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All Things Are Assembled
It’s a fine example of the 3rd Pompeian style. National Archaeological Museum, Naples .
Prince Siddhartha no longer needed or wanted the elixir of immortality. By realizing that all things are assembled, that deconstruction is infinite, and that not one of the components in all creation exists in an autonomous, permanent, pure state, he was liberated.
Anything that is put together (which we now understand to be everything) and its impermanent nature are bound together as one, just like water and an ice cube.
When we put an ice cube in our drink, we get both. Just so, when Siddhartha looked at someone walking around, even the healthiest person, he saw this person as both simultaneously living and disintegrating. You might think this doesn’t sound like a fun way to live, but it can be an amazing ride to see both sides. There might be great satisfaction. It is not like a roller coaster of hope and disappointment going up and down. Seeing things in this way, they begin to dissolve all around us. Your perception of phenomena transforms, and in a way becomes clearer.
It is so easy to see how people get caught up in the roller coaster, and you naturally have compassion for them. One of the reasons you have compassion is that impermanence is so obvious, yet they just don’t see it.
