Impermanence cannot be Stopped!
Let us face the dry facts! Everything is impermanent! We can all understand
impermanence superficially. But deep down in our subconscious mind a
sense
of permanence is lurking. So we keep patching up our broken teeth,
wrinkled
dry skin, brittle nails, grey hair, hunched backs, weak eyes,
impaired hearing,
becoming sick, breaking bones & many other things
caused by the inevitable
impermanence of this fragile body. Similarly do our moods, our
feelings, our
thoughts, our perceptions, and our memories all go through
many changes in
every moment. We take medicines, see mental health specialists, & do many
other things, including meditation, to correct our restless flickering
minds!
While we are doing this, impermanence is still going on crushing
everything
both inside our body and mind and also outside in all the world relentlessly...
While all the
organs, all the cells, nervous system, quality of blood, capacity
of oxygen
content in the lungs and the bone structure are going through this
very
rapid and unmistakable change, no matter how much we patch up on the
surface and beneath the skin, impermanence is working its due course quite
persistently underground & inside the body and mind. Nothing on this earth,
no science, no technology, can ever delay or stop this proceeding of change!
Impermanence keeps
burning everything up unstoppable and systematically!
Seeing impermanence (anicca) is the key that
opens mind to see suffering,
and non-self! The moment we understand
this very clearly, our mind opens
to the fact that things change without
leaving a trace behind to follow the
path that impermanence has taken.
This is called voidness or signlessness...
This awareness evaporates the desire for
anything that is impermanent!
It also evaporates all aversion growing from our disappointed expectations.
Then naturally, this clean mind becomes fully aware of not
having any agent,
immovable mover, or controller, which sometimes is called "Self, I, Me, Ego"
or even "Soul" by some people. This element of Dhamma, this basic intrinsic
nature of all, this law of Dhamma is known in Buddhism as emptiness of self!
The Blessed
Buddha said:
Sabbe Dhammā Anatta = All States are Selfless!
Seeing impermanence with wisdom is the key to detachment, calming, stilling,
ceasing, and releasing mental relinquishment. Joyous Freedom is the result!
In the
Mahā-suññata Sutta
(MN
122) The Blessed
Buddha
points out that
suffering
arises from clinging and attaching to all impermanent things:
"I do not see even a single kind of
form from the change and alteration of
which there would not
arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair in
one who lusts for it and takes delight in it!" The same is true of all
transient
feeling, perception, mental construction=intention & sorts of consciousness!
If we tenaciously cling to any of them, then we suffer, when they decay!
This passage clearly states, that
suffering arises from the attachment to
form, not because the form is
impermanent, but because we are attached
to impermanent form. When we attain full enlightenment, we do not suffer!
This happens not because we make any impermanent things now everlasting!
This happens only because we release our clinging to
all impermanent things.
Impermanent phenomena
continue to be impermanent, whether we ever gain
enlightenment or not. As the blessed
Buddha also has explained
exactly:
"Bhikkhus, whether
Tathāgatas
appear or do not appear, there is
always
this constantly
established element of Dhamma, this fixed law of Dhamma:
All that is
conditioned and constructed is impermanent. To this aTathāgata
fully awakens and fully
understands. So awakened and thus understanding,
he announces, points it
out, declares, establishes, expounds, and explains it,
classifies and clarifies it: All that is conditioned is actually impermanent...
Bhikkhus, whetherTathāgatas
appear or do not appear, there is always this
precedent condition and absolute of Dhamma, this anchored law of Dhamma:
All that is conditioned and constructed is unsatisfactory, & thus suffering!
To
this aTathāgata fully awakens and fully understands. So awakened and
thus understanding, he announces, points out, declares, establishes, explains,
and clarifies it: All that is conditioned
and constructed is indeed Suffering!
Bhikkhus, whether Tathāgatas appear or do not appear,
there is always this
situation present, a subtle truth of Dhamma, this safe doctrine of Dhamma:
All states are without a self! To this fact anyTathāgata fully awakens and
fully
understands. So awakened and understanding, he announces, points out,
declares, establishes, explains, and clarifies it: All states are without
self!"
Anguttara Nikāya I 285
By seeing the impermanence, suffering & selflessness
thus in all conditioned
things in this and any other world, one naturally becomes disenchanted with
everything constructed. Disenchantment leads to disillusion and dispassion
towards everything. Within a dispassionate mind craving for everything will
gradually fade away
(virāga). With this insight one lets go of
all attachment.
Being dispassionate, one thereby liberates oneself from all this evil misery...
Being liberated, one knows that one is liberated, has ended rebirth,
has lived
the Noble life, has done what should be done, and that there is
nothing more
to be done! This means that attaining full freedom from all
suffering indeed
begins with this very perfect and acute awareness of
impermanence...!
Source:
Bhante
Henepola Gunaratana:
From Impermanence to Liberation.
Buddhist Publication Society
http://www.bps.lk/
Newsletter #63: 2010-1.
More on
Impermanence ,
Instability, Change
and
Transience
(Anicca):
Experiencing_Universal_Transience,
Highway_to_Nibbana,
What_is_Mara,
Fingernail of Soil,
Rough Realism,
At_All_Times,
Wheel186,
Evident_Facts,
The_External_Transience,
Experiencing_Impermanence,
Rise_and_Fall,
Transient_formations,
Perceiving_Transience,
Impermanence_Anicca,
The Monkey passing the
Banana,
The_Internal_Transience,
The_Trap,
Contemplating_Impermanence,
Contemplating_Impermanence_2,
Hidden_Horror,
Noting_the_Breakup,
Flash_In_Flash_Out,
Basic Fact: Anicca,
The_Burning_Turban...
