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| There's an orange clown on the TV every day! |
Will the world end? How will the world end? When will the world end? Why will the world end? Questions, questions. Of course, the world will end. Not any time soon, but never mind about that. It's always ending, constantly hurtling towards destruction. "Change is the only constant," some wise person once said. That person was talking about what the Buddha called anicca. We translate this as "impermanence," but that's very limited and misleading. We prefer flux, dissolution, or radical impermanence, though "change" also works.
The idea is that, that something will change is no kind of message to the world. Of course, things are impermanent. We all know that. Only a child would think things are going to stay the same. (Guilty! And we're old enough to know better). It might be better to investigate how things are going to change because that sort of explains the why. The when is easy! Right now. Now. The eternal now. When is a mountainside not crumbling? Even as geological forces send it up, it is already disintegrating. When aren't human cells dying? They are always dispatching and falling off. That's what it means to have a body, though we don't much notice, know, or want to know.
How are things changing? Little by little until they give way to a noticeable amount. The more closely we investigate and notice, the more and more we become aware of when and how this is happening. It can become so upsetting that we stop clinging. Why, being ourselves impermanent, would we chase and cling to impermanent things?
It's all in the mind?
The Fire Sermon
Once upon a time, the Buddha was walking along the river and he came upon 1,000 fire worshippers with their matted locks or jatas, wandering ascetics in search of truth. They saw him and were moved by his gravitas, charisma, and appearance. He himself was a wandering ascetic but a Scythian (Shakyian) from the West, serene, and delightful to look upon. What could he possibly have to say about ultimate truth? See "The Fire Sermon."
- After Skool, "These Unprecedented Times"; Buddhism Podcast; Dhr. Seven (text), Amber Larson (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
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