A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence

We are uncomfortable because everything in our life keeps changing -- our inner moods, our bodies, our work, the people we love, the world we live in. We can't hold on to anything -- a beautiful sunset, a sweet taste, an intimate moment with a lover, our very existence as the body/mind we call self -- because all things come and go. Lacking any per... See more

There is wonder and beauty in emptiness. What happens when we come to know that everything we experience is timelessly ephemeral – as fleeting as a “tiny drop of dew or a bubble floating in a stream”? As writer Octavia Butler invokes, what if God is change? I become present with each moment as a divine gift. I become wholly intimate with each exper... See more

That is all we have, this moment with the world. It will not last, because nothing lasts. Entropy, mortality, extinction: the entire plan of the universe consists of losing, and no matter how much we find along the way, life amounts to a reverse savings account in which we are eventually robbed of everything. Our dreams and plans and jobs and knees... See more

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it ... See more