Enlightenment

Few days ago i had an enlightenment. ; )

I've been thinking of principles to guide me along in life and work. There are many. From many self-help books or gurus to the ultimate teacher Buddha himself. Some examples - think win-win, have compassion and wisdom, whole is greater than the sum of its parts, understand cause and effect, and do right things right.

So you see, whenever i'm faced with a situation, many good principles come to mind. But sometimes i wished there is one really 'powerful' one i could use especially when you are kind of rush. ;P

Guess it has been in my hardworking subconscious mind. Then finally a realization came. An enlightenment.

The answer that came was not something unknown to me. It is the word Impermanence. It is in fact a core teaching of Buddha. Perhaps it never got internalized to an extent. And i never realize that it can be used as THE Principle! Not sure if anyone understand when i say 'the principle'.

Can you imagine from today whenever you are faced with a situation and you are suddenly lost of which principle(s) to guide you, and you just use Impermanence principle. If you truly understand the meaning of impermanence you will likely know the answer to your problem. At least know how to react.

A quick note of my own understanding of impermanence in the context of Buddhist teaching. Nothing last forever. Someday and not knowing which day we will all die. Since we will all die, it means there is a change. So change is natural. With change, something must have occur. A reaction of sort. So there is a cause and effect. The root cause may be far from here, but there is still a cause. Back to nothing last forever. So shall anger. So there is no need to be angry as it shall come to pass. And therefore we shall be careful of our action or reaction cause causality comes to play. Since nothing last forever, we shouldn't be too emotional attach to the things we owe. Life is simply too short for unhappy stuff. ; )