End of “Becoming”

The End of “Becoming”, Dukkha, encompasses the full kaleidoscope of pain, loss, and inner disquiet. It is the subtle restlessness that propels us, again and again, toward yet another moment of ‘becoming’ (bhava; id.) that never truly satisfies. ‘Becoming’ is a drive the teachings call bhavarāga: the urge to become again and again, the fuel of saṃsāra.

When we recognize within ourselves that this continual ‘becoming’ offers no escape—that no ‘re’-birth within this stream can ever lead to peace—the trace becomes visible to which the Buddha points: the path that brings ‘becoming’ to rest, the path of letting go, of fading, of release.

At times, in moments when everything falls still, the inner landscape becomes clear. Just as the Buddha said that the eye sees only when freed from dust, so does the heart become still when it lays down the burden of ‘becoming’.

There, at the meeting point of our own limitations, a clarity dawns that is not conditioned. Thoughts lose their grip, as if they lose their claim to appear. The self that longs to play first violin loses its centre. Truth becomes visible in its naked simplicity—not as a thought, but as what reveals itself when the ‘I’ no longer intervenes.

Peace arises. Inner peace. An inviolable peace that no longer turns with the vicious circle of becoming and passing away. This is ācalaṃ sukhaṃ: the unshakable, steadfast happiness of a heart that no longer needs to ‘become’, because it has tasted the end of “becoming”.