The Eternal and Transient

You see the world arise and pass away—the treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, the fleeting forms you grasp like flowers in the air. 

This is the disease of the mind: to cling to what cannot be held.

But I say to you, seek the Inner Kingdom, the Great Way that is beyond time and space. 

Let go of your preference for what passes, and you will find the treasure that never fades.

When you cease to cherish the transient, you find what is eternal—not in another place, but in this very instant.

Reflection - The Eternal and Transient

Beloved, be still for a moment. Still your hands, still your feet, and just watch the mind.

What is it doing?

If you are quiet for even a second, you will see it. It is grasping. It is reaching, planning, wanting, and fearing. It is holding on to what it liked yesterday and pushing away what it fears tomorrow. It is a hand, clenched tight.

This is what our text today calls "the disease of the mind: to cling to what cannot be held."

You see this, don't you? You see the world "arise and pass away." You buy a new car, and your heart sings. For a week. Then, it is just a car. You get the new job, and you feel you have arrived. For a month. Then, it is just a job. You fall in love, and you think, "This is it. This is the treasure." And it is a treasure. But the mind, in its sickness, tries to freeze it. It tries to stop the dance. It says, "Do not change. Do not grow. Do not leave. Be what I want you to be, forever."

You grasp at "flowers in the air." And then, when the flower does what a flower does—when it wilts, when it fades—your heart breaks. You chase "treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy." And then, when you see the moth and the rust, you are filled with terror and despair.

This is the disease. Please, hear this clearly: The problem is not the flower. The problem is not the treasure. The problem is not the world, which is arising and passing away as it must. The problem is the clinging. The problem is the preference.

My teaching, this merging of the Way, is simple. "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." On the Mount, I said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."

And what is this "heaven"? Is it a place in the clouds you go to when you die? Oh, the mind loves that idea! It's another thing to get! Another treasure to grasp!

No. Heaven is not a place; it is a state. The Inner Kingdom is the mind that has no preferences. It is the mind that has let go. The "treasure that never fades" is the peace you discover when you stop trying to hold on to the treasures that always do.

This is not a new idea. This is the thread of truth that runs through all authentic wisdom, though it wears different robes in different lands.

Look at the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism. It speaks of Maya, the veil of illusion. This is the world of "arising and passing away." It is the transient world of forms, the world our senses report to us. The Gita teaches that this sensory world is impermanent. "The contacts of the senses... they come and go, they are impermanent... learn to endure them." The spiritual task, it says, is to see past Maya to the eternal, unchanging reality beneath it: Brahman, the Absolute, which is one with your eternal Self, the Atman. The Gita’s message is to act in the world, to do your duty, but to "renounce the fruits of your action." Do not cling. Do not be attached to the outcome.

Now, look to the words of the Buddha. His entire teaching begins with this very same insight. The First Noble Truth is that life involves Dukkha, or suffering. And the Second Noble Truth points directly to the cause: Tanha, which is thirst, craving, clinging, and grasping. It is the same "disease of the mind" our text speaks of. The Buddha saw that we suffer because we cling to things that are, by their very nature, Anicca—impermanent. We want permanence in a world that is defined by change. His solution is the Eightfold Path, a way to extinguish this clinging, to let the grasping hand unclench, and to find the release of Nirvana.

Both of these great traditions see the same problem. They both see that attachment to the transient is the root of suffering. But their emphasis, their flavour, is beautifully different. The Gita points you toward an eternal, indestructible Self (Atman) that you are. It is a profound "Yes" to a permanent identity. Buddhism, in its classical form, points to Anatta, or "no-self." It says that even the idea of an eternal, personal Self is just one more thing to cling to. Its "Yes" is to the liberation that comes from letting go of everything, including the idea of "I."

And what do I, Jesus the Zennist, say?

I smile. I say, "Do not hold to dualistic views; avoid such habits carefully." Is there a Self? Is there no-self? The mind just loves to argue about this, doesn't it? "Don't waste time in arguments and discussion, attempting to grasp the ungraspable."

The Inner Kingdom I speak of is not a Self you must find, nor is it an emptiness you must achieve. It is simply what you see "when you cease to cherish the transient." It is the "Great Way that is beyond time and space... in this very instant."

You don't need to find an eternal Atman. You don't need to attain a future Nirvana. You just need to "let go of your preference." Let go of longing and aversion. Let go of your opinion that this moment is "good" and that moment is "bad."

When you do that—when you stop judging, stop grasping, stop preferring—what is left?

This. This very instant. Clear. Open. Eternal.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It is right here. You were just too busy grasping for flowers to notice the sky.

This is where the teaching leaves the scroll and enters your life.

How many of you are clinging to a job you hate because you prefer security? How many of you are clinging to a relationship that is no longer true because you prefer not to be alone?

Look at the "treasures" you build. Your career path. Your retirement fund. Your reputation. Your social media profile—a little museum of carefully chosen "flowers in the air," a desperate attempt to build a "you" that does not fade. And you are terrified of the "moth and rust." You are terrified of the bad review, the layoff, the unfollow, the wrinkle in the mirror.

This terror is the "disease." It is the price you pay for clinging.

When I say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," I mean blessed are those who are empty of this clinging. Blessed are those who are not building a fortress of "self" against reality.

When I say, "Blessed are those who mourn," I mean blessed are those who dare to feel the sorrow of impermanence without becoming bitter. Blessed are those who can let the flower wilt, let the loved one go, and weep—not because the universe is cruel, but because the flower was beautiful. This honest mourning is the beginning of letting go. And "they shall be comforted"—not by a new flower, but by the eternal stillness that holds all flowers.

This is not a teaching of cold detachment. It is a teaching of radical, fearless love. You cannot truly love the flower if you are terrified of it fading. You can only possess it. But when you let go of your preference that it last forever, you are finally free to love it as it is, in this very instant.

We see the ultimate test of this all the time. Look at the news this past week. We see the images of those historic floods sweeping through entire regions. Homes, possessions, generations of "treasures on earth"—all washed away in an instant.

The mind infected with "the disease" looks at this and screams. It sees only loss, tragedy, and despair. This is the mind that "makes (s) the smallest distinction" and is now "as far from [the Way] as heaven is from earth."

And that response is human. It is the pain of mourning.

But then, look closer.

In the midst of that transient horror, what eternal treasure is revealed? You see the hand reaching out from the boat. You see the stranger opening their home. You see the rescue worker, exhausted, pulling a child from the water. You see the surge of compassion that flows from around the world.

That is the "treasure that never fades."

The house is transient. The flood is transient. The compassion is the Inner Kingdom. The love is the Great Way. It is the eternal, not as a future idea, but as a present action.

The world will always arise and pass away. The flood will come. The moth will eat. The flower will fade. This is the nature of things.

You have only one choice. Will you build your house on the sand of your preferences, clinging to what must pass away? Or will you build your house on the rock?

And what is the rock?

It is not a belief. It is not a doctrine. The rock is the wisdom that "ceaseth (s) to cherish the transient." The rock is the heart that has "let go of longing and aversion." The rock is the realization, in this very instant, that you are not the flower in the air. You are the air. You are not the wave that rises and falls.

You are the ocean.

Stop clinging. Stop preferring. Open your hand.

And find, in this very instant, the "treasure that never fades."