Change

So we are living, as it were,

on many, many levels of rhythm.

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This is the nature of change.

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If you resist it, you have duhkha,

you have frustration and suffering.

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But on the other hand,

if you understand change,

you don't cling to it,

and you let it flow,

then it's no problem.

It becomes positively beautiful,

which is why in poetry,

the theme of the evanescence of the world

is beautiful.

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See, it's always the image of change

that really makes the poem.

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The Japanese have a word 'yugen',

which has no English equivalent whatsoever.

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Yugen, is in a way, "digging change".

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It's described poetically,

you have the feeling of yugen

when you see out in the distant water

some ships hidden behind a far-off island.

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You have the feeling of yugen

when you watch wild geese

suddenly seen and then lost in the clouds.

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You have the feeling of yugen

when you look across Mt Tamalpais,

and you've never been to the other side,

and you see the sky beyond.

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You don't go over there

to look and see what's on the other side,

that wouldn't be yugen.

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You let the other side be the other side,

and it invokes something in your imagination,

but you don't attempt to define it to pin it down.

Yugen.

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So in the same way,

the coming and going of things

in the world is marvelous.

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They go. Where do they go?

Don't answer,

because that would spoil the mystery.

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