11-23-2010, 12:00 AM
~
You will separate from long-time friends and relatives;
You will leave behind the wealth you worked to build up;
The guest, your consciousness, will move from the inn, your body.
Forget the conventional concerns – this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
This verse introduces impermanence, one of the principal themes of Buddhist practice. These four lines, known as The Four Ends, were among my teacher's favorite verses, and they are a complete meditation on impermanence in themselves.
The end of accumulation is dispersion.
The end of building is ruin.
The end of meeting is parting.
The end of birth is death.
The question, of course, is, "Given that everything changes, that nothing lasts forever, what do we do in this experience we call life?"
At first, reflection on death and impermanence feels a bit like taking a sledge hammer to our life. The shock reveals the degree to which we are biologically and culturally conditioned to orient ourselves toward life.
Yet as we accept death as part of life (rather than its opposite), something strange happens. The conventional concerns -- happiness and unhappiness, gain and loss, fame and obscurity, and respect and disdain -- lose their hold. We react less and less to the ups and downs of life and we move more and more into the experience of life itself.
Continued reflection brings us directly into one of the central mysteries of life: on the one hand, things do grow and evolve, and, on the other, chance occurrences can negate or destroy our efforts in an instant.
The only way to live in this dilemma is to do what life calls for in each moment, but to do so without any expectation that we will ever see the results of our actions.
Ironically, it's hard to imagine a more fulfilling way to live.
What happens to the guest? Well, that's another mystery.
Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams - I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a wise man may come forward to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.
- Chuang Tzu to Lao Tzu
You will separate from long-time friends and relatives;
You will leave behind the wealth you worked to build up;
The guest, your consciousness, will move from the inn, your body.
Forget the conventional concerns – this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
This verse introduces impermanence, one of the principal themes of Buddhist practice. These four lines, known as The Four Ends, were among my teacher's favorite verses, and they are a complete meditation on impermanence in themselves.
The end of accumulation is dispersion.
The end of building is ruin.
The end of meeting is parting.
The end of birth is death.
The question, of course, is, "Given that everything changes, that nothing lasts forever, what do we do in this experience we call life?"
At first, reflection on death and impermanence feels a bit like taking a sledge hammer to our life. The shock reveals the degree to which we are biologically and culturally conditioned to orient ourselves toward life.
Yet as we accept death as part of life (rather than its opposite), something strange happens. The conventional concerns -- happiness and unhappiness, gain and loss, fame and obscurity, and respect and disdain -- lose their hold. We react less and less to the ups and downs of life and we move more and more into the experience of life itself.
Continued reflection brings us directly into one of the central mysteries of life: on the one hand, things do grow and evolve, and, on the other, chance occurrences can negate or destroy our efforts in an instant.
The only way to live in this dilemma is to do what life calls for in each moment, but to do so without any expectation that we will ever see the results of our actions.
Ironically, it's hard to imagine a more fulfilling way to live.
What happens to the guest? Well, that's another mystery.
Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams - I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a wise man may come forward to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.
- Chuang Tzu to Lao Tzu