Quarks, Quasars and Quantum Leaps

According to the internet, which knows everything, depending on a number of variables, the Boeing 747 has a cruising speed of about 550 mph. At 30,000 feet you don't feel this speed. There is no frame of reference but the sky and the clouds. The jet has a takeoff speed of around 200 mph. You do feel this. This acceleration generates a g-force of about 1.5. The force of gravity on a body at the Earth's surface is 1g. You don't notice this force either since it's constant.

When the jet banks, you notice this. Although the jet doesn't change speeds, there is acceleration involved. If the jet was flying at its cruising speed of 550 mph 100 feet off the ground, you would definitely notice  the speed relative to the ground. Nothing changed but your point of reference.

That's why you don't notice that while sitting in your chair you are traveling over 2 million miles per hour relative to some unfathomable distant point. According to some very smart people you are rotating with the Earth on its axis at about 1000 miles per hour. The Earth is traveling around the sun at about 20 miles per second. The sun in turn is rotating around the center of the Milky Way at about 140 miles per second. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is falling toward Andromeda at about 55 miles per second. The Local Group of galaxies that contain our Milky Way and Andromeda is falling toward the Virgo cluster toward an even larger cluster of galaxies at about 375 miles per second. Obviously the subsequent rotations continue, but lets stop there. Not counting the motion that continues past Virgo, that is a combined motion of nearly 600 miles per second. And you don't feel a thing.

We don't feel it because that's how fast we were traveling the day we were born and the combined speeds have remained constant since then. And also because these simultaneous motions are on such an incredibly large scale. These motions involve the macrocosm, the cosmos.  When you include the invisible world of quantum physics, the rate of constant change around and in our bodies is beyond comprehension. "I just want to keep things the way they are" has never been and will never be an option.

There is a term used in science and in Zen thinking called "impermanence". The definition of impermanence is "not permanent."  "Permanent" then means "to remain unchanged indefinitely". According to science and Buddhism nothing is permanent; nothing stays the same. Nothing. Not now or ever. So don't fear change; you have no choice about it. Go with the flow.

So the next time a state trooper pulls you over and asks, "Do you know how fast you were going?"  Tell him the truth, "I really have no idea."