Holding Against The Stream

First for an oldy but a goody: All things are impermanent. That is their nature. Everything, everywhere, in all occasions, changes. The change may be slow, or it may be fast. It may be major, or it may be minor. It may be by choice, or by conditions. It may be wanted, or feared. But, no matter what we do, and no matter how hard we try to oppose it, everything changes. That includes us.

The analogy I have always loved for this is that of a river. The water ebbs, flows. It rises and falls. It rushes and saunters. Always it moves.

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. ~ Heraclitus

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known. ~ Winnie the Pooh

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. ~ Horace

Life is like that. We float along in it. It is constantly changing, all of life's parts. We are not free of that tide either. Everything about us in these lives, as these bodies, ebbs and flows. We struggle with this changing nature of what is. We want to hold onto the good parts, get rid of the bad parts and keep the things that are the way we want them that way.

We hold life against its own stream. The rivers keeps coming, buffeting us and the burden of hoped solidity we grip so tightly.

Instead we can hold our beliefs lightly. We can allow them to move a bit. We can delight as they are changed by the impact and alchemy of ever changing life. We can revel in their impermanence, sure that fundamentally we can never be bored with life's continuous, relentless unfolding. We can even be willing to let a belief go to float away downstream when it becomes inappropriate to hold onto, when its usefulness as been fulfilled.

This is not always an easy thing to do. But, it does have the luxury of being in agreement with the way things seem to be.