Things change and remain the same

Every day things change, and yet each day they remain the same..because life is a constant flow and there is nothing more flowing than the nature of change. And yet so many resist. And in resisting, people suffer. And suffer needlessly. Attaching to things, people and situations only hurts in the long run. We are conditioned to attach however from birth. We are nurtured by those attachments and when they disappear, we despair. How can we change something so intristically human?

I am reminded of the fact that once we lose something we hold dear the next time we lose something all the feelings of the first loss are also felt. This compounds and compounds and in each subsequent loss we have ALL the losses we have ever had pulling us into our suffering. How horribly accurate!

When I decided the Buddhist teaching made a great deal of sense it took me awhile to work on the non-attachment part. the mindfullness idea is easier than non-attachment. After all, how can one give up attachment to ones family, animals and feelings? There was so much loss in my life at the time I embraced this tenet that it seemed insurmountable to me. And even now, as I reflect on the whole idea of reworking my life, I remember that when things are horrible in ones life, one cannot work too well on ones spirituality. If in survival mode, it is virtually impossible. I lived at that level for several years, and it was like a dragon eating its tail. One needed to move beyond the negative situation, but being positive seemed impossible. All a part of the conundrum of life!

Today is the only day we ever have, so in the words of the great AA chapters: "One day at a time" is the way we all need to view our lives. We spend so much time trying to plan for a future we may not live to see, a vacation that lasts a blink in time, and/or an event that seems to celebrate some milestone, that we forget the fragile life truth...the present is here to bestow its blessings on us. We must remain open and present to its miracle. And in doing so the changes we see as shocking, or even exciting become the unfolded present we already knew would make itself manifest, had we but listened to our own intuitive mind....things change. End of story.