The Notebook 9: Karma Rabrib

Welcome to the Notebook series.  These are stories from my time abroad, each connected to one main take-away that I learned during those years.

Read the preceding Notebook posts here: INTRO // 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8

This post contains the story for the insight: "Everyone and everything are impermanent," titled, "Karma Rabrib."

Reading time: 4 minutes

📓

KARMA RABRIB

"Everyone and everything are impermanent"

This one is a bit less fun to talk about, but perhaps that makes it all the more important.  Nothing in life is guaranteed, except for change.  It is not possible for a person, place, or thing to last forever unchanged.  So many times, I have cried for impermanence.  Yet so many times, I have thanked it.  Change is a powerful teacher.  The more we learn to accept it, the less we suffer when it comes.

At Kopan Monastery, I learned what is now one of my favorite verses, called "Karma Rabrib."  I'll share it with you.  It goes:

"A star, a defective view, a butterlamp flame

An illusion, a dewdrop, a water bubble

A dream, lightning, a cloud

See all causative phenomena like this."

It is essentially a verse about impermanence.  Think of a candle flame, or a night sky star, or a soap bubble, or a morning dewdrop, or lightning, or a drifting cloud.  All of these things seem so real to us - we see them, we believe they exist, and then poof, they are gone.  All "causative phenomena" (people, places, things) are this way, but because they last longer than those fleeting things, we cling and pray that our beloved attachments will never go away.  But they do.  And we suffer from that pain.

Or, we do the inverse, and we think that our aversions (phenomena that we don't like) will never change.  We suffer from this pain, too.  But how silly that is!  When the object of aversion goes away/changes, as it always does, we are delighted... but the process repeats again because we instantly forget that the thing before went away when the next object of aversion arises.  The solution?

Constantly watch and make note of change.

I'll give an example from the trek I did in the snowy winter Himalayas with a couple of friends from Kopan.  We LOVED Karma Rabrib and repeated this verse during our hikes often.  Both when we wanted change to occur (slippery ice, or a body pain, or the freezing cold), and when we didn't (my first time seeing snow, our endless laughter while playing a card game called Sh*thead, a beautiful view).  We would acknowledge before the things changed that they would indeed change, and then when they did, it became easier to let go and embrace the impermanence of it all.  It is certainly a life practice - and a worthy one.

📓

My first snow.  A beautiful, impermanent moment.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

✅ 1. J hunchha ramro ko lagi hunchha (All that will be, will be for good)

✅ 2. Nothing is in our control except for how we respond

✅ 3. Plans are illusory - and can cloud your vision

✅ 4. The present moment is the only reality

✅ 5. Our minds create our lives

✅ 6. Everything and everyone are connected in more ways than we can ever understand

✅ 7. Compassion is the key to happiness

✅ 8. If we were in other people's shoes, we would be doing exactly what they are, because then we would be them

✅ 9. Everyone and everything are impermanent

10. True joy comes from inner wisdom, not from following what you think others want you to do

11. Whatever we go through is not personal, not permanent, and has good in it

12. Enjoy the present.  It is all that we have.

Read all published posts from the Notebook Series here.

Stay tuned for the stories that accompany each of these in the coming weeks.

So much love, from home.

📍