Pluto
Meowing to go out
- Dec 27, 2020
- 3,991
Impermanence is a big theme in the writings of the East, so I figured I would riff on the topic.
A Buddhist monk once told me: "All I have learned in the twenty years that I have been a monk I can sum up in one sentence: All that arises passes away. This I know." - Eckhart Tolle
Superficially, it is agreeable and even commonsense that nothing lasts forever. But why make this central to any philosophy?
And the next question: is this the best news or the worst news ever?
It is the best news ever because it means that there can never be an eternal punishment, or an infinite injustice or an unlimited sorrow. At some point, each hardship dies entirely. The event is permanently deceased the second that it is over. Afterwards, all memories of it dissolve. Even the very people who might possess said memories pass away.
It is the worst news ever for much the same reason. It isn't possible to own anything - not even a single grain of sand - since all possession is but a rental. The happiest day of one's life meets its demise at the stroke of midnight. The mightiest success peaks, falls and terminates. The fiercest battle rages, then falls silent. The most loving relationship shines, only to be interrupted by separation or death.
I'm reminded of the sobering statistic that 117 billion humans have lived and died on this planet. Where are they now?
"The minute that it's born, it begins to die." - Marylin Manson
In the Western world, we do not like this message. We worship youth and hide death. We dismiss impermanence because it seems depressing. But how long will that depressed state last before it too returns to the Tao? What remains when even the Western world itself has run its course?
And of course, the biggest question of all: What to do with life here and now?
Is this teaching an argument in favour of spending our finite lives moping around because "What's the use anyway?" Is it a consolation prize for people who cannot compete meaningfully in the pyramid scheme of material success, smug in the knowledge that we will be equal again when we are in the grave? Not necessarily.
A Nondual Pointer
A critical but counterintuitive aspect is this: the state that is pointed to is not a depressed state and not an elated one. Perhaps we are so used to mental gymnastics in our culture that we interpret the message of impermanence as a psychological trick to feel peace or, alternatively, a pathway to wallow in in the drama of misery at life's utter futility.
But no. It is instead something nondual that transcends high and low. As an analogy, we have cycles of day and night on Earth, yet a spacecraft only needs to travel away from the planet's surface to reveal a higher reality: there is no such thing as day or night except as an experience arising out of a limited perspective.
Indeed, as Carl Sagan philosophised with his Pale Blue Dot photograph, the smallness of Earth quickly becomes overwhelming, even within the solar system. And there was another similar photo from Cassini (below).
A complete appraisal of impermanence needs to account for the concept of awakening, which is analogous to the aforementioned spacecraft, except overcoming not night/day, but the duality of life/death. We suffer because we ultimately want everything and want to keep it forever, which in a strange way can only actually be attained when we, at the body-mind level, surrender and become nothing. (Or, more accurately, realise that we were nothing all along.) It seems clearer that this question is bigger than just this limited lifetime.
Letting Go
The reason this feels so personally relevant at the moment is that my life situation has become checkmated. Where I once dreamed of justice, my worst abusers have lived long and happy lives while I have slowly rotted from the inside. Where I once dreamed of being a success story, of making the world a better place, the reality has been that basic functioning has been close to impossible. Where I once dreamed of being loved, I have been forced to watch others experience life while I have been trapped in an invisible solitary prison. Even the most extreme efforts to overcome hardships have only generated more humiliation. Energy levels are critically low.
But in the context of facing death, suddenly there is relief in knowing that even the most dastardly situations fade to black. At last, it is OK to stop fighting the impossible battle. Even the human desires to be valuable, respected and loved must have been learned in childhood at some point, and like everything else that is born, must die.
The story can end, but whatever silent force exists beyond human birth and death will remain.
A Buddhist monk once told me: "All I have learned in the twenty years that I have been a monk I can sum up in one sentence: All that arises passes away. This I know." - Eckhart Tolle
Superficially, it is agreeable and even commonsense that nothing lasts forever. But why make this central to any philosophy?
And the next question: is this the best news or the worst news ever?
It is the best news ever because it means that there can never be an eternal punishment, or an infinite injustice or an unlimited sorrow. At some point, each hardship dies entirely. The event is permanently deceased the second that it is over. Afterwards, all memories of it dissolve. Even the very people who might possess said memories pass away.
It is the worst news ever for much the same reason. It isn't possible to own anything - not even a single grain of sand - since all possession is but a rental. The happiest day of one's life meets its demise at the stroke of midnight. The mightiest success peaks, falls and terminates. The fiercest battle rages, then falls silent. The most loving relationship shines, only to be interrupted by separation or death.
I'm reminded of the sobering statistic that 117 billion humans have lived and died on this planet. Where are they now?
"The minute that it's born, it begins to die." - Marylin Manson
In the Western world, we do not like this message. We worship youth and hide death. We dismiss impermanence because it seems depressing. But how long will that depressed state last before it too returns to the Tao? What remains when even the Western world itself has run its course?
And of course, the biggest question of all: What to do with life here and now?
Is this teaching an argument in favour of spending our finite lives moping around because "What's the use anyway?" Is it a consolation prize for people who cannot compete meaningfully in the pyramid scheme of material success, smug in the knowledge that we will be equal again when we are in the grave? Not necessarily.
A Nondual Pointer
A critical but counterintuitive aspect is this: the state that is pointed to is not a depressed state and not an elated one. Perhaps we are so used to mental gymnastics in our culture that we interpret the message of impermanence as a psychological trick to feel peace or, alternatively, a pathway to wallow in in the drama of misery at life's utter futility.
But no. It is instead something nondual that transcends high and low. As an analogy, we have cycles of day and night on Earth, yet a spacecraft only needs to travel away from the planet's surface to reveal a higher reality: there is no such thing as day or night except as an experience arising out of a limited perspective.
Indeed, as Carl Sagan philosophised with his Pale Blue Dot photograph, the smallness of Earth quickly becomes overwhelming, even within the solar system. And there was another similar photo from Cassini (below).
A complete appraisal of impermanence needs to account for the concept of awakening, which is analogous to the aforementioned spacecraft, except overcoming not night/day, but the duality of life/death. We suffer because we ultimately want everything and want to keep it forever, which in a strange way can only actually be attained when we, at the body-mind level, surrender and become nothing. (Or, more accurately, realise that we were nothing all along.) It seems clearer that this question is bigger than just this limited lifetime.
Letting Go
The reason this feels so personally relevant at the moment is that my life situation has become checkmated. Where I once dreamed of justice, my worst abusers have lived long and happy lives while I have slowly rotted from the inside. Where I once dreamed of being a success story, of making the world a better place, the reality has been that basic functioning has been close to impossible. Where I once dreamed of being loved, I have been forced to watch others experience life while I have been trapped in an invisible solitary prison. Even the most extreme efforts to overcome hardships have only generated more humiliation. Energy levels are critically low.
But in the context of facing death, suddenly there is relief in knowing that even the most dastardly situations fade to black. At last, it is OK to stop fighting the impossible battle. Even the human desires to be valuable, respected and loved must have been learned in childhood at some point, and like everything else that is born, must die.
The story can end, but whatever silent force exists beyond human birth and death will remain.
