Essence of change
The
Creator has created for us a world of constant changes: everything is changing
with every moment, remaining only with that very moment, and nothing remains
permanent. It is through changes that we may transform ourselves into a
better individual. Even in a difficult and challenging environment, we may
learn from our mistakes and wrong choices in life, and so change ourselves.
Change is transformation, which is educational and self-enlightening.
Transformation is synonymous with impermanence, which is the essence of change.
Understanding
that everything is impermanent is self-enlightening. Nothing is permanent: the
good as well as the bad things that happen to us are impermanent; nothing lasts
forever. We all are aware of this universal truth of impermanence. We all know
that we cannot live to well beyond one hundred years, and yet we resist our
aging process, continuously fixing our faces and bodies to make them look
younger. We may have the face of a forty-year-old but the body and the mind of
a seventy-year-old. We simply refuse to let go of the impermanence of all
things; we desperately and self-delusively cling on to the “permanence” of all
our attachments.
The
illusion or self-delusion is that many of us wish the impermanent were the
permanent. It is this wishful thinking that makes us unhappy. We were once
healthy and now our health has declined, and we are unhappy. We were wronged by
our enemies, and we still hold on to our old grudges, instead of forgiving and
letting them go, and we are unhappy. Our past glories gave us the ego, which we
refuse to let go of, and we become depressed and unhappy.
Life
is about changes, and living is about letting go of what is impermanent that we
naively believe and wish to be permanent.
Remember,
nothing is permanent, and each and every moment remains only with that very
moment. Therefore, live in the present, and live all your moments to their best
and to the fullest as if everything is a miracle.
Permanent
truths
Impermanence
and change are the undeniable and permanent truths of all human existence. What
is real is the existing moment, the present moment that is a product of the
past, or a result of the previous causes and actions. Due to ignorance, an ordinary mind may
conceive them all to be part of one continuous reality. But the fact that they
are not is the permanent truth.
The
various stages in the life of a man, the childhood, the adulthood, the old age
are not the same at any given time. The child is not the same when he grows up and
becomes a young man, nor when the young man turns into an old man. The seed is
not the tree, though it produces the tree, and the fruit is also not the tree,
though it is a product of the tree. This is the permanent truth of all life.
Emptiness
and nothingness
Death empties anything and everything—that
is, the ego and all its attachments to the material world. Emptiness is
nothingness in which everything becomes nothing.
For all human efforts, death will come in the
end for all and sundry. This is an indisputable fact. No matter how long a life
you may want to live, you will, like everyone else, face dying one day. This is
the way of all flesh because you have a built-in mechanism in your genes to
ensure your mortality.
Perspective of death
According to CNN news,
Cathrin Ertmann, a
celebrated photographer from Denmark
Before she
started photographing death, Cathrin Ertmann had never seen a dead
body. Viewed through her lens while standing in a quiet morgue, it was,
surprisingly, much less frightening and more of a quiet mystery for her to
explore death and its implications.
“I was amazed about how
peaceful and undramatic everything looked,” she said. “I got the chance to look
at death without it being my own relatives, without feelings involved, and it
gave me a peace. The imagination of what death looks like is way worse than
what I experienced. . . . . .
I also saw a peace and
beauty. Sometimes the scare is in the brief look at something. Like when you
watch a horror movie, you only see a glimpse of the ghost, murderer or monster,
and your imagination works all the fright up for you. I think I felt I need to
see everything to make it ‘normal’ and undramatic. And I think it works the
same way with our relation to death in general.”
A new study of death gave
Cathrin Ertmann a new perspective on life. “After working in the morgue, I was
walking in the street and I got really over-whelmed by seeing all the people
just walking, chatting and laughing,” she said. “I wanted to yell: YOU ARE
ALIVE, USE IT!"
Indeed, death is a leveler
of all. We all have a life; so go out and live it as God has intended and
planned for you.
You will
have to work hard and sweat a lot to produce the food you
eat.
You were made out of
the ground. You will return to it when you die.
You are dust,
and you will return to dust.
(Genesis
3:19)
The news on death by
Catherin Ertmann is very illuminating: it sheds light on how we should all view
death—or rather life
and death, which
are always interrelated.
Remember, life always begets death, and what goes up must also come down. This
is the natural cycle of anything and everything in this world. Many people live
without ever thinking of death or deliberately ignoring its existence, while
others live but always with death on their minds—especially those elderly. That
death is inevitable is an indisputable fact, but one need not anticipate it as
if it is imminent, even if one is advanced in years. Nobody knows when death
may descend. Just live your life as if there is no tomorrow, live in the now,
and live as if everything is a miracle.
Remember, whether or not
you would like to let go of your attachments in the material world, you came
from dust, and dust you shall return to.
Remember your
Creator
before you
return to the dust you came from.
Remember him before
your spirit goes back to God who gave it.
(Ecclesiastics
12: 7)
The bottom line: remember
your Creator, or where you came from; everything is nothing in the end. So, why
hold on to, and why not let go of, anything and everything that eventually will
become nothing? Just let go to let God, who is in absolute control; anything
and everything must return to Him as nothingness. Indeed, the wisdom of everything
is nothing is the wisdom of letting go to let God.
Death is emptiness, which
brings an end to anything and everything in life. This emptiness, however, may
have both positive and negative perspectives.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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