After that the whole system fades away into a dead, inert lump of matter. A permanent state is reached, in which no observable events occur. The physicist calls this the state of thermodynamical equilibrium, or of ‘maximum entropy’.

An isolated system or a system in a uniform environment (which for the present consideration we do best to include as a part of the system we contemplate) increases its entropy and more or less rapidly approaches the inert state of maximum entropy. We now recognize this fundamental law of physics to be just the natural tendency of things to approach the chaotic state (the same tendency that the books of a library or the piles of papers and manuscripts on a writing desk display) unless we obviate it. (The analogue of irregular heat motion, in this case, is our handling those objects now and again without troubling to put them back in their proper places.)

The question of whether enlightenment is a permanent state need not detain us. The crucial point is that you can glimpse something about the nature of consciousness that will liberate you from suffering in the present.

So why are economists obsessed with competition as an ideal state? It’s a relic of history.
Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists: they see individuals
and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators. Their theories describe an
equilibrium state of perfect competition because that’s what’s easy to model, not because it
represents the best of business. But it’s worth recalling that the long-run equilibrium predicted by
19th-century physics was a state in which all energy is evenly distributed and everything comes to
rest — also known as the heat death of the universe. Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a
powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.

perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away

Equilibrium is dead,

Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.

It does not matter much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

If and when all the laws governing physical phenomena are finally discovered, and all the empirical constants occurring in these laws are finally expressed through the four independent basic constants, we will be able to say that physical science has reached its end, that no excitement is left in further explorations, and that all that remains to a physicist is either tedious work on minor details or the self-educational study and adoration of the magnificence of the completed system. At that stage physical science will enter from the epoch of Columbus and Magellan into the epoch of the National Geographic Magazine!

Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

Only entropy comes easy.

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

True peace is characterized by nothing so much as steadiness and imperturbability.