Life is constantly changing. This is one of the first principles of Buddhism taught.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

When you learn to become aware of the ever changing nature of constants, and that everything is actually dynamic, one gains a greater appreciation for the complexity of the Universe. With appreciation comes understanding, and with understanding comes respect.

An exercise taught to me (although not a new one by a long shot) at my first Buddhism class, was that of becoming self-aware – physically. We were instructed to close our eyes, and imagine a scan crossing our body. Our minds being the scanner.

You begin to feel things that were never there before: itches, aches, pains, drafts, tension, your heart beat, changing pressures, moving hairs, relaxing and contracting muscles as well as the weight of your head on your neck.

After a while (around 30 minutes) we were told not to scan, but rather to allow the moments to happen, and just to witness them. The number of individual inputs (i.e. feelings felt) was astonishing, increasingly so as time went on. Indeed, time becomes distorted as you become disengaged with the external environment.

However, the important lesson learnt was that these aches and pains appear and then pass. They are simply moments. When we accidentally try to focus on something, we are attempting to cling onto something that cannot be clung to. This is how attachment begins.

Taking this concept into the external environment of our lives; understanding the nature of this allows us to accept failures, problems, sorrow, negativity truthfully for what they are: moments.

Whenever we try to build up mental resistance against a certain thought or desire, we find conflict and it leads to negative emotions. For example, if you were trying to give up smoking, you will gain the desire to light a cigarette. You create resistance in your mind, leading to an irritable self. However, if you accepted the desire and allowed it to pass through you, then negative emotions would be avoided, and replaced by a positive aura.

Accepting the moment, as I have already mentioned, leads to respect. Comparatively to negative issues being prolonged and multiplied, positive moments result in the opposite. When an event takes place that causes good, beneficial results, often this leads to a greater feeling of happiness. Joy then influences further decisions and thoughts made, which often lead to even more positive gains.

Try to think of time as a continuous flow of events. There is no beginning nor end as we have been taught with dates, years and times. Simply close your eyes and you will feel hundreds of different influences in your body. When something bad happens, try to accept that it was just a moment. When something good happens, also accept that it was just a moment. Only then can you truly begin to embrace life for what it is: dynamic.

We are in a passing with the Earth. We are the Earth. The Earth is us. Yet as the Earth and us are constantly changing, how does this challenge our definition of self?

Words: Tom Church