Alternation and Continuity

Alternation and continuity are two infallible laws of nature.

How long any given experience (thought, emotion, sensation, relationship, etc.) will endure is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain. The speed at which things change is similarly elusive. There is no mathematical equation or metaphysical system that perfectly explains how alternation and continuity work. We only know that they keep going round and round.

We get into trouble when we fail to accept them both.

Seems simple, but...

When circumstances are pleasant, we side with continuity, and hope the law of alternation will not act too quickly. When conditions are unpleasant, we become devotees of alternation; hoping time will somehow magically speed up if we pray, visualize, and wish hard enough.

It never works.

Chasing our preferred version of reality only makes our body/mind an inhospitable place to be.

If it’s peace we seek, then it is enough to regularly contemplate the fact that things continue for a time, and then change into something else. As cultivators, we make a practice out of appreciating the finer points of alternation and continuity (ie. birth/death, inhale/exhale, eat/shit, wake/sleep). Contemplation, in this sense, is not an attempt to understand why, when, or how, but to completely experience that these laws function.

The only tangible way to do this is by fully embracing the experience we are actually having.