“Whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away.”

The Buddha

There’s a forest I have visited since I was little. A great hall of pines and wiry undergrowth, crisscrossed with paths frequented by folks with their dogs or horseback riders from nearby equestrian clubs. It’s a peaceful place, quiet but for the occasional passing train on the nearby tracks.

A century ago it was all farmland, the old growth forests clear cut for the sake of industry and agriculture.

On one small tributary path, lost between thick gnarls of undergrowth, there’s the stone foundation of a barn. Old bricks and concrete slabs, robed in moss, sinking into the earth year by year. When I pass it, I always wonder. Whose hands set those stones? Whose farm had it belonged to? Did children play on this overgrown ground? How many generations toiled here, only for their legacy to be reduced to a foundation noticed by few? Likewise for those who planted the forest. Men and women whose efforts became trees—who wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy their shade.

The echoes of people, lives, and histories forgotten strike us everywhere.

The old stone fences crisscrossing the rolling hills in Ireland.

The gravestones in Sighișoara, so worn by time that the names are gone.

The castles in Japan, once so grand, reduced to overgrown mounds of earth.

The temples and forums of Rome, once the heart of an empire, now relics amidst modernity.

The graduation photographs in universities, of people whose lives have by now been lived.

All these things were thought of, planned, and created by people like you and me. They meant something to someone long ago. From the old houses you pass to the relics you find at antique stores, everything was connected to another human. Every single one of them had a life experience as real and vivid as our own. Where are they now? Where will we be when our time passes? Because it will. Born one day, gone in the blink of an eye. We enter and leave this world so quickly, and the sun keeps rising without us.

That’s one thing about life we can’t ignore: impermanence.

Everything in this world comes to pass. We are no exception. Neither are those we love.

But so, too, are all the things we suffer.

The opinions of others.

The pains in the body.

The pleasures that tempt us.

The fears that haunt us.

The trifles that worry us in our day to day lives.

None of them last. None of them will ever last. Yet we so often act as if they’re permanent fixtures on our lives. When did we last stop and observe these things, and see them for what they are? How often do we pause in our seemingly consistent day-to-day and realize that all of it is changing? The building you work in, the bed you sleep on, the clothes you wear—all are slowly changing.

It sounds like a bad thing, but how can it truly be bad? It’s all according to nature. It’s a fact of life.

Good things do not last.

Bad things do not last.

Neutral things do not last.

What does that leave us with? Nothing? Not at all.

Amidst the constant flow of birth and death, growth and decay, ruin and renewal, there is the one who notices. Our minds. Our spirits. Our souls, if you believe in such a thing. Even if our lives are short, we can go through them as a ferryman traverses a river. Never on the same spot, always moving, the currents changing beneath and the wind changing above. Yet the whole experience, from shore to shore, is one whole.

Life, in all its impermanence and perpetual obliterations, is a whole in itself. A beautiful whole made out of innumerable comings and goings.

And you are the one who makes it whole. You are a thread that ties it all together, from birth to death. Even when you are gone, you are a wholeness that was, and perhaps still is. A wholeness that bore witness to the universe. A wholeness that journeyed through relentless change, from birth to death, with courage, dignity, and grace.

Life can be summarized in two words:

“Everything changes.”

For a short period of time, our consciousness gets to witness this change. The springs of youth, the summers of maturity, the autumns of age, the winters of death… and then what follows.

So while you’re here, be mindful of change. Cling less. Embrace impermanence. Live your life in all of its changes, and let every change teach you something new. You are the wondrous thread that binds it all together. In your fractured existence, you are wholeness. This whole impermanence is everything.

And when the end comes, what is it, but another change?

An end, and a beginning.