The bliss of surrendering to “what is”– and to its passing ❄️
I was asked, alongside some clever people, to describe what “the ultimate truth” of life is.
There were some interesting answers, many of them bleak. One that I really hope isn’t an ultimate truth: “A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.”
It’s a huge question. Certainly it isn’t easy to just whip up an answer, but I stand by my original response:
Everything arises to pass.
The way I explained it was in relation to some of the other answers (italics below), which I felt were truths but not, for me, *the ultimate*:
- all you have is “right now” — what happened in that last moment of which you were conscious has already gone forever
- it all goes “back in the box” — you will pass, as will every tangible thing you create during your time on this planet
- life is unpredictable — things you thought were still arising are already passing; things you expected to have passed already are still arising …
I can see how my answer could also be seen as bleak.
But here’s how it looks to me through the lens of #acuity:
- Whatever terrible event or condition you experience will pass. Speaking for myself: if I can bring some awareness of this fact to my worst moments, I feel more calm and resilient.
- The fleetingness of those things that bring us joy — a spectacular sunset, a loving kiss, the delight of plunging into cold water on a hot summer’s day, that ridiculously cute thing our baby child did … it’s the very fact that those moments are passing that makes them so joyful. If any of those things were permanent and unchanging, they would lose all their wonder, beauty and magic.
There’s another, seemingly contradictory belief I hold that gives this truth more context for me: every moment lasts forever.
So while we go through life experiencing its ebbs and flows, and sometimes resistant to or upset by its constant change, everything we produce within it — our thoughts, words, actions, creations, effects and consequences — exists forever in that moment that it arises; that particular piece of space-time.
I once wrote a story describing a love affair I’d had, while I was still broken-hearted from its demise:
That the butterfly landed on his outstretched hand was the first miracle.
Not because his hand wasn’t opened and ready to receive — it was. But because, however long we hold out our hand in readiness, it’s the universe’s way to unfold its miracles implacably and inscrutably and all in its own time. Wanting and hoping are irrelevant. Striving is a convenient diversion. Expecting promises frustration. Making ready; being prepared: these are useful but not causal.
For weeks the butterfly perched and fluttered on his hand, weightless yet substantial as the world: an embodiment of magic and wonder. Further miracles. And something agonizing too: the temptation to grasp at the untame creature and hold it tight — even in the knowing that to do so would damage and destroy it.
And then, also according to the way of the universe, the butterfly prepared to fly on.
The impulse to grasp and cling became physical, painful, but the butterfly’s perfect beauty cast the stronger spell.
He realised that he’d never owned the butterfly. It wasn’t for him to imprison or otherwise contain it. When it departed he might be filled with gratitude that it had blessed him with its presence over those weeks. Or he might grieve the sudden emptiness of his hand, ruing the loss of his precious charge as though its occupation had been a natural right afforded and not a random miracle bestowed.
What he saw was that that space in his hand would be just as full as it had been before the butterfly’s arrival. But somewhere inside him — and somewhere eternally in the universe — the magic and the wonder that had been visited on him during those weeks would reside.
Everything arises to pass. Every moment exists forever.
Just like the most treasured and the most troubled of our relationships, you and I too will eventually pass. Yet everything we were, are, and will be, and every way in which we touch others, will exist, somewhere, for as long as time.
Acuity hack №5: Look at what you’re doing through a long lens.
Mine is 500 years, and my #acuityhack question to myself is always: How much is what I’m doing or experiencing now going to matter in 500 years?
If the answer is not at all, then it serves me to be solidly in the moment, and entirely surrendered to its passing.
But if it will matter, then it serves me to be solidly in the moment and work the hell out of it ❄️
