When you are deluded by the illusion of permanence,
you become trapped in the pursuit of profit.
Profit for the body - wealth.
Profit for the mind - knowledge.
Profit for the soul - eternal life.
Vanity and foolishness!
Profit requires permanence, and there is no permanence.
Therefore, there is no profit, and the pursuit of profit yields only suffering.
You suffer because you hunger for permanence
and there is only impermanence.
One generation arising from he dust of another,
only to collapse itself in the heap of history.
Even the earth is passing away;
its permanence is an illusion - it passes more slowly than you,
and you mistake its slow death for eternity.
Eternity is not the infinite stretching of time, but the ending of time.
When you see the emptiness of things, you see the emptiness of time.
When you see the emptiness of time, you are free from eternity.
When you are free from eternity, you no longer pursue permanence.
When you no longer pursue permanence, you no longer harvest anxiety.
When you no longer harvest anxiety, you reap tranquillity.
Cycles, endless rounds, countless turnings-
such is this world under the sun,
your world of imagined separateness and permanence.
The sun climbs eagerly through the sky only to tumble into darkness.
It crawls through the night and returns to the climb only to fall once more.
The wind blows south, then north;
round upon round of endless spinning.
Rivers pour tirelessly into the sea, and yet the sea is never full.
There is no purpose to it.
Sun, wind, river act according to their nature;
they do what they do because of what they are.
Only you insist upon meaning and purpose.
For you the Way is not enough; for you it must be a Way To when in fact is is only the Way Of.
Your passion for purpose traps you in the pursuit of permanence.
Your hunger for meaning blinds you to the simple beauty of the turnings.
There is no tranquillity in the Way To;
yet the Way Of is peace itself.
~ Rami Shapiro
No comments:
Post a Comment