Impermanence

One of the greatest teachings of Buddha has been about “Impermanence”, yet we all somehow don’t seem to either understand it or tend to forget it often.

We all know and have experienced that life is full of problems and issues, in between those problems we keep on searching for moments of happiness and pleasure. And we spend our entire life running around to find those happy moments in between. But they seem to be far and few amidst this chaotic life.

Have you ever sat back and contemplated why life seems to be a bag of problems to most of us. “Problem arises in life, the moment we think or want anything to be permanent”. This journey of desiring permanence starts from our birth, from day one our sub-conscious mind wants to make this birth, this very life permanent, which is not possible, coz everybody dies, whatever is created gets destroyed sometime or the other and the difference is only the dimension of time in between. As a child we want to make sure that our toys will permanently be with us (you seldom shared your toys with any other kid, if you remember), our parents will permanently take care of us, we will get food always etc. etc. As we grow old we enter into relationships thinking that each relation is going to be permanent, just look at your own lives and see how many friends you still have who were your best buddies in your primary school, or in your higher school.

Life is a flux a complete transitionary phenomenon… nothing here is permanent. Only dead things are permanent, look at stones, they seems to be more permanent then your lives… however if you see deep down even stones are not permanent coz at some point of time they were part of a burning lava under earth’s crust. But yes they seem to be much more permanent then your ever changing lives. We take birth, each moment we are changing, millions or tissues in our body keeps changing all the time. We are becoming almost a new person each moment. Look at your own thoughts, they keep on changing all the time, their speed is much more then the speed of light. Look at your own desires and likings, they too keep changing. Things which you wished for 5 years back are no longer important for you. Look at your own body, it also keeps changing every moment but you tend to notice it only after a while. Size of your body, shape, color, stamina and even texture keeps on changing. Taste buds in your mouth keep changing. Your eye sight, your physical metabolism, your moods, your emotions… everything in you keeps changing. And if you start noticing things around, like your own selves they too keep changing all the time.

One of the biggest illusions of life is “desire for permanence”. Just flash your life’s each year in your mind, try doing it from your school time… can you see everything kept changing and you never realized it… coz you were so involved with all this that you could never see this rule of impermanence… you get involved with everything forgetting the transitionary phenomenon of life and things. And that’s why most of the time you can’t see it, you need external gross experiences to shake you so hard that you start seeing it. You get so involved because you live on hope that it might be possible with your efforts to make things permanent, a permanent house, a permanent source of income, a permanent relation etc. etc. and so the illusion continues…

Finally life comes to an end but your desire for permanence doesn’t and then there is no other way but to come back and start it all over again. You cannot go beyond this cycle of life and death until you accept life in its true nature, and the moment you experience it… that very moment, you go beyond all impermanence. That very moment, you go into a permanent reunion with the existence…

It’s ironic but that’s the way it is… you get into a permanent reunion with the existence the moment you go beyond the desire of permanence. That’s what Buddha called Nirvana.

Love to all sentient beings.