In the previous episode I discussed the method of seeing clearly. This is insight practice, or vipassana. When we remain immersed in “me” and “my thought” and cannot see that this is not self, we fail to see things as they are. I said that a person who observes every moment closely and directly is a Buddha. Today I want to explain the philosophical basis for why each moment must be seen in this way.
The objects of clear observation are body, feeling, mind, and phenomena—the four establishments of mindfulness. The last, phenomena or Dharma, examines how the world and all events move and what their basic principles are.
Among countless laws, dependent arising is the law that makes a Buddha
The laws sustaining modern society include science and mathematics. Because of them we have phones, computers, networks, cameras, and YouTube. Many kinds of law operate in the world.
Among them, the Buddha’s law leading to awakening—the law through which we become Buddhas—is dependent arising. Impermanence and non-self appear through dependent arising. Today I will use impermanence to explain why the present moment must be examined closely as it is.
Complete understanding of “not constant” makes a Buddha
Impermanence means not remaining constant. Heard casually, it sounds like ordinary knowledge. Yet impermanence is central to Buddhism. Anyone who completely understands it becomes a Buddha. We must therefore follow carefully what the statement “the world is impermanent” actually means.
A cicada lives underground as a nymph for years. In one summer it climbs a tree, sheds its skin, and becomes an adult. The male vibrates its body, calls, meets a female, and mates. We notice only the cicada calling for a month or two, though its life unfolded underground for years. Like the cicada appearing for one season, a human comes for a time and leaves.
Human beings are not fundamentally separate from other life
Even in the twenty-first century, many believe humans are fundamentally different from animals. People differ in height, sex, appearance, and character, and species differ in many ways. But this does not mean that humans possess a special soul separating them absolutely from nature. A person, like a cicada, lives for a while and dies.
This may sound nihilistic. It is not nihilism but seeing the fact as it is. The listener’s feeling of emptiness differs from the actual condition of the world.
The first object to which impermanence must be applied is myself
We cannot exclude ourselves and call only everything else impermanent. I am the one who awakens, and Buddhist practice extinguishes the fires of my ignorance, greed, and attachment. The first target of impermanence is therefore myself.
Mother and father, siblings and friends die; ancestral teachers and Buddhas died. I too die. Why repeat such an obvious claim? Because knowing it superficially differs from knowing it fully.
Buddhist wisdom, knowledge, and awakening are not an entirely different species from everyday knowing. The difference lies between saying “of course” and passing on, and fully realizing, “It is truly impermanent, and I am not exempt.”
Impermanence includes not knowing when change will occur
We know when we were born but not when we will die. We may want to live healthily to seventy or eighty or beyond others, yet cannot choose the actual time.
A mayfly may be biologically described as living a day. Does every mayfly complete the day? It may be eaten by a bird or dragonfly, struck by a human hand, or stepped on before it flies. It may live half a day or only minutes.
Does every cicada nymph shed its shell and become an adult? It may be eaten underground or on the way up a tree. Even after becoming an adult and calling, does every male meet a female? A person may capture it, confining it until it dies without mating. No life receives a guaranteed duration or next stage.
This is included in impermanence. Everything changes according to conditions. A twenty-year-old conscript may die from an enemy bullet, friendly fire, betrayal, a stray bomb, or aerial attack.
Death may come shortly, not merely in a distant future
People imagine death as something far away, an event after old age. Yet a celestial collision could destroy the Earth shortly. One may suffer cardiac arrest while eating, encounter a sudden accident while walking, or discover a disease and die soon after.
The assumption that death belongs to a particular future date breaks when impermanence is understood. People hear that nothing remains constant while treating themselves as constant: they presume they will live tomorrow and, because a video was recorded in the morning, survive the afternoon. But will I truly be alive this afternoon? Will I remain until then?
We imagine dying in ten, twenty, or thirty years after gradually bending with age. We assume our children will grow happily into adults, age, and outlive us. We avoid thinking about death until it arrives near us through a parent, friend, spouse, or child.
When impermanence is fully understood, only this moment remains
In fact, I may die ten seconds or one second from now. Once one fully understands that nothing remains fixed and change can occur at any time, only this moment remains. This is not exaggeration. When the body understands that nothing later is guaranteed, the present is all that can be held.
Then unsupported suffering troubling the current mind sheds itself. One does not struggle to escape pain or command oneself not to worry. Before the fact that only this moment is given, sacrificing the present to an imagined future appears foolish.
Suppose an exam comes tomorrow and one suffers now because one has not studied enough. The suffering assumes that tomorrow must arrive. It may not. Anxiety that consumes the present for the exam loses its foundation. This is not forcing oneself to repeat the thought of impermanence; concern about the future naturally falls away.
Planning differs from guaranteeing the future and worrying about it
This does not prohibit plans. If I live another ten years, I can consider how to live and what work to do. Not knowing when I die also means not knowing how long I may live. I may die tomorrow or live beyond one hundred.
Average lifespan is impermanent too. People assume a life around eighty years, but if science alters mechanisms such as telomeres and telomerase, average life might suddenly become one hundred or two hundred years. The unknown future itself expresses impermanence.
Living in the present loosens attachment to past and future
A person who observes and directly sees this impermanent law becomes capable of presence. When only this moment remains, repeated fixation on past pain and pleasure also fades. Apart from remembering and planning when needed, each present instant gains meaning and the rest loses importance.
The future has not arrived, and no guarantee says that it will. Fully understanding this makes a person present and alive now. This is why I call complete understanding of impermanence the Buddha’s original way of being.
Insight and concentration arise together with complete understanding
When complete understanding occurs, calm and insight open together. The ordinary mind becomes similar to concentration, and observation continues naturally. Deliberately entering concentration is one method, but when awakening strikes an object of attachment and grasping is released, stillness like the first absorption may appear.
Observation, the eye of wisdom, concentration, and awakening are not completely isolated techniques. They overlap and influence one another. It is difficult to cut one cleanly from the rest.
I discuss impermanence to show what insight means. Seeing as it is means observing closely without losing the present instant. Because a Buddha lives in the present, the Buddha sees whatever arises in mind and body and whatever occurs in the world, moment by moment, as it is. That is the life of one who fully understands impermanence.
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