Everything Slips Away

In this short and insightful, spoken word reflection, John explores the way in which experience naturally slips away, letting go of itself from moment-to-moment. This talk is useful for reminding us that life is transient and having lots of worries at large, are unnecessary and detrimental to our wellbeing. We should live in the present and let our mind drift with the thoughts that flow in and out.

Transcript

What's here right now,

The particular constellation of thoughts,

Feelings,

Sensations,

And perceptions being experienced?

Is it appearing or disappearing?

Isn't the arising of each instant also its passing away?

Try it right now.

Try to keep what's here from slipping away.

It can't be done.

No experience,

No realization,

No insight can ever be held in place.

Life the eternal shapeshifter.

It's really not possible for us to hold onto anything.

We're powerless to stop this ceaseless and spontaneous arising and passing away of things.

Every instant of life,

Each momentary flash of experience vanishes without a trace.

All that exists is this immediacy,

This here and now that can never actually be captured or contained,

For no sooner does it appear than it is gone.

We speak of holding on and letting go,

But really what's here can never be held onto or released.

What we call the moment has already taken flight,

Long before we ever try to do anything about it.

Reviews

I love the simplicity and clarity. It reminds me of a line from an old Latin poem.

Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas
Even while we speak, envious time will have flown. —Horace, Odes 1.11

Mindbending, the truth, what an amazing observation. Thank you for sharing this with us Namaste.

Thank you so much for this reminder of impermanence.

My sincere complements for delivering simple yet so profound truth in such a short message. I love your style, and wish for myself to become more articulate in expressing my thoughts. Thank you for showing me how it works, on more than one level😁💟

Literally true! Thanks for sharing!

Best 1 minute I ever heard.🙏

Words of truth! A good reminder to be aware of our forever changing life.🙏💖

Thank you John. Fleeting moments, constantly moving just like the air we breathe and maybe just maybe we can recall a special moment to bring hope to sustain us if and when the need arises.

This was so true. Thank u!

John, you just stated probably the largest truth that has ever been uttered by a human being in the universe.
We can ‘capture’ the image of a fleeting moment in a photo, but even that changes as we do that.
Think of how amazingly different this world would be if the only thing we focused on every minute of every day was this absolute truth. The sun rising as I sit here reaffirms your thoughts.
Thank you for making it so crystal clear.
Namaste 🙏🏽
🐾🌺🙏🏼🦋💐💖🎶🌷💕💞🍁🌸🙃

Very profound. Need this reminder a lot so bookmarked. 🙏🏼

This is so true. I love your perspective on it. I love how this helps me to look even deeper with this concept. Oh how little control we really have!

Words spoken truly