If you think about it, nothing really ever ends. The ups and the downs, the beauty and the destruction - it all continues to play out, ebbing and flowing, one day after another.
If we're open to life, we can learn a lot from this continuous cycle. We can harmonize with the beauty and the terror. We can befriend the butterfly and the snake. We can appreciate the luck and the hardships.
We don't get to choose what comes our way, but we absolutely can choose how we respond to that which comes our way.
The more time you spend on this planet, the more you realize how fragile everything is. We're nothing but a spec on top of another spec, floating in the vast, open universe, which to most of us is incomprehensible. To even state our size relative to the cosmos doesn't do it an ounce of justice.
Knowing this, when will we learn to surf the waves of life, such that on the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows, we're still centered, grounded, focused on the present moment?
When will we learn to live in the present moment, not because that's a trend, but because it's the only practical thing to do? If we all claim to want happiness, to want inner peace, then how is it smart to be caught up in the melodrama of our minds, let alone build a life around it?
No wise person lives their life based on the capricious nature of the mind? So why would you?
If you pay attention as you go through life, you realize that there are good times and bad times, comfortable moments and uncomfortable moments. This pattern never really stops.
The outer circumstances might continue to change and look different, but your inner experience is pretty consistent. A few pleasant sensations, a few (usually more) unpleasant sensations, then maybe a fantastic sensation, and then a brutally painful one.
The cycle continues, over and over, without much change. The real question is, are you able to change how you play with this cycle as it changes before you? Are you able to participate in the ever-changing dance of energies that surround you? That's where the magic lies.
Everything else? Well, that just keeps on going.
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
Comments