One of the pillars of Buddhist thought is the recognition of the three characteristics of all things that exist. In the Pali language (the language in which these teachings were first written down), these are known as anicca, dukkha, and anatta. These have been translated as impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self. I would like to spend some time considering these three and see if I can make some sense of them for those who are new to these concepts. They can seem very foreign at first, perhaps even frightening, but are in fact so thoroughly universal that their recognition can come to be very comforting.
First of all, then, annica or impermanence. What lasts? What can we say is here, has always been here and will always be here? Intellectually, it is rather a simple task to answer that there is in fact nothing that has always and will always exist. Every mountain arose from the conditions that created it and is slowly eroding away to nothing but dust. Even that dust will not exist in its dust-ness for long, but will be further broken down to component parts and passed along on the wind or in the water to exist in another form in another place. It is interesting to note that the principle of the conservation of mass states that (essentially) nothing comes from nothing and mass can neither be created nor destroyed. In any closed system (of which the earth is, more or less, one) everything that comes into being does so using the elements that exist and have always existed in this system. Thus, it is not only undeniably true that nothing can be continuously existent in its present form, but also that the dissolution of the current form is essential for any new thing to come into existence. You are kicking up the ashes of Napoleon as you walk down the streets of Seattle. You are breathing air that was not so long ago in the lungs of a llama in Argentina. The water you drink contains elements of the blood of the victims of the Holocaust. This is inescapable.
OK, OK, I know that sounds very philosophical and challenging, but let's look only at ourselves for a moment. What can we say does not change in us? What part of us is permanently real? Certainly not our bodies, which change radically and decay over time, as those of us over thirty are all too acutely aware. But even in the short term, all the cells of our body are constantly dying and being replaced, so that we are not the same person we were ten years, two days, or one second ago. Red blood cells last about four months and their ubiquity and constant breakdown give color to all of our waste products. So much for the permanence of our bodies, then. But what about our minds? Don't we carry over our thoughts, our memories, our opinions, our feelings from one moment to the next? This is where meditation can be particularly helpful, because it is clear that the answer to this question is a resounding, "No!" Watching these things arise and pass away can be highly entertaining once we get over the thought that they should be permanent. Like fireworks they rise, burst and fall with great fanfare, but still are ashes in the end.
Then there is the ego, the self we carry with us from day to day, but that is a construct, something we have built as a response to the fear of ceasing to exist. The ego is neither real nor permanent, not in any substantial way. The self-creation of the ego is designed to protect us from the fear that we don't exist in any permanent form, but the end result of the perpetuation of ego is instead to cause the much greater suffering of clinging to something which is constantly shifting and changing, that does not in fact exist.
Christina Feldman says it this way: we suffer from a "recurrent mismatch between how we imagine ourselves and others and the world to be or how ourselves or others or the world should be and how things actually are." We suffer when we do not see clearly "the intrinsic instability of all experience." What we are seeking in meditation and the contemplation of the dharma is a recognition of this fact, the fact that suffering comes from our clinging to what cannot last and not from the fact of insubstantiality itself. As the saying goes, you can't change the waves, but you can learn to surf. We can surf on the waves of the realization of the fact of impermanence and in that way rise above that form of suffering. To do so in a permanent way is to realize Nirvana.
Of course, we do exist in a practical way; we haven't disappeared from the face of the earth. Someone has to pay my mortgage, after all, and someone will eventually die. But that topic can wait for the discussion of anatta, or non-self.
First of all, then, annica or impermanence. What lasts? What can we say is here, has always been here and will always be here? Intellectually, it is rather a simple task to answer that there is in fact nothing that has always and will always exist. Every mountain arose from the conditions that created it and is slowly eroding away to nothing but dust. Even that dust will not exist in its dust-ness for long, but will be further broken down to component parts and passed along on the wind or in the water to exist in another form in another place. It is interesting to note that the principle of the conservation of mass states that (essentially) nothing comes from nothing and mass can neither be created nor destroyed. In any closed system (of which the earth is, more or less, one) everything that comes into being does so using the elements that exist and have always existed in this system. Thus, it is not only undeniably true that nothing can be continuously existent in its present form, but also that the dissolution of the current form is essential for any new thing to come into existence. You are kicking up the ashes of Napoleon as you walk down the streets of Seattle. You are breathing air that was not so long ago in the lungs of a llama in Argentina. The water you drink contains elements of the blood of the victims of the Holocaust. This is inescapable.
OK, OK, I know that sounds very philosophical and challenging, but let's look only at ourselves for a moment. What can we say does not change in us? What part of us is permanently real? Certainly not our bodies, which change radically and decay over time, as those of us over thirty are all too acutely aware. But even in the short term, all the cells of our body are constantly dying and being replaced, so that we are not the same person we were ten years, two days, or one second ago. Red blood cells last about four months and their ubiquity and constant breakdown give color to all of our waste products. So much for the permanence of our bodies, then. But what about our minds? Don't we carry over our thoughts, our memories, our opinions, our feelings from one moment to the next? This is where meditation can be particularly helpful, because it is clear that the answer to this question is a resounding, "No!" Watching these things arise and pass away can be highly entertaining once we get over the thought that they should be permanent. Like fireworks they rise, burst and fall with great fanfare, but still are ashes in the end.
Then there is the ego, the self we carry with us from day to day, but that is a construct, something we have built as a response to the fear of ceasing to exist. The ego is neither real nor permanent, not in any substantial way. The self-creation of the ego is designed to protect us from the fear that we don't exist in any permanent form, but the end result of the perpetuation of ego is instead to cause the much greater suffering of clinging to something which is constantly shifting and changing, that does not in fact exist.
Christina Feldman says it this way: we suffer from a "recurrent mismatch between how we imagine ourselves and others and the world to be or how ourselves or others or the world should be and how things actually are." We suffer when we do not see clearly "the intrinsic instability of all experience." What we are seeking in meditation and the contemplation of the dharma is a recognition of this fact, the fact that suffering comes from our clinging to what cannot last and not from the fact of insubstantiality itself. As the saying goes, you can't change the waves, but you can learn to surf. We can surf on the waves of the realization of the fact of impermanence and in that way rise above that form of suffering. To do so in a permanent way is to realize Nirvana.
Of course, we do exist in a practical way; we haven't disappeared from the face of the earth. Someone has to pay my mortgage, after all, and someone will eventually die. But that topic can wait for the discussion of anatta, or non-self.
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