Impermanence
LIBERATION THROUGH NON-CLINGING
DOORWAYS TO LIBERATION
How can we accomplish this letting go, this awakening of the heart and mind? Different Buddhist traditions emphasize different skillful means for achieving freedom. Some methods cross the boundaries of tradition, and some are unique to particular ones, but they are all in the service of liberation through non-clinging.
One powerful practice of non-clinging is the awareness of impermanence, which was discussed earlier as a way of turning the mind toward the Dharma. Here it becomes the very practice of freedom itself. We can become aware of impermanence on every level, whether we observe clusters of galaxies through powerful telescopes or subatomic particles through the latest quantum experiments. Perhaps more relevant to our own power of observation is the obvious impermanence of our lives: the body inexorably aging, relationships changing, births and deaths of people we love and of people we have never met, the momentary arisings in the mind, and the endless falling away of all experience, like water over a waterfall. Reflect for a moment on the high point of your life, the most wonderful moment, or the low point, the most difficult time. Where are they now? We begin to see that all our experience is part of an endlessly passing show.
It's strange that when we look back at our lives, it becomes clear that all our experience, from years ago to even the last moment, is like a dream. Yet in looking ahead, we are seduced again and again by the dazzle of possibilities, whether it is consuming the next meal, a new job, the next vacation, or a fantastic new relationship, as if some new experience will finally fulfill all our longings. It's through seeing and remembering the truth of impermanence that we loosen the grip of attachment and clinging.
When pleasant feeling arises in our meditation or in the ordinary events of our lives, can we contemplate the impermanence of that feeling, so that we feel it without getting lost in it, not buying in to its illusory promise of life fulfillment? If we're interested in liberation, the Buddha offered very explicit advice:
Whatever feelings arise-whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral-abide contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplate fading away, relinquishment, letting go of those feelings. Contemplating thus one does not cling to anything in this world. When not clinging, there is no agitation. When not agitated one personally attains Nibbana.
Meditation practice is the practice of seeing impermanence very directly and intimately. We pay attention to what arises in our experience and all of our different reactions to it. We also notice what happens to objects as they appear. Any object at any sense door reveals the truth of change. Sounds arise and disappear, sensations in the body keep changing, and one breath follows the next. And each of these experiences is itself not a single event. Each is a current or flow of even more minute changes.
At one time, Ananda, the Buddha's attendant and one of the most beloved monks, was recounting the many wonderful qualities of the Master
That being so, Ananda, remember this too as a wonderful and marvelous quality of the Tathagata.. . . For the awaken person feelings are known as they arise, as they are present, as they disappear; perceptions are known as they arise, as they are present, as they disappear; thoughts are known as they arise, as they are present, as they disappear. Remember this too, Ananda, as a wonderful and marvelous quality of the Tathagata.
Because the truth of change is so ordinary, we can easily overlook the profound and immediate results of directly experiencing the changing nature of phenomena.
(from One Dharma by Joseph Goldstein p-147 ISBN-0-06-251701-5)