Impermanence is a gift.
I have found this to be an important lesson during good times as well as the bad. It helps me deal with fear of loss and avoidance of pain, so that I can spend more time enjoying the now.
I find myself offering this advice more and more frequently, as it is so widely applicable to the human experience.
The Buddha referred to the term Dukkha, this is best translated as "unsatisfactoriness". All our experience in life is ultimately an unsatisfactory one. Nothing lasts and our mind will always want more, it will never be permanently satisfied.
This can be seen as a curse, but it is also a gift. While the things that we love and crave will satisfy us for only a moment, the things that cause us suffering may only persist for only a moment also.
Many of us seek to fight this temporary nature of the world, we grasp and cling to ideas and events, wanting to hold onto the good and the beautiful, whilst at the same time attempting to push away and avoid things we deem to be negative. According to Buddha, the consequence of this is unhappiness.
Attachment is the root of suffering ~ Buddha
We want ephemeral things to be forever. We fight reality at the base level.
Fighting what cannot be changed will be a life long battle, and one that is ultimately unwinnable.
There is an alternate strategy that will lead to a state of increased happiness in the moment. Acceptance.
Acceptance of the ephemeral nature of our world. Impermanence is a gift. This is at the core of Vipassana meditation, the ability to let go.
When one allows themselves to accept that everything shall pass, then there is no reason to fight the bad, as it will soon depart of its own accord. And to understand that to cling to happiness is just as much a cause of suffering. We can always look back with fondness, but with fondness of a past that may never reoccur. But that is okay.
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