“No mirror ever became iron again;
No bread ever became wheat;
No ripened grape ever became sour fruit.
Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse.
Become the light.”
Mevalna Rumi, Sufi Mystic

There are moments when a cloud will pass over the sun, I catch myself thinking back to times when my life felt lost. Those moments, those defining moments, the one’s that I thought at the time trapped me, were really setting me free. There is no reversal in life or time, despite the sci-fi movies, there are no overlaps, there is no redo button and there is no second chance, while I wish there were so could go back and do some things differently I cannot those things made me what I am today, and there are moments when I curse it and moments when I revel in it. Once you open your eyes it is impossible to back to sleep and ignore the light.


The great Buddha meaning The Perfectly Enlightened One was once a Prince named Siddhartha who lived a life of luxury, he searched continually for the meaning of life and truths until by shedding his noble cloak and through suffering he became reborn through meditation as Buddha.

Buddha’s Four Noble Truths form the core of Buddhism.
1. Life is full of suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is selfish desire.
3. Suffering can be relieved.
4. The relief of suffering can be achieved by following the eightfold path.

"Life is suffering"? What does that mean? I find that absolutely disheartening! Even though I’ve suffered my share of it, it sure doesn’t put a positive spin on life, as we know it. To explain Item #4 above just a little the Eightfold Path is:

1. The right View
2. The right Intention
3. The right Speech
4. The right Action
5. The right Livelihood
6. The right Effort
7. The right Mindfulness
8. The right Concentration

More on those at a later date but this would be a gross simplification of Buddism, or at least the fundamental gist. These are not meant as a whole but each an important piece or way of living life unto itself. The end result to following was believed to be Nirvana (no you smart butts not the band). Nirvana translated from Sanskit meaning “to blow out” or “extinction”. One could interpret this meaning – the lack of selfish consciousness or pure enlightenment.

Buddha established the fact that life will always involve a certain amount of suffering. We will all get old, get sick and eventually die. Our possessions will break, and so will some of our relationships. According to Buddha, that’s just how it is.

The fact that what we believe are bad things happen does not account for why we are unhappy. We are unhappy because we fight against it. We have not learned acceptance, there are those of us who at our core believe that we can stubborn our way out of any situation, after much struggling we realize that struggling is the source of our pain. We cling to our sense of how things should be, or how we want them to be. It is this attachment and agreement to expectations that presents the problem.

Only by dealing with the fact that life is unpredictable and will often bring pain and undesirable events, can we become "non-attached" and avoid the suffering that plagues many of us.

Each time a cloud passes over the sun, and momentarily my world becomes dark, it is a reminder that all things in life are fallible, all things grow old; all things come to an end. But to add my own optimistic view to this… Even when things end, the end is really just a beginning to something new.