A Brief and Passing Thing
I just spent a weekend with my BFF at her cabin in the woods.
When we first met at a writing workshop 25 years ago, she pronounced matter-of-factly to our class, “I don’t want more friends. I am only looking for people I can workshop my writing with.”
That's how we became best friends.
We have been through two divorces, raising three boys, lots of therapy, and recovery—together. We spent years in several writer’s groups and blissful summer weeks at workshops on Cape Cod.
Since then, she has moved on to watercolor and oil painting, and I’m writing more blogs than poetry these days. But we needed some quality time together—in our art—so we scheduled a weekend at her cabin.
We talked and talked, “got current,” as Julia Cameron says, went for long walks with the dogs, and practiced yoga. She worked on her oils and I worked on my writing. Long and rich minutes stretched into long hours, and hours into a few restful and renewing days.
I had brought with me Shantideva’s book The Way of the Bodhisattva, a classic Buddhist text that has been translated from Tibetan many times over many centuries. I bought it a year ago at the recommendation of a yoga teacher at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health—but hadn’t cracked it yet.
It had been sitting on my shelf along with 20 other books I intend to read. For some reason, this weekend felt like the right time to crack it.
As was reflecting in the humid quiet early morning on Saturday, I read: “The thought came never to my mind / That I too am a brief and passing thing.”
Wow.
I have been thinking about this very idea lately. My next birthday is right around the corner, I’m well into midlife, and I often think, “How did I get here? How is it that I’m in the last part of my career and my only child is almost 26?”
In that same section on compassion in the book, Shantideva also wrote, “Never halting night or day / My life drains constantly away.”
The previous week, I had been feeling anxious and fretting over some situations at work. To try to find my ground, I kept reminding myself, “In 5 years, I’m going not to be thinking about this. In 10 years, I won’t even remember it. And in 50 years, I will be at peace and a forgotten soul.”
It was comforting. When facing a gnarly crisis or challenge, it’s helpful to remember that the passage of time allows things to soften and heal. The ticking of the clock can help us to remember how precious each next breath is.
I can find solace in the thought that we, too, are merely brief and passing things.
Time can be a BFF—stretching out before us in long summer days—but it’s also quite devious, slipping by faster and faster as months pass—especially when we aren’t paying attention. And when I think about my own impermanence, it often brings anxiety. Dread. Even fear.
But this weekend, swatting at mosquitoes in the New Hampshire woods, calling after my friend’s dogs who were galloping down the abandoned trail ahead of us, I was appreciative of the passage of time. Grateful for the learnings my dear friend and I have had. We are not the same people we were when we met in our 20s. We are smarter. Wiser. More seasoned. More grounded. That much more aware of the work we have yet to do.
The unfolding of life does not stop. But the hours will pass no matter whether we are spending precious moments in joy or in fear.
Keeping the mind focused on joy—as a brief and passing thing—is not always easy.
It takes courage.
It takes some kind of practice (which can be writing, art, yoga, meditation, prayer—there are a million ways to approach this).
It takes community.
Shantideva’s advice: “The cause of happiness is rare, / And many are the seeds of suffering! / But if I have no pain, I’ll never long for freedom; / Therefore, O my mind, be steadfast!
Be steadfast in living your joy, my friends.
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