I feel impermanence

 To explain this feeling all I have to do is quote the short speech at the end of “lucky people center international”

“Why is everything impermanent? The reason why everything is impermanent, you know why? Because it’s like that! Impermanent is the very nature of life. All is birth and death, the constant dance of birth and death. Now death, as you know is not our favorite subject, something we don’t quite want to think about but also at the same time we can’t quite avoid it either. Particularly in the modern world, as we do not look at life and death as a whole, we become very attached to this life and reject and deny death, as such death becomes our ultimate fear, the last thing that we want to look at. In fact actually when you look into it really, if you look into the fear of it I often realize you see, I often tease people, if you’re worried about death I said, don’t worry, I can promise you that you will all die successfully. Memento mori, which means remember dying, because if we remember dying we might remember what life is, or what living is.

The fear of death is connected with a fear of ourselves, because death is a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected. When you have to face death, you have to face yourself; you have to come to terms with yourself.

The best time to prepare for death is now. I could die at any moment, in fact we could die at any moment, in fact to die is very simple, you know? I’ll show you, you breathe out…”

Sogyal Rinpoche. 

I feel Hope

I sometimes find myself to be lost, in fact, I find myself to be lost quite frequently. When I have a conversation with someone, and I share with them my opinions, things I feel very deeply, something which is difficult to share but I still do it hoping that it may help or change something in a better way, a lot of times I come out of the conversation feeling like crap. Talking with pessimistic people is heartbreaking for me. I understand why they feel that way, everyone has their reasons for feeling the way they do, but sometimes I just want to burst out in tears. Trying to prove to someone that the world can be made a better place, trying to help them see a vision of truth, peace and fairness, trying to show them that this is not beyond our reach, that it’s just a choice, a choice by every single one of us, and having people react saying it’s impossible, that there is no such thing as a perfect world, even no such thing as a better world, that we cant do anything about the way things are so why even try, all this truly makes me feel lost and useless. What should I feel when even my father tells me there is nothing I can do, and nothing will ever change?

But I feel hope, I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I feel it deep inside of me burning, deeper that anything else I have ever felt, I can see a better world, it might not be often but I can see it.

The first example that springs to mind is this. Some weeks ago there was an explosion on a marine base on the island where I live. Thirteen people died and many more were injured. This happened, I think, about five or six o’clock in the morning. Consequently the people who were injured needed blood, urgently. TVs and radios made announcements asking people for blood donations, and until about midday another announcement was made, that the blood banks are full and they didn’t need any more. Even at that time the hospitals were overflowing with people. This means there was a nation wide interest, to help these injured people! I find this beautiful. People understanding the pain of their fellow human beings, understanding other peoples needs, giving blood for each other, going out of their way to help one another, leaving there jobs for a bit, their homes, their problems, everything behind, just to help, beautiful.

What I’m wondering is this. Why do we need a crisis to bring out this basic human characteristic, this love for humanity?  When did we start believing and perceiving our every day problems as being more important than everybody else’s? Why should a situation need to escalate for us to show any interest in it? Why should we reach a point where people have to get hurt or die for any caring to appear? And even then, if it’s not in direct contact with us we usually do nothing.

It is very difficult to reach better worlds when people are working alone and fragmented, but together anything is possible.

There is hope!