Evolution of love

UNIVERSAL SUFFERING

There is a stone here in the graveyard upon which these words are carved: “We were once just as you are now; you will become as we are now.”
How is that?
The fact is: everyone passes on. Impermanence is swift. No matter how blessed you may feel in your present circumstances, how easygoing, how secure and pleased you are: you cannot hang onto that world. It will be jerked out from under you. Impermanence is swift. The lining of your present life is death. The problem of life and death is no one else’s problem. It is yours to deal with.

And then there are the many desires. You can’t get what you want, it never seems quite right, never enough. Dissatisfaction and frustration seem to surface. There are so very many people who worry about what would seem to be no problem at all. Liberation from suffering. The more you know of this world, the more you see it to be a giant exhibition of suffering. Everywhere you look, you see plenty of examples of misery.

What about you? Have you no pain, no suffering, no worries, no fears? If you honestly think: “Hey, not me. I can meet it as it comes, go with the flow, I am not afraid, I can always be at peace,” then you are fooling yourself, giving yourself a license, seeing yourself for what you are not. You are caught up in a self-notion, clinging to an ego-idea. And lost in that self you cannot hear the cry or see the tears of others. If you can overlook those tears, you are not a person of great peace of mind.