Seldom during the course of our day do we pause to ask whether what we are doing is truly important. Is it worth the time? What is worth the time? Planning a holiday? Wondering if we have enough of this or that? Being anxious over the challenges we have to face? Comparing, wandering, ruminating, judging? There is every likelihood that most of what we spend our time engaged in isn’t going to mean anything as time passes, not to mention as we near our end.
Spending time in contemplative practice makes many things very clear. That we are eternally dissatisfied, always seeking and craving and mistaking momentary pleasure for permanent happiness. Being still, we come to see that everything that we can conceive of simply arises and ceases with no inherent, intrinsic nature. Nothing whatsoever can give true, lasting satisfaction, and that nothing is actually pleasurable or attractive or ever ours to begin with. Really seeing that impermanent things are inevitably unreliable changes everything.
As we begin to see the truth of impermanence, we begin to question our activities and our intentions. There arises the desire for that which is lasting. Our contemplative practice starts to acquire renewed meaning and gradually our practice reveals the many shades of our own conditioning. Our belief that the universe has anything that is satisfying, stable and ours to control begins to erode. And our usual engagements and endeavors start to lose their meaning. This is a wholesome development as we start to realize that simplifying and deconstructing leads to more space and time. Space to ready ourselves for the inevitable like illness, aging, separation from what is beloved and even for death. And more importantly, to begin creating a path that will lead to freedom.
As we face these realities, impermanence and inconstancy which begin as mere notions become, real, stark and immediate. When we contemplate how strong our craving for pleasure and satisfaction or certainty is, even the notion that at death, we will cling to whatever arises or appears doesn’t seem so improbable. The Buddha said that the cycle of existence never ceases with craving and becoming, creating or acquiring fueling further being and arising. Given the strength of our conditioning, this is a very sobering thought. The result even if one were not to go this far is that time takes on new meaning, as do our actions. Do we choose to spend our time strengthening our conditioning and cementing our predispositions and delusions or do we choose to try and break free from this ceaseless cycle of wanting and dissatisfaction?
Perhaps in the questioning of our actions, there is knowing. A knowing that everything we do and think matters. That the time available to us to attempt to be free, to sincerely practice is limited indeed. With each mental and physical action, we either dig ourselves deeper into the mire of confusion and suffering or we take a slow but sure step towards eventual emancipation.