The Paradox of Change

A post about impermanence.

Pain comes when we try to hold on to things that can't be held onto: relationships, jobs, hopes.  In holding onto those ideas, we are not free to appreciate the true quality of being.  We aren't able to appreciate that everything is change.  We try to create a ground where there isn't one.

Because everything is change, because everything is impermanent, time becomes obvious.  Of course we can work in time.  Stillness isn't as obvious.  Understanding stillness will be the next evolutionary step for humans.

Mentioned the saying "what can be seen dies, and what can't be seen is eternal."  The eternal part is the quality of change that is underneath all forms, the energy of isness.  What can be seen is all the forms: landscape, bodies, things - they all change, they all die.  When we identify with "change" - or the energy underneath the forms - we identify with our own eternal being.  Again, eternal isn't an endless amount of time, it is the absence of time.

Stillness *is* motion, and a time based mind is stuck.  This is the paradox of change.  You would think a time based mind has motion and a still mind is stuck, but that isn't the case.

A still person stays with the motion of change - the change within this moment.  A stuck person stays with events in history.  Identifying with the experience of change is what being still means.  Getting stuck on events as they go by is living in time. 

Staying in this moment is the appreciation of "change" and staying in a time based mind is not moving with what is.  That's why we can say stillness is motion (or the appreciation of it), and time based minds are stuck (in past events and hopes of the future).