“It is better to travel well than to arrive.” ~ Buddha
Life lived in the breach entails living in the moment. Only through meditative practice can this perspective shift become a normalized part of everyday life.
What is the goal of life? Where are you going? Why are you traveling at all? What is the destination that you seek?
These questions and more have bedeviled Seekers since time immemorial. Throughout human history, only human nature has remained the same. The search for satisfactions, the fulfillment of desires, the achievement of goals set are all familiar benchmarks along the path of a lifetime. But what do they bring us in the end? More seeking, more desire unfulfilled, more suffering.
And so achieving goals never results in the peace and serenity that underlies the search itself and presents itself as the paramount goal of all who seek to move beyond the ephemeral fulfillment of simple and complex desires. It is only when this realization is made that the Seeker comes to realize that peace and joy exist only in the moment, never in the past or future. It is only in the moments of our lives, each, as it occurs, that we can make the choice to find peace, to exude joy.
The paradox is in our constant focus upon the past and future. Regretting the past and worrying about the future. Entertaining the constant stream of thoughts that arise in never-ending fashion, a waterfall cascade of impression leading to emotions obscuring the moment in a haze of imaginative fears manifest seemingly real in nature but illusory in ever aspect.
Only the Now is real. Only the moment. Only the steps of our journey, never the destination. The realization, once we reach our purported goal, that it is lackluster, that it does not possess the power to satisfy our original desire, is a belated disappointment but a necessary one in the path toward enlightenment. Only by recognizing the futility of seeking do we come to rest in the knowledge of what is real. That we are able to rest entirely in the Now, learning to become content in our situations, enjoying the journey of life itself rather than some imagined destination.
This is real. This is life as lived. The only life worth living.
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