Anicca - The fleeting passage of all things

Bobby McFerrin struck the right chord - Don't Worry Be Happy


How many of us can truly admit to being happy?

So many hours, minutes and days of our lives we spend worrying about this, that or the other. Where does this get us after all the worry? Are the worries solved through this energy stealing process? No, of course not, it just leaves us feeling even worse than we started out feeling.

Then who do we blame? So often something outside ourselves, someone else becomes the butt of our frustration, disappointment, anger, grief, whatever.

The answer is so simple it would seem at first sight, not an answer!

Let go, desist from holding on.....

So, first of all try this little experiment. Think of something that got you worried - focus on it but more importantly on the feelings it brought up in you, and probably still does, just thinking of it. Really get a feeling for how it seems to permeate your whole being, almost disease like, spreading across your awareness into the cells of your being.


.....Whoa!

Now stop - let all that go - and feel, sense and remember something really beautiful, loving, romantic, sensational and let those feelings pour through you, cleansing your whole being in lightness, upliftment, love..... Got the feelings? Notice how the whole body, your whole being resonates with tingly, jingly, sensations of pure joy and happiness.

....... Whoa!

Now let that all go....go on, let it go! You may want to bathe in it forever but just let it go.

Unlike the other sensation you want this to stay.... the other you were glad to get rid, right?

Yet now just stay with both those experiences. They were exactly the same... No? Well, they were because they both brought to your awareness feelings of pain and joy, sorrow and gladness etc. They created sensations you wanted to immediately stay with or get rid of.

They both produced responses taking you to a high or a low or somewhere in between. So the question is, where was the middle way in all this, where it was neither arousingly positive nor negatively reactive?

Do you suppose that place is neither exciting nor involving? Perhaps it seems too grey to be worth focusing on.

Yet that place is the holy of Holies, the sanctuary of sanctuaries. The still point of being. How little we allow ourselves the beauty of being there. This is the place where impermanence (Anicca - sanskrit anitya) resides. The space where impermanence presents itself in what is - fleeting experience. The hello and goodbye of all life.

It is the ground of true reality in this life as we know it and also the doorway to the reality (Nirvana) we have allowed ourselves to forget.

Where there is attachment there is always sorrow and suffering (Dukkha - sanskrit duhkha). Be it positive or negative. For some they feel if there is no attachment to joy or sorrow, then the full flavor cannot be enjoyed. Yet having a great time, relationship etc - when that finishes as surely it is inevitable, hanging on creates suffering. letting go and celebrating in gratitude allows for an even stronger energy of abundance to flood right into the vacated space

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Whatever is impermanent is subject to change. Whatever is subject to change is subject to suffering.

— The Buddha

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Suffering is the inevitable by product of human existence. What makes the difference is the acceptance of this and thus the letting go of attachment to it as a means of fuel for progress forward. It is, in truth, the brake of all brakes preventing our human vehicle maintaining its forward momentum.

When we accept all our suffering is self inflicted, created from our attachment to this outcome or that, then surely the medicine appropriate to health is let go.....

Anatta (or its Sanskrit anatman) means non Self - it signifies all phenomena as not being a self. All these things are not our Self. They neither contain their own self hood. They are the creations of our Self yet are utterly impermanent - phantasmagorical. Hold on and they seem real - let go and they dissipate  and no longer exist.

The more business we occupy in our life the more distractions, attachments and worries we have to play with. Yet simply, by allowing all these things the experience of connecting to, yet not holding onto, we give ourselves a much smoother ride. We also benefit from an objective view point on our own lives and as we all know when you are in the subjective it is nigh impossible to see the whole mountain range yet objectively we allow ourselves the placement of a higher vantage point and see more clearly the vista of experience.

The world may appear shitty today yet this is simply how it is perceived. Let go of perceptions, stay in that place where so much is seen as transitory, let go of what holds you there and feed the healthy outcome, nascent in every painful growth.

All this too passes!

But be sure of one thing - Be Happy - Don't worry!