In this episode I share some thoughts about impermanence, clinging and the value of non-attachment. I also reflect on what it means to be here – the miraculous nature of being alive and conscious. I go on to say something about interdependence and the ways in which mindful meditation can help us to appreciate our daily lives and to learn how to let go rather than to hang on.
In this episode I share some thoughts about impermanence, clinging and the value of non-attachment. I also reflect on what it means to be here – the miraculous nature of being alive and conscious. I go on to say something about interdependence and the ways in which mindful meditation can help us to appreciate our daily lives and to learn how to let go rather than to hang on.
The legends that describe the early life of the Buddha suggest that as a young man he led an extremely privileged and sheltered existence. Prince Gautama (the Buddha’s family name) had seen nothing of poverty and violence, and his parents had even managed to keep illness and death out of his sight. It was only when he left his home that he came face to face with these disturbing aspects of life and he was no doubt disturbed and perplexed by what he confronted.
As he traveled, he saw poor and hungry peasants trying to feed themselves and their children. He saw babies born, children growing, men and women getting older and frailer, and he saw the bodies of the dead being burned on pyres surrounded by mourners who howled with grief and loss. Wherever he looked he noticed how transient everything is, how things arise and pass away; how the seasons come and go; how flowers bloom and wither; how trees grow from tiny seeds into forest giants only, one day, to fall down and crumble into dust; he saw small rivulets turning into streams, eventually flowing into big rivers that emptied into the sea; he watched clouds changing shape, dropping rain and snow as they reach high mountains; and he noticed how mountains themselves are eroded by rain and ice, avalanches cascading into rivers only to be washed away.
The young prince realised that nothing is exempt from this process of growth and decay. Everywhere around him he encountered only change and impermanence. There is nothing that keeps its form or structure forever. From the smallest butterfly to the highest mountain, there is nothing that isn’t passing away even as it comes into being. Impermanence or transience (denoted by the word, anicca, in Sanskrit) is a primary condition of existence.
In 2001 Joseph Goldstein wrote an article, entitled, One Dharma, for Tricycle, the Buddhist magazine. Goldstein argued that the Buddha’s teaching could be summed up in these words: ‘Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as ‘I’ or ‘mine’.’ Why does the Buddha say this? What is so important about not-clinging or letting-go? I’ll explore these questions with reference to Goldstein’s article. By the way, the words ‘craving’ or ‘clinging’ are translations of the the Buddhist terms, tanha (Pali) and trishna (Sanskrit).
And so we return to the realisation that impermanence is a primary condition of existence. Everything in the universe is subject to change, decay, birth and death – therefore to cling to something is to cling in vain, for it will change and dissolve and slip through our fingers. In a sense to grasp and cling in this way is to believe that some things are unchanging. But to cling to an illusion of permanence is to invite dissatisfaction, loss, regret and to perpetuate a cycle of more clinging and desire, and more dissatisfaction. And so we get caught on a treadmill that goes nowhere, a wheel of desire and frustration that only generates more of the same.
Goldstein points out that there are three main kinds of clinging or desire. The first is that we cling to pleasant experiences, such as: ‘pleasant sights and sounds and tastes, pleasant sensations in the body… pleasant meditative states.’ In itself, this liking is not a problem – indeed it is a joy – but sadly we are often not content with this transient experience, we want it to last longer and longer, and we are disappointed and frustrated when it doesn’t. So we look for another such experience, and another. We spend much time and energy trying to repeat and prolong temporary enjoyments and our desire is insatiable and habitual. The desire to have and prolong pleasant experiences becomes a deeply-rooted force that propels us from one frustration and dissatisfaction to another. We can think of this as a having mode of existence – a desire to have endless pleasures, a desire which can never be fulfilled.
To observe this cycle of desire, loss and dissatisfaction, and to recognise it for what it is, is the first step in finding a remedy. For there is a remedy, we can learn to let go of this grasping habit and return to the passing enjoyment of passing experiences. We can practice mindful meditation, observing our embodied mind without commentary or judgment, welcoming and saying goodbye to each experience as it arises and fades. By not hanging on to each pleasant sensation, thought or memory, we enjoy it for what it is, free of the compulsion to want it to be more than it is. Relinquishing the pursuit of what are passing pleasant experiences is as important to a life of freedom and peace, as letting go of the need to try to repress, reject or ignore unpleasant experiences – for these are integral to life and will also pass.
Goldstein describes the second kind of clinging as ‘the attachment we have to our views and opinions’ - our attachment to our own point of view and to being right. We’re attached to our opinions as if they were definitive, correct and true, even though our opinions change with changing circumstances, and even though there are many, equally valid, other opinions in the world. We often voice our opinions with certainty, as if they are uncontestable facts, rather than provisional statements. And we often go further, trying to impose our opinions, beliefs and judgments on others – as if our limited perspective on things had universal validity. But how can we have certain, enduring, universally valid knowledge about any aspect of a world that is impermanent and ever-changing? Letting go of, or setting aside, our attachment to our opinions, is to recognise that they are not certain, absolute or universally valid. It also leaves us free of the burden and frustration such attachment imposes on us – for we will feel dissatisfaction and frustration that our opinions are not the same as those of others.
If we can accept that our view is one amongst many - none of which have universal or absolute validity – then we are likely to become more open to change and revision, to welcome the views of others as adding to our picture of the world. In this way we feel unburdened by our need to maintain and enforce our view – letting us be more open, flexible, tolerant and at peace with the world. This state of openess to the views of others and not clinging to a belief that we have the ‘right’ opinion, is sometimes called by Buddhist teachers, ‘don’t know mind’ or beginner’s mind.’ The Japanese Zen teacher, Bankei, used to say to his students: ‘Don’t side with yourself.’
Goldstein’s third kind of clinging is the one that is most deep-rooted and persistant: ‘the attachment we have to the concept of, or belief in, self.’ He gives as an analogy the image of the self as a rainbow. The rainbow exists, but only as a manifestation of particular fleeting relationships between air, light and water droplets – it is an appearance without a fixed essence or substance. It is not a thing, but a process that happens when certain environmental conditions arise together. Similarly, the self is a fluid, changing process that we somehow think of as an object, the kernal of our identity. We cling to a belief that it is a noun rather than a verb, that we have a ‘self’ rather than that we are ‘selfing’ – for we make and remake the self moment-by-moment. Hanging on to one moment of selfhood is as pointless as trying to hang on to a rainbow, yet this is what we seem to want to do – we cling to a notion of self that is misguided and delusory. A Sri Lankan monk went so far as to say: ‘no self, no problem’ – given the rise of dogmatic extremism (political, religious and cultural) we can see how a belief in an essential self, certain of its own opinions and desiring to impose these on others, leads to so much strife and conflict. Identifying with the acquisitive self so often leads to dissatisfaction, disturbance and conflict.
Freedom from suffering arises when we relax our attachments to pleasant experiences, to our own opinions and to our belief in the self as something independent and substantial. We are more likely to experience freedom and peace of mind if we let go rather than hang on, be open rather than closed, be caring rather than clinging, be compassionate rather than judgmental and feel kinship rather than separateness.
Awareness of transience and clinging brings me to another important aspect of life, the way in which the passing nature of everything leads to a sense of uncertainty denoted by the word, ‘contingency.’ The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the words, ‘contingent’ and ‘contingency,’ in this way: ‘of uncertain occurrence; liable to happen or not ….. happening by chance; fortuitous …. conditional; dependent on …… not predetermined by necessity; free …. subject to accident; at the mercy of …’ and, in legal circles: ‘dependent on a foreseen probability.’
Our being-here is the result of innumerable causes and conditions – so many, and complex, are these causes, that we can refer to them as ‘chance’ or ‘luck.’ It is fortuitous that we happen to be here. The conditions were, and are, just right to enable us to be alive at this moment. So many conditions are required to be fulfilled for any of us, and for any other phenomenon, to exist. There is an uncertainty to being here that infuses us with a feeling of surprise, wonder and thankfulness. To be here is a miracle – contingent on so many other miracles.
There is a poignancy to life, to all that exists, as we contemplate the inherently fragile, transient and contingent nature of existence. In a sense we are born and die at each moment of consciousness. We celebrate and mourn each breath.
In a universe of ceaseless change - of comings and goings, births and deaths – everything that exists is both unique and dependent on almost infinite currents of causality. All things realise suchness (tathata) – they are just as they are, never-to-be-repeated, unique, special, one-offs – and yet they are also manifestations of what is called in Buddhism, dependent-arising or pratitya-samutpada. Every entity, and every event, is dependent on all the other entities and events that move through and around them. Whenever we consider an object, event, or being, as distinct and seemingly independent, we need to be mindful of its intrinsic interdependence – its inseparability from everything else.
As Stephen Batchelor suggests: ‘Instead of hankering after the past and speculating about the future, one sees the present as the fruit of what has been and the germ of what will be. Gotama [Buddha] did not encourage withdrawal to a timeless, mystical now, but an unflinching encounter with the contingent world as it unravels moment to moment.’ (Batchelor 2010: 129) It is this day-to-day mindful encounter with the everyday world that constitutes awakening. When we pay attention, without clinging or disturbance, to the contingent, fluid, dynamic uncertainty of each moment, we are at peace with the world and with ourselves. Undisturbed by not knowing what the future holds, and unclinging to what has occurred, we maintain equanimity and peace of mind.
And so, it is important to keep in mind that all things are in process of change. All ‘things’ are actually ‘events.’ Existence is a flux of chemical interactions within ever-changing fields of energy. Material structures, chemical, biological and man-made, are impermanent at both the sub-atomic level of quantum physics and at the level of cosmological phenomena like stars and galaxies. We ascribe enduring qualities and relative permanence to things in order to categorise and analyse them in verbal and mathematical languages, and to isolate them as objects of desire and attachment. We tend to pay no attention to the ceaseless change around and within ourselves. The Buddhist practice of ‘mindfulness’ counteracts this tendency by developing our attentiveness to change in all its manifestations, including the flux of perceptions, thoughts, images, desires and moods, we call our self.
I am fond of this quote from the writings of Henepola Gunaratana, as he describes our situation in a succinct and dramatic way. He writes:
As you read these words, your body is aging. But you pay no attention to that. The book in your hand is decaying. The print is fading and the pages are becoming brittle. The walls around you are aging. The molecules within those walls are vibrating at an enormous rate, and everything is shifting, going to pieces and dissolving slowly. You pay no attention to that, either. Then one day you look around you. Your body is wrinkled and squeaky and you hurt. The book is a yellowed, useless lump; the building is caving in. So, you pine for lost youth and you cry when the possessions are gone. Where does this pain come from? It comes from your own inattention. You failed to look closely at life. You failed to observe the constantly shifting flow of the world as it went by. You set up the collection of mental constructions, ‘me,’ ‘the book,’ ‘the building,’ and you assumed that those were solid, real entities [But] you can tune into the constant change. You can learn to perceive your life as an ever-flowing movement. You can learn to see the continuous flow of all conditioned things. You can learn this. It is just a matter of time and training. (Gunaratana 1992: 39)
Gunaratana, is a highly respected Sri Lankan teacher, trained in the vipassana meditation tradition of South-East Asia. He uses the simple language of the popular training manual, but he is describing a fundamental characteristic of existence. He points to the relatedness and impermanence of all things and to the ways in which we fail to recognise this relatedness and impermanence, attaching ourselves instead to a belief in separateness and permanence. The phenomenological techniques of vipassana meditation, zazen and other forms of mindfulness training, develop in practitioners the ability to attend to consciousness in a precise and disinterested manner. They enable the mindful student to be aware of the flow of experiences, the ceaseless stream of thoughts, images, feelings and desires that occupy the mind for so much of the time.
Through this kind of disciplined attention, the practitioner learns not only to watch the flow of phenomena but also to recognise the habits of attachment, projection and repression that we use to try to avoid confronting the conditions of our existence. With persistence, patience and a kind of unlearning or undoing, this disciplined attentiveness leads to a different experiential understanding of who we are and how we, to a more compassionate understanding of the habits of attachment and avoidance that lead us into dissatisfaction, frustration and conflict. Such techniques have been developed in many religious, philosophical and psychotherapeutic traditions - I have only focused on the Buddhist examples because I have some experience as a practitioner in this field. Yet even after over fifty-five years of zazen practice I still often feel a beginner, though a beginner with more patience and compassionate scepticism than I had ten, twenty or thirty, years ago.
As we go about our daily lives, it is good to be mindful and to pay attention to the uniqueness, and transience, and interdependence, of everything as it arises and passes through our consciousness. It is good to value each moment for what it is, and for what it is dependent on, and for what it gives rise to. In being mindful we can care for, and treasure, each moment - even as we mourn and let go of it. Being awake, being here, is to be alive to our good fortune, even as we feel life running through our fingers. In a sense we need to be saying hello and goodbye at one and the same time – feeling kinship with, and compassion for, all other transient beings. In this way we can cultivate what Buddhists call, ‘sukha,’ – that is, wellbeing and peacefulness – living a good life in harmony with the passing nature of things and beings.
I often have this motto in mind: pay attention – appreciate – let go.
Thank you for listening and bye for now.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batchelor, Stephen. 2010. Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Goldstein, Joseph. 2001. Article titled, One Dharma, in Tricycle Magazine, Winter 2001, pp. 68-71 & 97.
Gunaratana, Henepola. 1992. Mindfulness in Plain English. Boston, USA: Wisdom Publications.