeks ago passed away a couple of weeks ago. His existence changed.
Everything around us changes every day. In spring flowers bloom and then they wither away and fertilize the next flowers to come up. People are born or die every day, the hospitals are very busy places in that regard.
I look at my own life and I see how everything is different from day to day. I am able to clearly see how life changes around me. I meet new people and we become friends - or not. I see how the sunsets differently each day. I've noticed what time this takes place in relation to how dark the house is when the lights on timers come on.
The only constant is change.
I've said it before in my life, but never really felt it. Really Feeling it. A very different experience.
Even yesterday, during the Mass that I attended, there was something chanted by the congregation as well as said by the Priest as he smudged ashes on the foreheads of the faithful. "Dust you are, to dust you shall return." impermanence.
Several years ago, when I was really into the Buddhist thing, I backed away because I was actually freaked out about the who impermanence thing. I'm will die, I will be dead, they will burn my body and nothing of me will be left. What a funny thing to be freaked out about. Of course that will happen.
Dan has been drinking one night and decided to take a shortcut through a cemetery. Well, it happened that on this night, Joe, one of the grounds keepers was out in the cemetery putting the finishing touches on a grave that would be used the next morning. In his stupor Dan stumbles into the open grave. He struggles for a bit and then settles in. He rests for a few minutes and has lost his buzz enough to realize his situation. He struggles again to get out and then feels a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll never get out of here." says a voice.
Joe was alone in the grave in a second.
What will I leave the world with? What will you leave the world with? Will we leave it a better place then we found it?
Do you know the old saying, "Everyone makes people happy. Some by arriving, some by leaving."? What if it was "Everyone makes people happy. Some by being born, some by dying."
Kinda stark, agreed? But, in some cases, sadly true. I've know many people who were not upset and actually were relieved when someone passed away. Some one who had made them a victim and caused them great pain. Some would say that this is Bad Karma. In some ways it is, but I think it is truly human nature.
Here is another saying, and thus the title for this post, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I don't know who said it, but it was very wise. You can apply this to fashion, music, attitudes, literature, movies and more. Some of the very things that were in fashion some 20 years ago are 'hip' to wear now. Some language has returned. Some has departed. Some has stayed the same.
But, sometimes, I like to flip that around and look at it from, "The more things stay the same, the more they change." It's those trees that are gone now and wood frame houses are going up in their place along the freeway. It's the Zen Master who died, but before that found a state of mind, he said, where death was no different than being alive - in good way. It's my life being different and what I do today different than I did not long ago.
Peace
I noticed new buildings where trees once stood and houses where there were farm fields the last time I drove past. Many many things had changed.
The centerpiece of Buddhist teaching, if I have it correct, is that nothing is permanent. We come we go, things die and things are born, nothing lasts or stays exactly the same. I learned today that the Buddhist Zen Master Seung Sahn, whose' book I was reading a few weeks ago passed away a couple of weeks ago. His existence changed.
Everything around us changes every day. In spring flowers bloom and then they wither away and fertilize the next flowers to come up. People are born or die every day, the hospitals are very busy places in that regard.
I look at my own life and I see how everything is different from day to day. I am able to clearly see how life changes around me. I meet new people and we become friends - or not. I see how the sunsets differently each day. I've noticed what time this takes place in relation to how dark the house is when the lights on timers come on.
The only constant is change.
I've said it before in my life, but never really felt it. Really Feeling it. A very different experience.
Even yesterday, during the Mass that I attended, there was something chanted by the congregation as well as said by the Priest as he smudged ashes on the foreheads of the faithful. "Dust you are, to dust you shall return." impermanence.
Several years ago, when I was really into the Buddhist thing, I backed away because I was actually freaked out about the who impermanence thing. I'm will die, I will be dead, they will burn my body and nothing of me will be left. What a funny thing to be freaked out about. Of course that will happen.
Dan has been drinking one night and decided to take a shortcut through a cemetery. Well, it happened that on this night, Joe, one of the grounds keepers was out in the cemetery putting the finishing touches on a grave that would be used the next morning. In his stupor Dan stumbles into the open grave. He struggles for a bit and then settles in. He rests for a few minutes and has lost his buzz enough to realize his situation. He struggles again to get out and then feels a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll never get out of here." says a voice.
Joe was alone in the grave in a second.
What will I leave the world with? What will you leave the world with? Will we leave it a better place then we found it?
Do you know the old saying, "Everyone makes people happy. Some by arriving, some by leaving."? What if it was "Everyone makes people happy. Some by being born, some by dying."
Kinda stark, agreed? But, in some cases, sadly true. I've know many people who were not upset and actually were relieved when someone passed away. Some one who had made them a victim and caused them great pain. Some would say that this is Bad Karma. In some ways it is, but I think it is truly human nature.
Here is another saying, and thus the title for this post, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I don't know who said it, but it was very wise. You can apply this to fashion, music, attitudes, literature, movies and more. Some of the very things that were in fashion some 20 years ago are 'hip' to wear now. Some language has returned. Some has departed. Some has stayed the same.
But, sometimes, I like to flip that around and look at it from, "The more things stay the same, the more they change." It's those trees that are gone now and wood frame houses are going up in their place along the freeway. It's the Zen Master who died, but before that found a state of mind, he said, where death was no different than being alive - in good way. It's my life being different and what I do today different than I did not long ago.
Peace
posted by Both Sides of My Brain at 6:00 PM
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