Nothing lasts. Everything passes, changes and transforms. To live is to be in movement. Flux is the foundation of all experience.
Whether the experience of this moment is pleasant or painful, whether your current situation is stagnant or evolving, your life flows at a pace that is independent of your perception of it.
Picture yourself in a canoe being carried down a river at a steady pace. This river is the current of your life, ever moving, never stagnating. As you cruise with the river you are aware of the changing scenery along the river banks. This scenery is much like the content of your life, the events, moods and milestones that illustrate it. Sometimes the scenery is bare, bleak and boring. Sometimes it is fascinating, exotic and exciting.
Sitting in the canoe you may become preoccupied with the scenery on the riverbank. Your mind may begin to fixate on the more pleasant landscapes and tend to fear the duller and bleaker ones. And you may turn your head desperately from this way to that, holding on to a specific point in the landscape as it receeds into the distance or waiting in anticipation for it to come again. But you have no control. The river keeps moving and with it so do you.
There comes a point when the frustration of trying to hang on to the good experiences and wishing away the negative ones begins to overwhelm you to the point where you give up on the whole game. It is at this point that you may feel the current of this river more strongly than ever. It is at this point that a new reality may dawn on you :
That experiences come and experiences go, but experience isn't the point of this whole process that we call life. Experience is only the background landscape against which life is lived. Rather the deeper purpose is to connect with the flow beneath your feet that is guiding your canoe. And in connecting with this infinitely powerful energy, learning how to navigate its currents.
Then, you are no longer guided by what you see on the riverbanks. No longer do you paddle desperately upstream to reclaim what you once had. Nor do you paddle furiously ahead hoping to encounter something you desperately crave. Rather you follow along with the flow of the river, listening to is, learning from it, using your paddle as a rudder to guide you.
In this way, the current of the river becomes as familiar to you as the beating of your own heart. Grounded in this faith, you become unshakeable.
