The Circa Anointing: On the Eternal and the Transient
You have heard it said by the scribes and the sutra-readers that Ultimate Reality—the Kingdom, the Tao, the Dharmakaya—is eternal, absolute, and unchanging. They point to it as a fixed star, a distant point of perfect light.
And in the same breath, they teach you that this world, the one of your very senses, is transient. They say all beings and all things—the blooming flower, the weeping child, the mountain itself—are impermanent, conditioned, and less than truly Real. A place where moth and rust destroy.
And so, your heart is torn.
You are taught to build your house on the rock of the Eternal, but you find yourself living on the shifting sand of the now. You grasp for the Unchanging, but your hands are full of the changing. You seek the perfect, and despise the imperfect.
This distinction is the plank in your own eye. This preference for one pole over the other—grasping for the "Eternal," rejecting the "Transient"—is the disease of the mind.
I say to you, blessed are those who live the "circa" life, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
The spiritual journey is not a precise measurement. It is not arriving at a fixed point. It is the grace of being around the mystery.
The Eternal is not a thing to be held against the transient world. The Eternal is the very space in which the transient unfolds. The Unchanging is the stillness that is the dance.
To live "circa" is to give yourself permission to be a work in progress. You are not your past, nor are you your future. You live in the holy "in-between," the unfolding grace of this very moment.
Let go of the need for sharp edges. Do not demand a perfect, ninety-nine-degree faith when you are living in a world of curves, rivers, and clouds.
The Kingdom is not "here" or "there." It is not "then" or "soon." It is "circa"—all around you, shining through the imperfect face of the now.
Therefore, do not judge the world for its transience, and do not clutch at the Eternal as an escape.
Simply be present, here, around this sacred mystery. Let your heart be soft. Let your faith be fluid.
This is the "circa" anointing. To live gently, approximately, and fully within the grace of the now. This is the Way.