Sunday 1 September 2013

Impermanence

Since my dad died, I think a lot about impermanence.  I think about small impermanences, like my breath that comes and goes every second, and big impermanences, like other people I love dying, or me dying one day, or 'the end of the world as we know it.'  And everything inbetween.  I've become a lot more at ease with small and medium impermanences, and I've gotten a lot better at appreciating things for how they are right now, even the things I don't like so much.  Because I know they won't be like this/that forever.  Maybe not even for today.

I'm getting better at noticing when my mind wants something to stay the same, or when it really wants something to change.  Meditation has helped with that.  More and more I can notice when my mind wants things to be/not be a certain way, and how there is suffering attached to that.  If I notice it soon enough, I don't get too wrapped up in the idea and I can just watch it come and go.

I've gotten a bit more comfortable with the idea that life and death are not that far apart.  The causes and conditions that lead to life happening at all are really quite rare I think.  Being alive used to seem so solid, so durable, so 'status quo.'  Now it seems so ephemeral, so fleeting, so brief.  There's poignancy everywhere.  I'm ok with that.