溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
All Things Flow Like a River — What Do We Cling To?
If everything is a river swept away the instant it appears, where does the mind that would hold on find its footing?
Time is a river of all that comes into being, a violent stream.
Aurelius's view of all things as a river took up Heraclitus's flux into Stoic ethics. Where Heraclitus saw flux as the metaphysical truth of the world, Aurelius moved that truth into a stance of life — the equanimity of not clutching what will flow away. Remarkably, the Buddhist teaching of impermanence went from the same insight to the same practice: knowing all things flow becomes the freedom of loosening attachment. Yet knowing the flux strains against a life that still loves and strives. Why hold on with effort while knowing all will flow off — the question passes beside us today, like a river.
For us, straining to hold onto what we own and have achieved, this question — that all is a flowing river — makes us ask again what to grip and what to release.
Aurelius sees time as a violent river.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Aurelius sees time as a violent river. No sooner does something appear than it is swept away, and another rushes into its place, soon swept off in turn. Fame and fortune, hatred and love, float but a moment on this current. I read this insight not as a song of nihilism but as water that washes away clinging. Suffering comes when we desperately grip what will flow off anyway. What to release and what to let pass with composure — at the flowing bank, I too gauge the force of my grip.
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