“When the appearances of this life dissolve, may I with ease and great happiness, let go of all attachments to this life, like a child returning home.” ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
When we pay attention to the world around us, we begin to notice that everything is always changing – the temperature of the air, the clouds in the sky, scents wafting by on the breeze, the sounds of people and traffic and birdsong. We walk outside our same front door each morning and yet what awaits us is different every time. We take our same route to work and yet we see different cars, different people. We pour coffee into our same mug and yet, if we are really paying attention, we notice that the coffee tastes and smells differently today. Why? Because we are different. Because this moment is different. Because all of life is impermanent and although we may encounter people and places and things that seem to be the same as those we have met or seen or experienced before, those experiences have ended and what we have before us is beginning anew.
Impermanence can be challenging to truly understand and accept. Realising that nothing remains the same and that all things must come to an end can give rise to fear and anxiety and a sense of groundlessness. As human beings we form attachments to the people and places and things in our life; they become part of how we identify ourselves and our place in this world. When an experience is over, when we lose a treasured object, when a beloved friendship ends, we often try to cling, to grasp, to bring it back into existence, even though deep down we know that it has reached its natural end and we must continue on.
Life is a continuous cycle of beginnings and endings, of births and deaths. Each breath has a natural beginning and ending, each moment begins and ends, and the end of one moment marks the beginning of the next. Through our mindfulness practice, we learn to observe this natural evolution of time and experience with a sense of equanimity; we learn to release our attachment to what has passed, without fear or anxiety. As we cultivate an attitude of acceptance and our resilience grows in the face of change, we are building the inner resources necessary to face our deepest fears, to face the ultimate example of impermanence: our own death.
On the eastern edge of the Himalayas lies the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. When we hear about Bhutan in the West, it is often referred to as the happiest place on earth, a country whose King declared ‘Gross National Happiness’ to be its true measure of success. In such a place where happiness abounds, it might be a surprise to learn that they contemplate their own death five times a day. Five times every day the Bhutanese acknowledge that this life will end; they acknowledge the impermanent nature of everything around them, and then they return to living in that moment. I find this practice fascinating and have decided to try it myself – believe it or not, there is an app for that! At five random times a day this app sends me a reminder that I am going to die, and it shares a quote with me about some aspect of impermanence. At first blush this may sound morbid; however, I believe it is by confronting our fears that we relieve them of their power over us.
Fear can have profound effects upon us. We can feel paralysed by our fears, and they can rob us of our ability to live each day in a healthy and conscious way. When we acknowledge fear, when we observe it and name it and sit with it, we grow our awareness of its nature and its roots. We can look upon it with compassion and lovingkindness and then feel its power diminish. Change and the impermanent nature of all things gives rise to fear for many of us, but if we can find a way to acknowledge and accept impermanence, perhaps instead we can welcome change, relax and make peace with it. Perhaps by accepting impermanence, by realising that all we really have is this moment, we can live our lives more fully and allow the births and deaths along the way to teach us powerful lessons.
I leave you with the wonderful wisdom of Pema Chödrön, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who has the extraordinary ability to make challenging concepts like impermanence feel much more accessible.