44. Temporary And Permanent

A star in the sky seems permanent, for it appears the same each and every night. But it is no more permanent than we are. Like us, it will eventually burn out and die. A blossom on a tree seems temporary, for it might last only a few more days before vanishing. But it is no more temporary than we are. Like us, it is sealed into history for all eternity.

All things are impermanent (in time) and permanent (in eternity). This is the nature of our experience and of the reality in which we must live. Everything lasts for only a finite time and yet it also goes on forever, since what has happened cannot ever be changed.

If I imagine the most beautiful paradise, it now exists permanently as something I have imagined. But it is also nothing other than a product of my own existence, which itself will disappear one day, like everything else. All of my imaginings and memories will vanish like this. And they will also always exist, for it is now impossible for them not to have existed.

Time is a movement through the world, just as walking is. But unlike walking, we cannot stop moving through time. Everything that exists in time also exists forever as it is eternal. The present moment as it is experienced is eternal. We are forever and always in eternity and in time.

That everything is both temporary and permanent might seem paradoxical. But perhaps it is simply that time and eternity are not the same kind of thing. To see the impermanence and the permanence in everything that exists is to free oneself from the illusion that it must be one or the other.