IN THE END IS THE BEGINNING

Hindu philosophy divides time into ‘yugas’ – as one yuga comes to an end, another begins. For a beginning, an ending is necessary…so time is seen as a cycle. Related to this is the Physics rule – ‘what goes up must come down’. Again the motion is cyclic.

All of life can be seen as a cycle – night and day, death and birth, recession and growth, destruction and creation, war and peace….

If only we could take a step back and see the big picture as the Buddha does. Nothing disturbs him – if there is a ‘down’, he knows the ‘up’ is round the corner so he will not be depressed. If there is an ‘up’, he knows the’ down’ is coming up next, so he will not treat it as permanent either.

This is the impermanence of life. Always changing, always transforming. In every obstacle there is an opportunity. In every opportunity, there is an obstacle. The yin and yang co-exist. In fact, they do not exist without the other!

So, in every contradiction, there is reconciliation possible – if only we can try to see it. No ending is completely bad, no beginning completely good. Life is a cycle. In the beginning is the end, in the end the beginning.