Everything we see, hear, feel, think.
Every object. Every event. Every thing.
The One is indivisible, changeless, and eternal.
Everything divisible, changeful, and temporary is illusion.
Including me.
Everything that’s born dies. The One is not born. (1)
Everything that’s made falls apart. The One is not made.
Everything that’s compound disintegrates. The One is not compound.
Only the One was never born and will not die, has not been created and will never be destroyed.
Everything else is illusion.
Including me.
Footnotes
“Monks, there is a not-born, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be apparent no escape from this, here, that is born, become, made, compounded.” (The Buddha in Trevor Ling, The Buddha’s Philosophy of Man. Early Indian Buddhist Dialogues. London, etc.: Dent, 1981, xiii.)
“If we examine the origin of anything in all the universe, we find that it is but a manifestation of some primal essence. Even the tiny leaves of herbs, knots of threads, everything, if we examine them carefully we find that there is some essence in its originality. Even open space is not nothingness. How can it be then that the wonderful, pure, tranquil and enlightened Mind, which is the source of all conceptions of manifested phenomena, should have no essence of itself.” (The Buddha in Dwight Goddard, A Buddhist Bible. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966; c1938, 126.)