All compounded things are impermanent. The historical Buddha taught this, over and over. These words were among the last he ever spoke.
"Compounded things" are, of course, anything that can be divided into parts and science tells us even the most basic "parts," chemical elements, degrade over vast periods of time.
Most of us think the impermanence of all things is an unpleasant fact we'd rather ignore. We look at the world around us, and most of it seems solid and fixed. We tend to stay in places we find comfortable and safe, and we don't want them to change. We want to have relationships that will never change over time. We want to acquire material things that are permanent in nature. We also think we are permanent, the same person continuing from birth to death, and maybe beyond that.
In other words, we may know, intellectually, that things are impermanent, but we don't perceive things that way. And that's a problem.
Four Noble Truths
In his first sermon after his enlightenment, the Buddha laid out a proposition -- the Four Noble Truths. He said that life is dukkha, a word that cannot be precisely translated into English, but is sometimes rendered "stressful," "unsatisfactory," or "suffering." Very basically, life is full of craving or "thirst" that is never satisfied. This thirst comes from ignorance of the true nature of reality.
We see ourselves as permanent beings, separate from everything else. This is the primordial ignorance and the first of the three poisons out of which arise the other two poisons, greed and hate. We go through life attaching to things, wanting them to last forever. But they don't last, and this makes us sad. We experience envy and anger and even become violent with others because we cling to a false perception of permanence.We attach not only to physical things but also to ideas and opinions about ourselves and the world around us. Then we grow frustrated when the world doesn't behave the way we think it should and our lives don't conform to our expectations. The fact of the matter is that things change.
Buddhist practice brings about a radical change in perspective. Our tendency to divide the universe into "me" and "everything else" fades away. In time, the practitioner is better able to enjoy life's experiences without judgment, bias, manipulation, or any of the other mental barriers we erect between ourselves and what's real.
The solution to dukkha is to stop clinging and attaching. But how do we do that? The fact is that it cannot be accomplished by an act of will. It's impossible to just vow to yourself, from now on I won't crave anything. This doesn't work because the conditions that give rise to craving will still be present.
The Second Noble Truth tells us that we cling to things we believe will make us happy or keep us safe. Grasping for one ephemeral thing after another never satisfies us for long because it's all impermanent. It is only when we see this for ourselves that we can stop grasping. When we do see it, the letting go is easy. The craving will seem to disappear of its own accord.
The realization of wisdom is that this separation is an illusion because permanence is an illusion. Even the "I" we think is so permanent is an illusion. If you are new to Buddhism, at first this may not make much sense. The idea that perceiving impermanence is the key to happiness also doesn't make much sense. It's not something that can be understood by intellect alone.
However, the Fourth Noble Truth is that through the practice of the Eightfold Path we may realize and experience the truth of impermanence and be free of the pernicious effects of the three poisons. When it's perceived that the causes of hate and greed are illusions, hate and greed -- and the misery they cause -- disappear.
Anatta
The Buddha taught that existence has three marks -- dukkha, anicca (impermanence), and anatta (egolessness). Anatta is also sometimes translated as "without essence" or "no self." This is the teaching that what we think of as "me," who was born one day and will die another day, is an illusion.
Yes, you are here, reading this article. But the "I" you think is permanent is really a series of thought-moments, an illusion continually generated by our bodies and senses and nervous systems. There is no permanent, fixed "me" that has always inhabited your ever-changing body.
In some schools of Buddhism, the doctrine of anatta is taken further, to the teaching of shunyata, or "emptiness." This teaching stresses that there is no intrinsic self or "thing" within a compilation of component parts, whether we are talking about a person or a car or a flower. The fact is ,what we call a thing can be broken into different parts causing the 'thing' to cease to exist. This is an extremely difficult doctrine for most of us, so don't feel bad if this makes no sense at all. It takes time.
Attachment
"Attachment" is a word one hears a lot in Buddhism. Attachment in this context doesn't mean what you may think it means.
The act of attaching requires two things -- an attacher, and an object of attachment. "Attachment," then, is a natural by-product of ignorance. Because we see ourselves as a permanent thing separate from everything else, we grasp and cling to "other" things. Attachment in this sense might be defined as any mental habit that perpetuates the illusion of a permanent, separate self.
The most damaging attachment is ego attachment. Whatever we think we need to "be ourselves," whether a job title, a lifestyle or a belief system, is an attachment. We cling to these things,and we are devastated when we lose them.
On top of that, we go through life wearing emotional armor to protect our egos, and that emotional armor closes us off from each other. So, in this sense, attachment comes from the illusion of a permanent, separate self, and non-attachment comes from the realization that nothing is separate.
Renunciation
"Renunciation" is another word one hears a lot in Buddhism. Very simply, it means to renounce whatever binds us to ignorance and suffering. It is not simply a matter of avoiding things we crave as a penance for craving. The Buddha taught that genuine renunciation requires thoroughly perceiving how we make ourselves unhappy by clinging to things we desire. When we do, renunciation naturally follows. it is an act of liberation, not a punishment.
We can renounce a toxic relationship. We can renounce toxic people from our life;we dont hate them. We simply remove them from our life into perphery of things that have no direct influence in our life. How many times have you thought of a faraway galaxy in the recent past? How many times have you been bothered that you cant spot it during the night? That is the kind of periphery that i am talking about.
Change
The seemingly fixed and solid world you see around you actually is in a state of flux. Our senses may not be able to detect moment-t0-moment change, but everything is always changing. When we fully appreciate this, we can fully appreciate our experiences without clinging to them. We can also learn to let go of old fears, disappointments, regrets. Nothing is real but this moment.
Because nothing is permanent, everything is possible. Liberation is possible. Enlightenment is possible.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote,
"We have to nourish our insight into impermanence every day. If we do, we will live more deeply, suffer less, and enjoy life much more. Living deeply, we will touch the foundation of reality, nirvana, the world of no-birth and no-death. Touching impermanence deeply, we touch the world beyond permanence and impermanence. We touch the ground of being and see that which we have called being and nonbeing are just notions. Nothing is ever lost. Nothing is ever gained." [The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching (Parallax Press 1998), p. 124]
And dont always look for answers to every question in this impermanent world....
....like a man struck by a poisoned arrow, who would not have the arrow removed until someone told him the name of the man who had shot him, and whether he was tall or short, and where he lived, and what sort of feathers were used for the fletchings.
Being given answers to those questions would not be helpful, the Buddha said. "Because they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding."
In several other places in the Pali texts, the Buddha discusses skillful and unskillful questions. For example, in the Sabbasava Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 2), he said that speculating about the future or the past, or wondering "Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound? Why me?" gives rise to a "wilderness of views" that do not help liberate one from stress and strife that comes from trying to create a permanent world for oneself.
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