Nothing Lasts

Now, if we think carefully, we will see that everything we have ever done is gone and will not come back; it is nothing more than a memory, an image in our mind like last night's dream. Even what manifests today is like tonight's dream, and all that we will do tomorrow is like tomorrow night's dream. Nothing lasts. Yet we still become obsessed with these pointless appearances, whiling away our time as we act out our passion and aggression; quarrel, flatter and insult; hoard and accumulate material things; experience pleasure and pain; and indulge our prejudices. We end up with nothing but a mass of shortcomings! By their very nature, all worldly appearances are seductive illusions. What a loss that we believed them to be permanent, stable and unchanging. "I won't concern myself with what happens from here on out," we should think sincerely to ourselves. "Instead, I will look at the problems that clinging to a self creates!"

-Jigme Lingpa (1729–1798), The Steps to Liberation, in Steps to the Great Perfection (trans. Cortland Dahl), p. 34

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