According
to the Buddha, all worldly phenomena including our lives, are marked by four
characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dhamma seals of existence;
impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), no-inherent self (anatta) and
Nirvana.
Recognising
these qualities to be real and true in our own experience helps us to accept
things as they are. The first mark is impermanence – that there is nothing
static or fixed, everything is fleeting and changing. One doesn’t need to be a
scientist to know this.
All
the four seals are interlinked and interdependent. The nature of impermanence
is caused by the fact that everything is made up of smaller parts which are
constantly changing in relation to each other. Before prevailing events or
thing can settle down and be over with, new stuffs or dynamics will crop up
incessantly; that’s the frustrating part (dukkha) of samsaric existence. Apart from facing the changes of
external maternal things, we, the experiences ourselves are also impermanent
(anicca) and insubstantial (anatta). It is our continual failure to take this
into account that makes us suffered and to remain in samsara.
To
gain wisdom we have to fully realise the reality of these characteristics in
the whole of our experience, not simply abstractly or intellectually accept
them. Emotionally, we have a deep aversion to impermanence when things are
going well for us. As deluded beings, we then to seek security with the belief
that we can find it; psychologically we want permanence; we expect permanence.
We treat impermanence as aliens and with discomfort, expending our energy
trying to ward it off. When we abhor aging, we consume pills, buy
lotions/creams or undergo cosmetic surgery with the delusion that we can
somehow miraculously escape the truth of impermanence and death.
Being
aware of impermanence to gain wisdom in the Buddhist understanding is not
enough, we need to accept it in our daily experience. For example, parents may
be acutely aware of the fact that their children are growing up, but it is
still often difficult for them to adjust to this fact emotionally by giving up
their attachment to having control over their children’s lives.
Bereavement
is another effect of impermanence which is very difficult for many people to
adjust to it, though the key is to accept that a death has in fact occurred and
that one’s world is no longer the same. It is relatively easy for most of us to
accept impermanence in general, but much harder to really bear in mind that
things are impermanent when we make decisions in our lives. For example, people
who buy a car, a handbag, the latest piece of hardware or software for their
computers would rarely reflect on how quickly they will become obsolete, and
people falling in love rarely think how the other person can change from the
one they fell in love with.
Being
aware of impermanence in these situations doesn’t necessarily mean not buying a
car, a handbag, software or not falling in love, but it will at least add a
tinge of realism to our decisions in these situations, and help to put things
in the perspective of the four characteristics of existence taught by the
Buddha.
Criticisms
Criticisms
of the doctrine of impermanence from non-Buddhists tend to come from two directions.
On the one hand there are those who deny that all things are impermanent. On
the other are those who accept this point but deny that the recognition of
impermanence and suffering is a positive move.
Those
who would disagree that all things are impermanence and subject to
dissatisfaction or suffering would include most theists. They would claim that God
is permanent, the heavens are eternal and that there may also be other
spiritual things that are permanent, such as the soul.
Those
with a materialist view are more likely to accept that all material things
constantly change, but they see life as a constant struggle against change
rather than accepting it. For example, human ingenuity may be able to design
more durable objects that can last one’s life period. To them, they view that
too much acceptance of death as pessimistic or morbid.
Denial
of the Atman
No-inherent
self (anatta) doctrine is the Buddha’s teaching to debunk that there is an atta
(Pali) or atman (Sanskrit), which roughly translated means a soul.
Atman
is the word given in Brahmanism / Hinduism to the true self which continues to
exist eternally, which travels from one body to another in the process of
reincarnation. One of the ways in which Buddha challenged the teaching of the
Brahmins of his day was by challenging this orthodox Hindu belief in the self.
For this reason anatta is often translated as ‘no-self’.
However,
the Buddha does not claim that there is definitely not a physical self, only
that the self we tend to identify with is not fixed. The teaching of
impermanence which we have already examined, points out that we are always
changing or in a state of flux, and this implies that there is no fixed part of
ourselves which remains unchanged. If nothing remains unchanged, there is
nothing which can contain a fixed or final identity.
There
are various aspects of our bodies and minds which we may identify with and
wrongly believe to be our true selves. The Buddhist teachings exhort us to
avoid attachment to the idea of any of these as really ourselves. It is this
which has led to the teaching of the five aggregates of being (known as the
five khandhas in Pali or skandhas in Sanskrit), that provided us an analysis to
show that the existence of our body and mind is all merely a process.
Conclusion
The
Buddha’s teachings aspire to set us free from the bondage of relating to
worldly conditioning. They encourage us to relax
wholehearted
into the ordinary and naked truth of changes, impermanence, suffering and
non-substantially. We can learn not to hold tightly to the erroneous view that
that we or anyone for that matter, can manage to avoid uncertainty.
Ultimately,
the only solution to impermanence is to find meaning and purpose in what is
Nirvana. This is expressed in the Udana, Khuddaka Nikaya
of the Pali Canon:
There
is an unborn,
not become, not made,
uncompounded, and were it not for
this un-
born, not become, not made, uncompounded,
there could be shown here no escape
for what
is born, has become, is made, and is
compounded.”
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