Category Archives: Impermanence

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Fear doesn’t cause suffering, my resistance of it does. When I resist fear, I panic and run away, or stay and struggle with it, or grab something to help me numb out, deny and avoid it. When I can relax with it, stay with the feeling, experience all the ways it manifests in my body–the tension in my chest, the pain in my stomach, the tightness of all my muscles, and the shallowness of my breath–and notice all the ways it lies and distorts the truth, I can feel it arise, be aware of it, but also notice as it naturally dissolves.

2. Truth: Impermanence doesn’t cause suffering, my rejection of it does. When I reject it, it keeps coming anyway, continues to happen without my permission–things change and are lost, uncertainty continues, beings die. My rejection causes me to suffer, telling me lies about how I have control (or none) and choices (or none) and responsibility. When I accept impermanence, I show up for whatever happens, vulnerable and raw and brokenhearted, but also brave, with a naturally occurring wisdom and confidence. In this tender place, I can be gentle with myself. I can mourn the losses, experience the grief, but without losing sight of how amazing life is, how much courage and beauty there is amidst the brutality.

3. Truth: Love doesn’t cause suffering, my attachment to a specific idea of it, my denial of its true nature does. Love can’t be faked, forced, controlled, or contained. Love requires great courage because it invites loss and grief–things decay, change, and even die, and you will one day be separated from everything you love. Love requires both bravery and vulnerability because to experience it, you must open your heart.

One wish: That we let go of our resistance, stop rejecting our experience–what we feel and how things really are and even who we are–that we can surrender to our life exactly as it is, exactly as we are. That we can open ourselves to love, in all the ways it shows up for us, as well as in all the ways it leaves us.

Don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Move the way love makes you move.
Move the way joy makes you move.
~Osho

Day of Rest

9 Replies

It’s not about letting go of worry or getting over fear.

It’s about letting go of the idea that you can control everything, or anything.

It’s about making space for uncertainty and doubt.

It’s about surrendering to impermanence and getting past resistance to change.

It’s about “having the life you want by being present to the life you have,” (the subtitle to Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening).

It’s about confidence, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment,” (the brilliant Susan Piver said that).

It’s about paying attention, being mindful and present.

It’s about letting go of both hope and fear.

It’s about having faith in basic goodness, our innate and fundamental and natural wisdom and compassion, our essential and shared humanity.

It’s about risking heartbreak and failure, knowing that it’s so much better than being numb.

It’s about living a wholehearted life–“engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging,” (from Brene’ Brown’s new book, Daring Greatly).

It’s about refusing to smash yourself to bits, and not being afraid of yourself.

It’s about choosing vulnerability over safety and predictability, letting go of the longing for solid ground, for a life of nothing but happiness and security.

It’s about love.

It’s about having the courage to face your own life, show up, keep your heart open, and allow yourself to be seen.

It’s about being brave.

a winnebago parked in my neighborhood, the brave model

Who’s with me?