Anxiety and fear, anger and frustration, joy and excitement, sadness and depression. These words characterize the moods, feelings, and emotions that we, as human beings, cycle through daily… if not hourly. However, there is one common denominator present through all of these states of being: impermanence.

Everything is fleeting

Nothing in this life is permanent. “Kullu Man Alayha fan” or “All that is on earth will perish” as is taught in the Quran (55:26). That includes our thoughts, feelings, creations, and selves. No matter how happy we may feel in the moment, a time will come when it will be as though we never felt happiness before in our life. No matter how angry we may be, soon it will be as though we have only ever known peace. What, and how, we feel will always be in flux, waxing and waning like the moon, rising and setting like the sun, ebbing and flowing like the ocean tides. With this understanding, we realize it is not worth dwelling on any specific emotion or mood we may be experiencing. What we should instead do, as the Buddhists taught, is become aware of these ever-turbulent changes in ourselves. Why? Because awareness is the first step to growth, let alone enlightenment. Through awareness, we breed understanding. Through awareness, we gain clarity. Through awareness, we gain control.

Don’t fight anxiety

Recently, I found myself listening to a TED talk by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a famous Tibetan Buddhist monk. It affected me so much that I subsequently penned this article (so it must be damn good). In it, he explained that the essence of meditation was simply awareness – awareness of our thoughts and feelings, of our physical and spiritual state. Recounting his past as a young boy in the middle of the Himalayan mountains, he spoke of his anxiety as a young child who ceaselessly suffered from panic attacks. Amidst the often powerful storms of the mountains was he, a frightened little child. Seeking repose from these panic attacks, at age 9 he beseeched his father, a renowned teacher of meditation, to teach him. The first thing his father taught him was this:

“Don’t try to fight the panic. Don’t try to get rid of the panic. Actually, you don’t even need to get rid of the panic. Awareness is like the sky above the mountain, and the panic is like the thundering storms which move through it. No matter how powerful the storm, it cannot change the nature of the sky”

And this is where his journey began.

Be like the sky

The heart and mind are like the sky, and thoughts and feelings are like clouds – sometimes clear, sometimes thundering, but always moving and ever-changing. In spite of these changes (sometimes violent), the nature of the sky does not change. As humans, things inside us may change, but we ourselves can remain unmoved like the heavens. No matter how hard the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow. Despite the raging of the river, the great rock remains unmoved.

I must add, however, that amongst all he said, the singular most moving statement to me was vis-à-vis what awareness–to become like the sky–actually signifies:

When you see the river, you are out of the river. When you see the mountain, you are out of the mountain.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

The moment we become properly aware of whatever is plaguing us – our anxieties, fears, and pains – we have already risen above them.

See the inspiration here: