I look up at the sky and see the morning star burn brightly in the heavens.

I imagine what it sees as it looks down on me and my surroundings

and this portion of the earth.

I visualize what it must have seen a thousand years ago . . .

five thousand . . .

a hundred thousand . . . five million years ago.

I attempt to see in fantasy what the morning star will see in a thousand years . . .

five thousand . . .

a hundred thousand . . . five million years from now

on the anniversary of this day.

 

I pass in review the various stages of my life– infancy, childhood, adolescence,

adulthood, middle age— in the following fashion:

I search for the things

that seemed immeasurably important at each of these stages of my life,

things that caused me worry and anxiety, things that I stubbornly clung to,

things that I thought I could never live with or without.

When I look back from the distance of today, how many of those loves, dreams, and fears retain the hold they had on me in former years?


Then I review 
some of the problems that I have today, some of my present suffering,

and of each of them, I say:

“This, too, will pass away.” I think of things I cling to or that I am possessive of.

I realize that a day must surely come when I shall see them differently.

So, of each of these attachments, too, I say, “This, too, will pass away.”

I make a list of the many things I fear, and to each of them, I say,

“This, too, will pass away.”

To end, I see myself embarking on my daily tasks with the earnestness and fervor with which I plunge into a

drama or a game,  absorbed, immersed, but never drowning.

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