Understanding change and impermanence intellectually is one thing. Not railing against it is another. While there is still breath, many of us fight with all our might to get our way, whatever that “way” is.
We do this with our family, our friends, our work, of what others should believe and how they should behave; in fact, we even do it with things we know we can’t control, like the weather. It’s exhausting work.
At what point do we let go of trying to control everything? Who among us hasn’t faced that question? Is there chasm between accepting the Buddha’s teachings and the reality we live? Is there a line where doing what is rational and prudent is crossed when we just cannot and will not accept the change and impermanence of things not going the way we want? The line where the harder we try to clench our hands around the sands of control, the more it slips through?
As much as I’d like to say I don’t, I continue to live in that burning house. The burning house of our desires – the burning house of the anger directed both inward to ourselves and outward to the world – and the burning house of our folly to expect what life “should be.”
These attachments, these burning houses are at one end of our experiences, but what about the other end? The end where we have our attachments and desires for the ordinary, the stuff made of materials? Stuff that makes up our expectations of how our lives should be; what we should possess; what we should be entitled to?
The teachings on impermanence of this beautiful, confusing and sometimes painful life, helps us gain awareness of our own need to control. Thinking about the impermanence all of things, including our own life, may awaken us to the unique opportunity to live this one life more fully.
At what point do we let go of trying to control the world around us? At what point do we experience the liberation of letting go?
Namo Amida Butsu.
In Gassho,
Rev. Anita
rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com
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