IMPERMANANCE

2016...it's just a number, don't hate it, don't blame it, don't celebrate its passing. It's not real.

2016 didn't take away your favorite celebrity or elect your biggest nightmare as President.

If you need to blame anything blame change, blame impermanance. Life is full of changes, nothing lasts forever. Without change we wouldn't be here today. Without change, there is no creativity, ingenuity, or progress. Without death, there is no life.

According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So goes life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Take for example the life of an individual. It is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during their entire life time. We change every moment. We actually live and die but for a moment, or we live and die moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next. A person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists. It is an illusion to believe that the person you have seen just now is the same as the person you are just now seeing or the person whom you are seeing now will be the same as the person you will see after a few moments.

Embrace the change because it is necessary. This, above all other things, should move you to live in the moment, to love your neighbor, and to show compassion for all life.

Stop wasting time waiting for change to hit you across the head, it's time to live!