A Moment Can Be Eternal, and Eternity Can Be Just a Moment
Sometimes, do you feel that everything is fine, your body is in good condition, yet deep inside, negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and loneliness arise? Emotions are always unpredictable; sometimes you feel happy, sometimes sad, with no way to foresee the shifts. This means that your emotions are never at a constant high but are continually fluctuating. If you observe your emotions closely, you’ll find that their biological mechanisms inherently prevent stability. Since we are confined to our bodies and the impulses between our neurons, these electrical signals are not transmitted for stability but are inherently chaotic and full of changes. The so-called stability is just an illusion we yearn for. Because everything is changing, the moment you try to “hold on” to something in this ever-changing world, you develop an attachment, and with it comes suffering.
If you observe closely enough, you’ll find that strong attachments instinctively create indescribable illusions that temporarily soothe your negative emotions but will eventually fade, causing your emotions to shift once again. The end result is the ebb and flow of your emotions. This suffering is precisely the manifestation of these emotional fluctuations.
The essence of emotions is a form of feeling, and at the end of all feelings is nothingness. Anything that causes the brain to experience is essentially the same; there is no difference. The only difference lies in your attachment to things. If you are attached to spiritual practice, then you can only experience joy and happiness from matters related to spiritual practice. If you are attached to money, then you can only experience joy and happiness from matters related to making money. Have you ever closely examined your deep-seated attachments? Are these attachments truly what you desire? Are these what your innermost being craves?
In fact, regardless of what your attachments are, you must understand that the attachment itself is neither good nor bad. Whether it is spiritual practice or money, they are just thoughts, and there is no distinction. Life is but a hundred years, and many people endure countless sufferings and hardships for these fleeting life thoughts.
Attachment itself is a paradox. In my view, attachment is a contradiction between biological instincts and the development of the external world. This contradiction forces you to make the most optimal limited choices. You give everything for it until what you are attached to becomes you. Your body receives information from the external world and processes it. If you cannot accept the results of this processing, attachments arise, and then your body begins to output information to the external world. This whole process, in essence, has no distinction between good and bad; good and bad are merely definitions and labels we impose on attachments. Attachments are inherently contradictory, but contradiction is also a part of nature. You can choose to define attachments, choose not to define them, or even define them first and then choose not to, or vice versa, because this world is like that, full of infinite possibilities. Because you can be free, unbound.
People always pay too much attention to the superficial differences of things, failing to see their connections and commonalities. Always obsessed with appearances and neglecting the essence. Always confining themselves to a very small dimension, unable to perceive the infinite possibilities. People always forget that deep down, they love every life. People always think they are fixed as they are, forgetting that they are constantly changing with the external world. People always resist everything that happens, failing to notice that resistance itself is a part of change. People always forget that in essence, this world has no distinction between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, high and low, superior and inferior.
Look closely; in a moment, countless births and deaths have occurred, countless civilizations have been born and destroyed, countless worlds have been coming into being and perishing, with an unimaginable amount of information. A moment can be eternal, and eternity can be just a moment. Emptiness is not nothingness, because emptiness is everything, and everything is emptiness.
