Everything, Yes EVERYTHING is Impermanent

photo courtesy of James Webster on Flickr

I want to talk about a fundamental concept that still seems to elude the best of us from time to time. When the Buddha had his awakening, he saw clearly into a number of things and during his first sermon he discussed many of them including the doctrine that underlies so much of Buddhist practice, impermanence. What does impermanence mean? It means that nothing, absolutely nothing, not mountains or rivers or people or buildings or stars or anything remains unchanging and eternal. It means that everything changes no matter how solid it may seem. Let me say that one more time to drive home the point, nothing in this world stays the same and nothing lasts forever.

Before I start expounding on this idea, I want to beat the horse to death a little more. What are some of the things that we feel are unchanging? Mountains? Rivers? Stars? If we were to view each of these over a long enough span of time, would they change or stay the same? Part of what causes this delusion of permanence is that our lives are so short when compared to the incalculable eons of the Universe. What happens if we go the other direction? To a fruit fly who may only live for 24 hours, we may appear as completely unchanging and permanent. Does this mean that we are? From one point of view yes and from another no. It’s all in how you look at it.

Speaking of how you look at things, all this talk of things changing, coming into existence, and then passing away, seems like quite the downer. But is it really? It’s all in how you look at it. Both the good and the bad in Life pass with equal rapidity.

As the ancient Zen masters point out, when we realize that what we have is destined to go away, every moment becomes that much more precious. We are afforded only so many moments in this Life and when we truly understand that this time is indeed finite it only makes sense to cherish each moment. No matter how boring or how mundane. This is your life. Zazen affords us the opportunity to watch our lives unfold in front of us and when we learn to appreciate even the sheer banality of sitting and staring at a wall, our lives become much more rich.

But, just like everything else, this insight and realization fades. Which is why we practice. You do not accomplish the goal of Zen and then say ok I’m done and my life is fixed forever. Practice practice practice and then practice some more.

It is extremely important that you see the truth of impermanence for yourself. You can not simply go by the words of others or a mere intellectual understanding of the concept. You must experience it directly. The good news is that there is a way to do just that. The practice of zazen, which has been handed down through the generations from the Buddha to the present, allows us to really dig into the concept of impermanence in all its aspects. But how do you do that? How do you see it clearly? By paying close attention to the changing transient nature of the most basic experience of life, just sitting. The closer you look, the more you will see that each period is different, each moment is different. The pain in your legs will arise and then pass away. It will change. That sense of calm and clarity that you have at one moment will be gone just as quickly as it arrived. This is why we encourage you to not scratch every itch as soon as it arises or adjust your posture as soon as your legs begin to ache. Each of these is a powerful lesson in the arising and passing away of all things. And as you begin to look deeper and deeper, you may come to question the arising and passing away of so many things that you previously thought were solid, including your very sense of who and what you are. For if everything is impermanent and ever changing and you are part of everything then the only possible conclusion is that you are impermanent as well.

Gassho,

Daishin