All Things Must Pass

When you notice your state of mind, you notice that no single state lasts forever. In fact, most states pass pretty quickly. The interesting thing is that whenever you are in the midst of a state, you feel like it is the most important thing in the world, like it has the most reality and that it will last forever. Many emotions have this kind of power, such as anger, sadness, frustration. Even positive emotions have this effect, like elation and the feeling of romantic love. Whenever they overtake you, it is very very difficult to realize that they are just passing phenomenon. But whenever they happen, if you practice realizing that they are just momentary creations and that they will wither away like the fall leaves, you begin to distance yourself from them and see the world in a more objective manner.

It is not just your thoughts and feelings that are of an impermanent nature, it is everything; literally every THING. This is because for everything physical, death is as necessary as life. We think of dead things as non responsive, or no longer responsive to the living environment. Because that is what life is, it is constant interaction with stimulus. This constant interaction with all of life is what creates the process of change. Nothing stays the same because life is always moving, always changing, always interacting. Every moment is new. There has never been a moment like this one in the history of the infinite universe! It is impossible for there to have ever been a moment like this one, because death and change are a part of life. Death and change make everything new all the time. The cells in your body are constantly dying to make room for new ones to keep your body healthy. The only reason death is sad to you is because your mind has made YOU into a reality, a constant, a death. You are dead, you do not interact with life but you separate yourself from it. In fact, you are dead because you do not allow yourself to die; you do not allow yourself to go with the flow of life, and change along with it. If you didn't hold on to your idea of self so tightly, death would be like a joy to you, like it is a joy that your cells die in order to renew your body. It is just a change in form. Forms will always change, but life is forever and infinite. Life is forever and always, in each moment.