Impermanence

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I know I have mentioned that this past summer I took an Intro to Buddhism class with my daughter. It was powerful in that it filled in a lot of blanks that I had about the history and evolution of  Buddhist tradition.  One of the topics that was deeply explored is one that as a mindfulness teacher I am quite familiar with; Impermanence.

The fact that everything is in a constant state of change and decay is something we all understand intellectually. However, our struggle with uncertainty often overtakes this knowledge and our desire to “know the outcome” causes us to hold tightly to things that are changing. It is not the fact that things are changing that cause us suffering, rather it is our clinging to them that does. 

“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is clinging to things that are impermanent”. —Buddha

I was likely more attuned to this because it was my  birthday this past week and that changing number each year is a very tangible reminder that we are perpetually getting older. Our bodies are not fixed in time; rather they are constantly adjusting and shifting, and day-to-day– both on the mat and off– they are offer us different things. As we worked with our bodies in our asana practice this week I often reminded students that whatever they were experiencing in their bodies was just temporary. Perhaps a few moments in a pose that is difficult is less challenging when we soften our expectations and celebrate the temporariness. From there we can usually notice the pose getting easier. When we let go of the struggle, the suffering lessens. 

Both on the mat and off, when things are tough, there is comfort in the reminder that they are temporary and changing. The understanding of this helps us suffer less as the Buddha explains in his quote above.

This can be even more challenging when it comes to GOOD things in our lives. The suffering comes from clinging to those things we don’t want to change. Again, it is the grasping at an idea of permanence that causes suffering.  

What impermanence offers us in these circumstances is the chance to appreciate the joys as temporary, not take them for granted and live in them fully in the moment. The reality is that they are fleeting….. clinging to them in the hopes they are not only causes suffering, so the acceptance allows us to squeeze every last drop of joy out of them. 

This concept of impermanence is quite deep and even a bit dark as we understand that literally everything around us (including my kitchen counter and the laptop I am typing on) is temporary, in a constant state of decay and will cease to exist one day.  However,  there is one thing that remains constant for us in this life and it is called our Basic Goodness.

“We are but temporary caretakers of all we own. True treasures reside within.” ― Monika Ajay Kaul Poet and Author

Our Basic Goodness are the fundamental pieces of ourselves that stay the same for our whole lives. Connecting to our basic goodness becomes a beacon of permanence. It helps us to ride the waves of impermanence, to experience the power of true joy, to hold the struggle a little more lightly and to connect with the treasures that reside within.