Transience is the central question of Buddhism and most other wisdom traditions. The poet Kobayashi Issa expressed the reality and poignancy of transience in this famous haiku:
露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
This dewdrop world —
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet . . .
We struggle to recognize that this “I” consciousness must come to a natural end. We try to accommodate. But then there is this “and yet.” Is Issa pointing to a wisdom secret?
Practice:
- I have found the first step is to accept the transience of all things as a necessary end, at least of one stage of this life’s journey.
- The second is to harvest this very moment of small time; but as Shakespeare concludes in the Epilogue to Henry V– in this small to most greatly live.
- The dewdrop world makes the gift of today in our little life, as Brother David Steindl-Rast so eloquently teaches, even more precious.
- All Wisdom Practices begin and end with an understanding of transience.
- And “And yet” implies that the end is not the end of our story, as the following Practices may reveal.