The Transitory Nature
Know that you, in essence, are ‘space of consciousness’ or ‘Knowing’. Ask yourself “what doesn’t change?”. Your thoughts (including belief system and ideas) change, your emotions change, your body changes, people around you change, your surroundings change, weather changes, etc. Its very nature of forms or content to be unstable and fleeting, as they are bound to the law of impermanence. So every “form” changes or disappears, except for the ever-present formless space where these things occur and end. You are that “space” of consciousness, where every form (internal and external), events, thoughts, emotions come and go.
1. “Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go” Tao Te Ching.
2. Take the analogy of a room; a room is made up of walls, but it’s the inner space that we use; that’s the essence of the room. Where people and things come and go, events occur and end, etc.
3. “We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.” Tao Te Ching.
4. Here’s another signpost: Who is aware or knows of the objects (external or internal) in your space of consciousness as they come and go? Who’s looking at or is aware of the thoughts, emotions and reactions that come and go? Who experiences the environment you are in? The ever-present ‘I Am’ or “knowing” or experiencer, without which no experience would be possible.
Recognize the transience of all forms or events or experiences. Last year’s vacation, family gathering, taste of food, possessions, sexual or sensory pleasures, thoughts, sounds, physical sickness etc. Any form that appears in your space of consciousness as an experience, comes as if it’s all-important and before you know it, it changes or disappears into the nothingness where it came from. Even if it’s a chronic or permanent illness, it will disappear with your fleeting body. No form or experience or event or condition lasts. Buddha made it a central part of his teaching. He called it anicca, state of impermanence. Only the background, the ever-present awareness that is aware of the fleetingness of all forms hasn’t gone any change. You are that eternal awareness.
Once you truly realize the transitory nature of all forms or events, you will not give them the importance and significance that they don’t have. Or put impossible demands on things, people and circumstances to make you happy, feel safe and tell you who you are. World of forms, the drama or the play, cannot give you those things.
