“It will rain all this night and we will sleep transfixed by the dark water as our blood runs through our fragile life.” Charles Bukowski
Let it Rain
Category: Impermanence
Going Down
Shunryu Suzuki once said: “Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” On the other hand, Ernest Hemingway said: “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
Note to self: DO NOT TAKE THE BOAT!
Transitioning
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” Isaac Asimov
Without Hope
“Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.” Antonio Porchia
Beyond Space And Time
“As long as you imagine yourself to be something tangible and solid, a thing among things, you seem short-lived and vulnerable, and of course you will feel anxious to survive. But when you know yourself to be beyond space and time you will be afraid no longer.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Observing Change
“A fresh attitude starts to happen when we look to see that yesterday was yesterday, and now it is gone; today is today and now it is new. It is like that – every hour, every minute is changing. If we stop observing change, then we stop seeing everything as new.” Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
The Last Ears
“One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.” Dōgen
Consider the Lilies
“Consider the lilies of the field whose bloom is brief: We are as they; like them we fade away, as does a leaf.” Christina Rossetti
Note: It’s been said that it’s better to burn out than to fade away. My my, hey hey.
Drowning in the Mainstream
“You don’t accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.” Kinky Friedman
From the Withered Tree
The Buddha (allegedly) said: “From a withered tree, a flower blooms.” But what exactly does that mean? The best explanation I could find is on a site called Zen Dirt. This is from a post called From the Withered Tree:
“In Zen quotes and sayings, we have many reminders of the impermanence of everything. Life, as all things in the universe, exists in cycles and nothing is permanent. Being mindful of non-duality however, means that all things never cease to exist either. From a withered, old, lifeless tree, a new flower blooms, a new life grows. This reminds us of the cycle of life, of how we are all related, elder and young, old and new, and how we are all of the same being.
This quote also speaks of how beauty, new life, and new thoughts can blossom from an otherwise old, lifeless, withered tree. Just because a tree is shrunken and has been around a long time, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the capacity to flower new life from it.
We can interpret this several ways. We can see this as a message that no matter what stage we are at in life, we can always start fresh. It’s never too late to let our lives blossom into a beautiful new flower. There is no such thing as “it’s too late now.”
As we all exist in cycles, we should not underestimate the profound effect of changing our lives and relationships with others. Even at a late stage in life we can positively affect our attitudes and the perspectives of those around us. This can ripple out and create positive energy around the world, or at the very least, the lives of the ones around us.
Another way to see it is simple. We were all young flowers, growing from the fruits of our parents, and we will all grow old, into a withered tree. Flowers may bloom from us, or they may not. This is not just children, the flowers are also seeds of happiness we plant in the hearts and minds of others.”
