“For behold your body, how frail it is! It sickens and festers and dies. Like every living thing, in the end, it sickens and dies.” – The Dhammapada (Old Age)
Near our house is a railroad bridge and on the side of one of the concrete pillars supporting the bridge, the local graffiti artists regularly use it as a canvas. I took the above picture a month after the entire side of the pillar was painted black and then covered with multi-colored squares.
A month later, graffiti appeared within many of the individual squares. The particular square I photographed both describes and is evidence of the truth that all that exists also goes away; the truth of impermanence.
The past few weeks have involved a running injury, the loss of a loved one to natural causes, a near death experience for one of our cats, and a heck of a head cold.
Life is like weather and some days are sunny and 70 and others, not so much. We can get upset when the temperature plummets and the snow accumulates, or we can get out the skis and snowshoes.
The above quote from the Dhammapada is not fatalistic as one may first think, but instead asks invites us to remember that things don’t last in the same state forever. So while it is true that when something good happens, that feeling will not always persist, it is also true that when something bad happens, that too, will not last.
The running injury will go away. The loved one left behind the love she gave to her family and their memories of her, so in a way, she still lives on. The cat survived and indeed is purring again. The accident reminded us of the joy and comfort he brings us every day. And this head cold, this too shall pass.
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