For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted things to stay as they are. I’ve wanted things to be permanent, stable, and above all predictable. I certainly had flashes of excitement when some things changed, but I actually liked to have my feet solidly on the ground, a ground I was familiar with.
I’ve been chipping away at that solid foundation that seemed so permanent. I’m not so sure any more whether anything can be permanent, no matter how much I want it to be. I’m not so sure anything can remain the same, no matter how much I might find that appealing or comforting.
I eventually came to grips with the idea that life is not permanent. Getting older gives me the choice to try to hang on to staying alive or to yield to the inevitable and accept that I am going to die someday, perhaps soon. The idea that this will all pass away has something of a futuristic sound to it. It will happen some day, but not right now. I’m not so sure. That may be just a small part of the reality.
I’m noticing that there is nothing permanent about today, this hour or even this moment. For me to embrace impermanence goes way beyond accepting that “some day” I am going to die and my body will lose its animation. I am actually being carried along on a current of moments that has no characteristic at all resembling permanent. I and everything around me is constantly disappearing, vanishing, eroding away.
I once sat on the south ridge of the Grand Canyon and watched the sun gradually disappear below the ridge across that vast abyss. The sun was there one moment and then slowly it sank below the horizon. What had been there moments ago with amazing brilliance was no longer present or perceptible. In an instant it seemed, the whole world around me changed. I was enveloped in the approaching clutches of darkness.
So it is every day, throughout the day. Each moment, each instant that seems so firm and permanent is suddenly gone. There is nothing permanent that offers me stability and comfort. What was here a moment ago, is totally gone. There is nothing I can hold on to, nothing I can reclaim. The wisp of smoke in which I live is constantly changing, constantly evolving. I am constantly changing along with it.
It is becoming apparent that what was there at the beginning of this sentence is no longer there when I strike the “period” key. I live in a world where the concept of permanent has no place. The more I live in harmony with that lack of anything permanent, the more I will be awake in a real world. There actually is comfort in that.