At times and ironically usually when life is most sweet I'm struck by the knowledge that
it's all coming to an end. Why at these times? What is this impending sense of impermanence?
There seems to be something unifying and uniquely human about this condition we inhabit,
we're always running out of time all the while failing to arrive.
I don't know what else to make of it except to say I haven't always felt so suspicious about
this way that it is. When I was smaller death had no meaning and it was something that happened in
stories. My life and its occurrences were not more than play in a theatre. And truth be told it is
the case that to this day I am often disillusioned about the broader cares and concerns of our lives.
When I was young I did nearly die and it has since been clear to me that life is not something
we can be so foolish to hold on to. Whatever motion we do intend to use when it is time,
it has to be not holding. As I grow older my sense of entertainment whilst perhaps if
examined studiously, misplaced, has sent me no further from serving my fellow companions and
feeling connected to the wider community (the natural signs of one's imperative maturity).
Yet it would be a lie to say that this nonchalance makes me immune to suffering.
That it itself is not a kind of wading into the proverbial deep end.
And it is thus we may discover a more astute disposition on the nature of suffering.
For samsara is not what we make of it. Samsara is a habit formed by negligence by which we have
left our minds in sway to decay. It is as has been suggested that when we look intimately at
the nature of ourselves the common sense of "I," is nowhere to be found. All there actually is, is
the cognizance of sensations and this is without the presumed external and additional witness.
Samsara is our inability to not alone allow the pristine revelation of cognizance and
sensations but through the conventional inference to own "our," experience.
What is suffering but rather than to exist to always be conceptualizing existence.
So often other ways in which I am lost in thought. So often I am at war with my being.
But when one has mistaken themselves as a fragment of the unlimited and sublime whole
how can one ever surmount to being enough? No, it is actually not possible. Somewhere
between vacant diffusion and banal distraction I am perpetually bored, seeking and striving.
Often I find myself in a competition for status which I know is a futile game.
In how many ways can one measure themselves to be more of or less of a person than their peers?
As the one in question myself this ride appears laboriously unavailing and I should aspire to get
off it. How unnecessarily must I run a constant internal commentary about what's before me?
In my mind the prison moment is almost never enough before I must cast my judgments, attempt
to alter or, improve and imagine it in some other way. I am between an undying self-consciousness
that monitors everything (this fiendish sense of unceasing effort in all action epitomizes
my deplorable proclivities) and, an impending implosion of such compounded self-centeredness.
But just as I have learned to love my community with maturity I have
learned the tools to dissolve my bondage to suffering. Yet,
I still find myself unskillfully caught up and unaware of my involvement in this deathly habit.
The next moment where I might be hypnotized and egotistical in crazy ways is unpredictable
but only ever around the corner. And when in the advantageous position how often am I so stubborn
not to do the noble thing and stand free from it but wedded to continue to choose my own suffering?
As skillful as I become in compassion the closer I come to know Buddhahood my repulsion for Samsara
thickens. The more freedom I experience the more clear it is how all-encompassing
Samsara is. Life becomes more painful and unbearable and I can hardly stand much more.
Why these times? What is this impending sense of impermanence?
I am yearning for complete unwavering and utter freedom.