Former teacher, Kiati Guerro, makes the best of his major life change into retirement by pursuing his lifelong passion for travel.
Things change. That’s a reality of life which is at once hard to accept and liberating. The Buddha encouraged us to embrace the changing nature of life rather than fight against it. He said:
Going forth is hard;
houses are hard places to live;
the Dhamma is deep;
wealth, hard to obtain;
it’s hard to keep going
with whatever we get:
so it’s right that we ponder
continually
continual
inconstancy.*
The elegance of the Buddha’s teaching is that happiness arises when we simply observe things the way they are.
When times are tough it seems like they will never get easier and when we are enjoying life, it seems like the good times will never end. Unfortunately, a belief that situations are or should be permanent only traps us in a continual grasping at the future and the past. We suffer through the rough patches because we worry that the next moment will be worse. And we fear the future because we worry that we might lose what we already have.
However, when we bring the mind into the present moment, we can see clearly that things are changing all the time. Once we accept that simple truth, we are free to enjoy it.
*Jenta (Thag 1.111) translation published by accesstoinsight.org