It is beginning to sink in for me: there is nothing close to being permanent. When I got up this morning, I began thinking how “This is it!” This moment is what it is all about. The past is beyond reach, the future is beyond reach. This is the best I can do, so make the most of it.
For several years, I have been trying to get my thoughts around impermanence. I feel like I have been walking around the topic, looking at it from the outside, wanting to get a grasp of what it was really like. Now I simply try to let go of my notion of permanent, and what is left is what I have been trying to understand. There is a void. It is a void filled with everything. Here and now.
I can see how naive it is for religious dogma to promise something in the future. Most religions attempt to establish a culture of permanence in a world that is essentially impermanent. There are many descriptions of what happens after we die, all of which are imaginary trips into the unknown. We make promises to one another that attempt to define and even guarantee the future. I cannot even promise with confidence what my afternoon will entail. What I can know, is right here and now. It is all contained in this moment.
There is no such thing as permanent. It is a joy and a gift to experience the moment as free fall. I want to experience it as much as I can. I want to learn to live on the other shore.