Bargaining with Fate

You can't bargain with Fate. Fate happens, will ye, nil ye.

You can bargain with people. To some extent. But in the end, not really; each person will ultimately make their own decisons, for reasons that in the final analysis are as external to you as the reasons a tree grows. Fate.

Is this where religion comes from? The urge to find someone to bargain with? Someone as mysterious, as powerful, as benevolent as your parents should have been, when you were a kid?

Continuity

Everything dies.

But what sense can we make of continuity? Experience and experiment tell us that existence is conserved, that the past is the best predictor of the future, that objects and families continue through time.

It's a mystery.

Everything Dies

Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement?

Ariyapariyesana Sutta

Everything dies.

Anything you see, touch, taste, think or feel will die. It does not extend infinitely into the future; it does not extend infinitely into the past.

Everything you love will die.

Life is suffering.

The instant you perceive something, let it go. Into joy.