I’m sure you have seen photos, even movies, of deserted homes or ghost towns and how they become overgrown in a short time.
What happens?
Yes, the people who have been holding back the overgrowth and the deterioration of the buildings have departed.
But then, that begs the question, why do we need to be constantly holding back change at all?
Why does change happen?
And why is that change usually unwanted?
Is that a matter of everything reverting back to a natural, uncontrolled form?
Is nothing permanent?
Well, no.
According to the Greek philosopher Plato, everything changes except the ‘real’ which is unchanging.
So what is ‘real’ then?
Which is the big philosophical question, to distinguish the ‘real’ from the ‘unreal’.
And is that why, when we move house, for example, things change and go wrong that we never expected to change or go wrong?
Are they the parts of our life that are not real, are impermanent, only held together by the item you decided to change?
Is everything in our lives being held in place by everything else?
Except for whatever is ‘real’.
So what is ‘real’?
What exactly is permanent?
George Harrison wrote that ‘All Things Must Pass’.
The Buddha said that “With our thoughts we make the world”.
Okay then, does that mean that everything in our lives is held together with our mind?
Except, that is, whatever in our lives, our thoughts, is ‘real’.
But they’re not likely to be physical objects.
So is karma real (Newton’s Third Law of Motion)?
Is entropy real (the Second Law of Thermodynamics), the idea that everything eventually falls apart?
How ironic that the very answer to the question of why things change is that things change (entropy).
It’s a Law of Physics.
And is the way to deal with the surprises of change the Buddhist idea of non-attachment?
That nothing is permanent?
What do you think?
Neil
PS. Read about my book ‘What They Didn’t Tell Us About Life’ here.
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your mind is all 