Okay, so I guess we can start this evening's talk.
And tonight I'm going to talk about impermanence.
This word impermanence is a very central word in the Buddha's
teachings. A very important part of how we
look at the world from a Buddhist point of view.
And so it's a very core aspect of what we do in a sense as
Buddhists. How we look at the world, how we
deal with our lives, this idea of impermanence.
And sometimes the word impermanence itself comes from a
Pali word which is Anicca. Pali of course being one of the
most original languages that Buddhism was original.
That Pali proclaimed in pretty much very close to how the
Buddha himself taught the Dhamma two and a half thousand years
ago. And the word he used was Anicca
in that language. And sometimes when you translate
a word from Pali into English, you lose some of the nuances of
that word. Right?
When you translate in one way you call it impermanence.
You may lose other aspects because words never map one to
one from one language to another one.
Right? Right?
That's what we're looking at. Yeah.
It's not just impermanence but you have words like being
irregular. Right?
Something which isn't constant. And even things like unreliable
is actually a good translation of the idea of Anicca.
Things which are unreliable. Right?
Things which you can't really, can't rely on in this world.
And to me the idea of unreliable is often much more, has a much
more powerful emotional ring to it.
Right? Right?
impermanence.
If something is unreliable to me, it's bad, right?
If you have an unreliable friend, how do you feel about
that? You're not really sure, okay,
maybe they're becoming an ex-friend at the moment they
start to become unreliable, right?
Friendship is part of that, is about reliability, about being
able to trust somebody. So unreliable to me is very bad.
So you have this broad spectrum of meanings, and they really all
combine into this term anicca or impermanence.
Uncertainty is another one. Things are uncertain.
You don't know what's going to happen next.
Things are always subject to change, moving around, ceasing,
coming to an end, whatever it is.
And so this is to give you some idea of the spectrum of this
word. Now, even though anicca,
impermanence, is a very important part of the Buddhist
teaching, very central to Buddhism.
And I think impermanence in many ways is very intuitive, right?
We grasp impermanence quite easily because we can see
impermanence in the world around us with a fair amount of ease if
you want to. But it's also very profound.
And this is the difficult part of it, is to go from a
superficial acceptance of this to actually to deepen it in our
life and to understand this idea more profoundly.
This is really the hard part. And this is what the Buddhist
practice is all about. It starts off with understanding
it in a fairly simple way, and then integrating it into our
life, and eventually understanding it in the most
profound way possible. And that understanding of anicca
in the most profound way, that actually is one of the ways of
understanding the idea of awakening itself.
A full understanding of impermanence actually is nothing
else but awakening. Seeing of the world as it
actually is. Awakening to the truth of
existence. And before I maybe start to talk
about how to deal with this in ordinary life, how to reflect on
this, I just want to talk a little bit from the viewpoint of
the Buddha, how the Buddha talks about impermanence in the
suttas. Suttas are the word of the
Buddha, the discourses of the Buddha.
And one of the ways of understanding this is how it
integrates with the other factors of the Buddhist path.
Now some of the other factors of the Buddhist path, one of the
obviously important ones that we always hear about in Buddhism,
one of the reasons why Buddhism is sometimes called pessimistic,
is the idea of suffering, dukkha in Pali language.
And there's a very close relationship between the ideas
of anicca, impermanence on the one hand, and dukkha on the
other hand. Suffering and impermanence are
very, very closely related. And it's important to understand
that relationship. Why is it the Buddha always
says, whatever is impermanent is suffering.
So why is that the case? Why is what is impermanent
suffering? And it's actually very simple,
right? One of the reasons why that is
the case is because one of the aspects of being a human being
is that we attach to things in the world.
We grasp onto things. We pick things up.
We take up views in our life. We attach to material
possessions. We attach to relationships.
All of these kinds of things. But if things are impermanent,
if things are always changing, if things are always ceasing, if
things are unreliable, and you attach to unreliable things, if
you attach to your unreliable friend, right?
But it's actually not people who are unreliable.
It's nature that is unreliable. Nature is changeable.
So when you attach to that, you suffer as a consequence.
Because it gets pulled out of your grasp.
As soon as you attach to it, not as soon as you attach to it, but
once you have attached to it, sooner or later it's going to be
pulled out of your grasp. And then you suffer because of
that. So suffering and impermanence
are two sides of the same coin. One must lead to the other.
As soon as you attach to something, you're asking for
trouble. Right?
It's one of those weird things because it's kind of very
different from how people often look at life.
But actually, from a Buddhist point of view, as soon as you
attach to something, you're asking for trouble.
You're asking for suffering somewhere down the line.
So suffering and impermanence are intertwined like this.
But it's also intertwined with this other very profound, even
more profound perhaps, teaching of Buddhism.
And this is kind of the teaching, again, around which
the deepest insights on the Buddhist path all revolve around
this. And this is the teaching of
Buddhism we call non-self, anatta in Pali language.
So why is it that anatta and impermanence, why is it that
they are non-self and impermanence, why is it that
they are related to each other? And the reason is because the
whole idea of a sense of self is the idea, first of all, of being
able to control things. Right?
The self is what controls the world.
We exercise our choices, we exercise our ability to do
things in the world, to get things in a certain way.
And then impermanence says, no, you're not going to get your
way. So impermanence undermines that
whole sense that we are in charge and we can control things
in the world. So whenever you feel that you
are in control, in charge, be careful.
That's a delusion. It's an illusion.
You're not really in charge. And that too is going to be
shown to you sooner or later if you just keep on looking at it
and investigating it. And the other aspect is that the
idea of self revolves around this feeling that there is
something essential to existence.
Right? There's something essential.
Which I call me. I exist.
I am somebody. I am...
And this sense of I that each one of us has inside of us, it
actually reflects a certain wrong view about something being
permanent. It may not be obvious to you.
You may not even be able to see that.
But that actually is what is the case from a Buddhist point of
view. So once you start to see
impermanence, this idea of non-self also links in with
that. So this is very powerful.
Very powerful stuff. And very useful also to start
reflecting on because it guides you in the right direction on
the Buddhist path. And the last aspect of the
Buddhist teaching that impermanence links in with is
the idea that things are conditioned.
Right? Things are not...
Things don't stand alone like something solid, something
always existing. This is what the sense of self
tells us. Things are not existing.
Things kind of... You know, things are solid.
They can be kind of relied on again.
But no, everything is conditioned.
What we are as human beings, we are the sum really of the causes
and conditions that always impinge on us from the outside.
We are the sum of all those things coming from the past.
From a Buddhist point of view, even past lives are a part of
this. Right?
All of these things come into being.
And that is what we are. The person we are right now.
And this is a very interesting way of looking at the world.
Because when you understand that everything is just causality,
everything is conditionality, it does something to you.
It changes our outlook. It changes the way we deal with
the world. The way we deal with ourself.
And it has very important implications for that reason.
And I want to talk about some of those implications here tonight.
What this actually does to us. When we take on board the idea
of impermanence in a much more deep fashion than perhaps we are
used to. So this is the idea.
And as I said, it is really a very profound teaching.
But it also has some very, it is also very obvious in a certain
way. It makes a lot of intuitive
sense to us. That things are impermanent.
Things are changing. And very briefly, you know.
If you think about society around us, kind of the world
around us. You can see, right, how things
are always changing around you. The world around us, always
changing. You look at the, you know, this
planet. You look at the cities.
You look at the city of Perth, right.
How it is growing and becoming larger all the time.
And this is true for cities around the world.
Right. I remember seeing a picture of
Perth from the 1960s. And it was very different from
what it is now. It was just this little town.
Now it is like becoming a large city.
You can see this transition happening all the time.
And of course, you see things happening in the natural
environment. Right.
You see climate change happening.
The summers are getting hotter. The oceans are rising.
You see the, you see all of these things happening in the
world around us. And one of the things, of
course, one of the natural responses that we often have.
Is that a lot of these things, many of these changes are kind
of frightening. Right.
And it's just so boring. You read about things like
climate change. And nobody really knows exactly
what's going to happen. If it's going to be very bad or
just a little bit bad. Or exactly what it is.
But it's kind of concerning. And one of the things that you
start to realize when you do that.
People start to want to find people to blame.
Right. And this is one of the things
that whenever I, often when I read the, sometimes when I read
the newspaper. The West Australian or whatever
it is. And you see about the failures
in our society. So called failures.
Of course it isn't really a failure at all.
You know you see things like the bush fires that devastate so
many families. You see kind of the power supply
does, is not really reliable. Right.
People are complaining about the power supply.
People are complaining about the police.
The police not doing their job. The crime rates are going up.
And it's always about blaming people.
We have this blame game. The world is changing.
Impermanence is affecting us. The world, you know.
The natural law of the way things have to be is affecting
us. And our response is to blame
people. To blame the world.
To say they are not doing the job they should be doing.
Right. This is often the response.
And of course one of the reasons.
There's a couple of reasons why we respond like that.
One of the reasons is because of you know over the decades and
the last few centuries. You know humanity has been very
good at building up lots of technology.
Right. And I think a lot of that
technological prowess that we have built up over the last
couple of centuries or whatever it is.
Has made us feel a little bit kind of invincible.
This idea that we can do anything.
We can control nature. We have already been controlling
nature quite a bit. Right.
Building massive dams everywhere.
And trying to predict the weather and hurricanes and all
these kind of things. And of course some of that is
good. Some of it may not be so good.
But we have had a lot of good things.
We have had a lot of success. And because of that I think we
have these expectations. That we are going to be able to
tame nature. Tame the world.
And control everything. So this is perhaps one of the
obvious reasons why we feel that kind of impermanence shouldn't
really be there. Things shouldn't be unreliable.
We should be able to make everything.
To control everything. To mold everything into our
image. And the other one is of course
the sense of self inside of us. And this is the ultimate reason
why we think that we can control the world.
Because we have an innate feeling that we are in charge.
We are in control. This is our world.
Right. These are our people out there.
These are the cities that we have built.
If we have built all this stuff. If we have done all these
things. Then surely it means that we are
ultimately in control. And because of that we go out
and we believe that we can control everything in the world.
Ultimately. And then when things go wrong.
We blame people. Somebody must be at fault.
Right. If we are in charge.
If we are the choosers. If we are.
If we have the ability to control the world.
If things go wrong. The blame has to fall back on
us. And this is why you always see
in the papers. People blaming each other.
This blame game going around. Saying who should be fired.
For the latest catastrophe. For the latest problems.
For the latest whatever it is. Whatever it is that doesn't work
in our society. So this is one of the problems.
This blame game. It's a terrible thing.
I think often it makes our society much more harsh.
When we are always blaming people.
We are always finding a scapegoat.
We are assuming that people are ultimately responsible for these
things. But is that really so?
And of course the Buddhist answer really is that no.
In the end it isn't so. People too are part of this
network of causality. People are what they are.
Because of the cause and conditions in their life.
And then they act in certain ways.
Because of other causes and conditions.
So in a sense they too are victims.
In a sense they have very limited choice in their lives.
They are kind of part of this stream.
It's like this river of humanity rushing forward.
Society moving forward. And we are each like a drop, a
molecule of water. In this massive river rushing
forward. And we are conditioned from all
sides. By all the other molecules.
By the force of this river rushing forward.
And there is actually very limited scope for action in us.
And so this is part of the problem.
This kind of blame game that happens.
And of course we become risk averse.
If you think that you are going to control the whole world.
Well of course you become risk averse.
No risk is worth taking anymore. Because you think you can
control everything. And prices go up.
Insurance premiums go up. Everything becomes expensive.
This is another perhaps side effect of this controlling
thing. But there is another way of
looking at this. There is a better way of
understanding all of this. Rather than thinking that we can
control everything. And that is to remind ourselves
of this basic Buddhist teaching. Things are unreliable by the
very nature. Things have come into existence
through unreliable causes. That's why they are there.
Take away those unreliable things.
Take away those unreliable causes.
Because they too are impermanent.
And then the results, the unreliable results also cease as
a consequence. So this is a beautiful way of
looking at other human beings. Instead of blaming other human
beings. Understand that they too are a
result of all these causes working on them.
Instead of blaming the person. We will try to find the source
of the problem. Why did these things happen?
Why did this person make this mistake?
We can assume it wasn't really...
They didn't really want to make that mistake.
Or even if they wanted to, why did they want that?
So we go to the source of the problem.
And then when we go to the source of the problem, then we
can actually change things. Rather than blaming people.
Understand impermanence. Things must be unreliable.
Sometimes you can't change things.
Sometimes disaster will happen. And that is okay as well.
And I think one of the... great examples of this.
I remember reading a few years ago a beautiful story.
This was also in the West Australian.
And there was a story about a judge who had worked in the
north of WA for... I think he worked up there for a
long time. Several decades I think.
Maybe in Broome or something like that.
And he had worked up there for a long time.
And of course he had seen a lot of bad things when you are a
judge. One of the downsides of being a
judge is seeing all the crime and all the negativity.
But of course being a judge also gives you a chance of doing good
for society. And this judge, I was very very
impressed by his attitude. And he told this story.
And he had written it into the West Australian.
It was published in the West Australian.
And he told this story of this Aboriginal kid.
That one day he was sitting presiding in this court.
And this Aboriginal kid was brought in.
Right? Kid 10 years old, 12 years old,
something like that. This very shy little kid.
Right? He couldn't really see and look
anybody in the eye. Because he was too shy.
And whenever he spoke he kind of had this very low, very lack of
confidence in him. No confidence in speaking in any
kind of public setting. Right?
When there was anybody around. Even though it was just a
courtroom. Still this shyness.
Right? And we know, as an aside from
the Buddhist teachings. You know that if you live an
immoral life, a bad life. You tend to feel more shy.
You're very withdrawn. Not really confident in that
kind of public situation. So he was there.
And of course as soon as he was brought into the court.
This judge remembered this kid. Right?
This kid was coming in almost every month.
Because every month this kid had done something stupid.
Right? Like stealing something from a
shop. Often just petty little
offenses. But it was so regular.
That this kid would come back and back and back again.
And very often of course the prosecution would demand he
should be put into some kind of child detention.
Right? To kind of make sure he didn't
mess around anymore. I'm not sure exactly how these
things work. But this judge.
He knew this child. Because he had come so often
into the court. And he knew his history.
He knew his background. He knew that he had never really
had a father in his life. Right?
And the degree to which he had had a father.
He was just abuse and difficulties all the time.
He knew he had a mother who was an alcoholic.
Who had never really looked after him.
After him at all throughout his whole life.
And because he knew that. He knew that his childhood had
been so incredibly difficult. What this child needed was more
punishment. This was this judge thinking.
It wasn't more punishment. More punishment was just going
to make things worse. All his life.
All he had ever received was punishment.
And looked where it had got him. Absolutely nowhere.
Except for back into court. Again and again and again.
So the judge thought something else is required.
What can we do? And then because he was the
presiding judge. Because he was the one who was
going to pass judgement. And also the penalty.
He said to this kid. I will make a deal with you.
If you can stay out of trouble for one year.
I will buy you a bicycle. Right?
A bicycle doesn't sound like much.
Kids these days have all kinds of stuff.
Just a bicycle. This was back in the 1970s and
1980s. No doubt it was more valuable in
those days. But to this kid it meant a lot.
Somebody showing kindness to him.
Right? Somebody doing something
different for once. And the kid said.
Okay. One year I can do that.
And of course the kid went out. A year passed by.
And then they met up again after a year passed by.
And of course that kid had not been seen in court in that year.
So the judge then of course. Being the man he is.
A man of honor. He says I will honor my promise
to you. And he goes to this bicycle
shop. And this kid chooses his
bicycle. Of course he chooses a nice and
expensive bicycle. That's the way things usually
go. But of course.
He does that. He is very happy to pay for that
bicycle for this kid. And he gives the kid the
bicycle. And then the kid gets on his
bicycle. And sort of rides off into the
sunset. Right?
And this is the real sunset. This is not the sunset of some
kind of cowboy movie. Where everything.
We have no idea what happens afterwards.
This is the real sunset. He rides off.
And the judge said many years later on.
He met this aboriginal kid. And he had a steady job.
And he was doing well. And life had been in a sense
turned around for this kid. So this shows you.
What can be done if we deal with the unreliability.
And the difficulties in life. In the right way.
It would have been easy for that judge to say.
Well lock up that kid in some kind of safe place.
Where he can't mess around anymore.
And he can't go to jail. And then of course that would be
like. The controller in us.
Who wants to control things. Right?
These kids need to be controlled.
Okay we put him there. He can't do anything bad when
he's there. And that would be the end of it.
But this controller is lying to us.
It doesn't work. And it had been shown already
for so long with this kid. That it wouldn't work.
So there's another side of it. Which says there are causes and
conditions. And there's a way to resolve the
root problem. Rather than kind of.
Try to resolve this in a superficial way.
And of course that is exactly what he did.
He went to the root. He showed kindness.
He showed compassion. He opened his heart to somebody.
Who probably had very rarely received any kindness in their
life. And when you show people
kindness. You get a response.
Right? The response is you want to live
up to that. You want to show that you're
worthy of that kindness. Isn't that often the case?
When people are kind to me. I feel wow I've got to be worthy
of this. If I'm a monk.
People come to the monastery every day.
And offer food to the monks. And I think wow I've got to live
a good life as a monk. I can't just be a scallywag
monk. Right?
A dodgy character. Shady character.
Kind of hiding my head in shame when people aren't around or
whatever. You've got to do a good thing.
You live up to people's expectations.
When they are kind to you. Kindness is incredibly powerful.
And it's a society which understands causality more.
Instead of punishing people. Instead of fault finding.
Instead of writing about people in the papers.
Finding scapegoats for all the problems in society.
Firing them. Saying you've been a bad person.
Instead search for the root problems.
It's not always going to work. We know that.
Some people are not going to be affected by those kind of
things. But very often it will work.
And if we do that. I think we are building up a
society. Which is not always going to
work. Which is more compassionate.
More kind. We have a softer heart inside.
And we don't become so harsh. Sometimes I feel disappointed.
You know you read in the paper people's opinions.
And often it is too harsh in my opinion.
We are not going to create a nice society.
Where we can relax and feel at ease.
If we are too harsh with each other.
We need more understanding. And with that understanding
comes the solutions. To many of the problems in
society. But anyway.
That is society. Right?
You can say that with society. It's too difficult.
It is too hard. I am just one small person.
I don't know what I can do with society.
I think each one of us. If we do what is right.
We have an effect on the society around us.
So it will help. But really even more powerful.
Than looking at society as such. Is to embrace the idea of
unreliability. And impermanence.
In our own lives. This is even more powerful.
And again. It is very intuitive.
I am sure you will agree. That if you look at your own
life. You will see how unreliable
things are. How impermanent things are.
How things are always changing in your own life.
You know whatever property that you own.
Whatever house you have. Whatever things you own in your
life. You see how it is always
deteriorating. Always kind of going down.
Always becoming worse. You have to kind of prop it up.
To keep it going. The house needs a new coat of
paint. Because the paint is falling off
the walls. And gradually things are always
falling apart. Around you.
I always like to. When I look at my.
I live in this little hut in the forest.
At the Monastery. It is great to live in a little
hut in the forest. I can really recommend that.
It is a wonderful thing to do. But what I like to look at this
hut. It is a double brick concrete
ceiling. Concrete floor.
When you go in there. It is like being in this cave.
Which is part of the idea. To have kind of a cave in the
forest. But I also like to look at the
impermanence of that little hut. As soon as this hut is built.
You start to look at it. You start to see things kind of
chipping in the corners. A brick is chipped here.
A brick is getting loose. There is a little bit of rust
perhaps. On the steel rafters.
Some of the paint is coming off the ceiling.
There is a, you know, the gutters aren't working properly.
Whatever it is. As soon as it is built.
You can start to see it falling apart.
And that is this metaphor for life.
The metaphor for everything in our lives.
So notice that. Take note of how everything all
the time is falling apart in your life.
Gradually, gradually eroding. Gradually, gradually falling
apart. Right?
That's life. That's how it is.
You are going to suffer. Because if you deny it.
You are living in a different world from reality.
If you are living in a different world from reality.
It is going to be problematic for you.
There is going to be a clash between your ideas.
And the way the world actually is.
So it is important to be realistic.
This is part of what the idea of Right View is about.
Being realistic. About how the world works.
And of course it is not just the external things.
The things in your life which are impermanent.
But a lot also of the other things in your life.
More of the things that are closer to you.
Your views. Your emotions.
And all of these things. The relationships you have in
life. All of that too is impermanent.
Right? One of the great things I think
to remember the impermanence of is your views.
I think this is very powerful. I think we often think that our
views of the world. We tend to think that we are
right. Right?
Fair enough. We have to think you are right.
You wouldn't have that view. That's fair enough.
But remember that your views themselves are conditioned.
Why do you have a particular view?
Why do you come here on a Friday night?
Why do you think of yourself as a Buddhist?
Why do you have a certain political leaning?
Right? Well you think it's right.
But remember they are conditioned.
These views exist because of how this network of conditions has
given rise to them. They are not really solid.
They are not absolute truths as such.
It depends on how you look at things.
Look at things slightly differently and you stop being a
Buddhist and you become a Christian.
Right? It's not such a massive change
in outlook. I wouldn't recommend it but
sometimes it happens. So, and remember that.
Because when you remember that it makes you a little bit more
humble about your views. I remember when I was young.
You know, I'm now over 50. But I remember when I was in my
kind of teenage years, in my early twenties.
Wow, I was so sure of myself. I thought I knew exactly how the
world is. Right?
This is the right way. Everybody else is wrong.
I know what it's like. And I feel slightly embarrassed
now. But thinking about that, I feel
cheap as I was really stupid in those days.
And now I see over the last 30 years how my views have kind of
changed completely. In those days I wasn't a
Buddhist even. I was kind of nothing really.
And then gradually now I'm a Buddhist.
My political views have changed. Everything has changed so much
in that period of time. So remember that.
Your views are impermanent. They are unreliable.
They are always changing. Yes, they feel true to you.
But remember when somebody challenges you that they are
not, they are only conditioned phenomena.
It makes you a bit more humble. It makes you more able to listen
when somebody else is speaking. It makes you not so confident
about everything you believe in. And that, I think, is a very
good thing. Too much confidence, I think, is
a sign of ignorance in our lives.
Humility about our views. Humility about our beliefs.
Humility about our understanding of the world is a positive and a
good thing. So that already is very good.
It means that there are more clashes.
We have less arguments with people because we have more
humility about these things. Another idea which we often
cling to, of course, is the idea of Buddhism.
You know, you are perhaps a Buddhist.
I don't know, probably some here today who don't really consider
themselves a Buddhist. But let's say that you are
interested in Buddhist teachings.
Let's say you consider yourself a Buddhist.
Right? And then you look at the state
of Buddhism in the world. And sometimes you think, gee,
Buddhism is going downhill. Right?
Right here in Perth it's quite strong, it's going very well.
But if you kind of look at the general trend of Buddhism, you
kind of think, wow, this is looking scary.
I don't know where this is heading.
How many more generations we have left and maybe Buddhism
will be completely gone. Now, what is our response to
that? When you see that unreliability,
even of something which is maybe so close to you, which is so
important to your life, something that gives your life a
sense of direction, a sense of meaning.
That's what Buddhism is to me. It's something that gives my
life a very clear sense of direction and a very powerful
sense of meaning. I feel my life is very
meaningful, not precisely because I'm a Buddhist, and also
perhaps because I'm a monastic. But these two things obviously
go together. So what if this thing which is
so important to me, is not so important to me?
Is it permanent? What should I do?
And of course one response, and this is one of the responses
that you see around the world, one response is to say, well,
this Buddhism is unreliable, I will look to the next Buddha.
The next Buddha is probably coming soon.
That is what I'm going to worship.
Because then I'm worshipping something, I'm honoring
something that is certain. Because we all know that the
future Buddha will come one day. Some people call this future
Buddha, Buddha Maitreya, right? So Buddha Maitreya will come.
I will worship this new savior, and then I will get the
teachings directly from this Buddha.
Now I feel kind of a bit in the dark.
There's no Buddha around, right? What a wonderful thing to get
the teaching directly from the Buddha himself.
So forget about Buddhism now, it's all over anyway, and let's
kind of look into the future and worship the future Buddha
instead. And unfortunately, you see a lot
of that happening around the world.
You see these Buddha statues being built, you know, in so
many different places in the world.
These enormous Buddha statues costing tens of millions of
dollars, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars.
Enormous things. Sometimes they have shopping
centers inside, right? That shows you how...
That gives you some idea how dodgy it is, right?
And this is how a large part of the Buddhist population around
the world is spending their time honoring, worshipping some
future Buddha that we don't know anything about.
Yes, there will of course be a future Buddha, because future
Buddhas, Buddha is just a natural phenomenon.
Every now and again somebody reaches awakening through the
right practice, through the right way of looking at the
world. So every now and again there
will be a Buddha arising in the world.
But the next Buddha, when is it going to be?
We don't know when it's going to be.
Are we going to be around when this Buddha arises?
We have no idea. But if there is a Buddha, would
you recognize him as a Buddha? Probably not, right?
You probably dismiss him, yeah, yeah, whatever.
You see this in one of the suttas, one of the discourses of
the Buddha. This is exactly what happens.
There is this disciple there, this Brahmin who talks, and
somebody wants to show him the new Buddha who has arisen in the
world. And he says, yeah, whatever, not
interested in that nonsense that this Buddha is talking about.
So these are the problems. But we have to say, this
possible Buddha of the future, we worship something we don't
know anything about. It's madness.
It's absolutely crazy. We have the beautiful teachings
now. What impermanence, what
unreliability, rather should teach us is not to look towards
something in the future we don't know anything about, but rather
it should tell us that we have the teaching now, at this
moment, this day, this life, it is all available to us.
Today is my opportunity. Today is my opportunity to be
kind to somebody. Today is my opportunity to say
something nice to somebody. Today is my opportunity to have
a kind thought. Today is my opportunity to have
a kind thought. To practice these teachings in
the right way. This is the right way of dealing
with that unreliability. Not by worshipping something
which is completely uncertain in the future. which is completely
uncertain in the future. And also, I think personally,
when we have these amazing teachings of the Buddha, it is a
lack of gratitude to the Buddha. To our Buddha.
The Buddha who is already arisen in the world.
It is a lack of gratitude towards him when we go
worshipping something else which we have no idea about.
These wonderful teachings are there.
This very beautiful, peaceful man who lived in India two and a
half thousand years old. Two and a half thousand years
ago. You can imagine him in your
mind's eye. I like this kind of idea of
imagining the Buddha. You see him in the forest in the
north of India sitting at the root of a tree.
He looks like an ordinary man, right?
And then you approach him and you come into this presence of
somebody who is so peaceful. Somebody who doesn't talk very
much. But then when you engage this
person in conversation, you feel a sense of profound compassion,
understanding, wisdom. It's powerful.
Just imagine that two and a half thousand years ago.
He is the one, this Buddha, who bequeathed us all these
teachings that we now have today.
They are available in the library right here at the Paloka
Center. Go there, read some of those
teachings. They are very powerful and very
beautiful. And when you remember that, you
feel a sense of gratitude towards this person.
Somebody with a tremendous insight into the human
condition, into what it is to be human.
And then, I think, that is when you are on the right track.
Forget about the future Buddha. If there is a future Buddha,
allow that Buddha to come when time is right.
And then we can talk about that Buddha.
Not now. So this is some, again, ideas of
how to deal with this idea of impermanence in our life.
It's important to grasp these things in the right way, and not
to be silly about it. And so all of these things,
right, in our life, our relationships, all our
possessions, all our ideas, all the things we take up, our
status in society, the religion we have, everything is
impermanent. Everything is unreliable.
So what can we do about this? What should we do?
How can we live our life to deal with this in a better way?
Well, the first thing that we perhaps need to ask, is there
anything at all we can rely on? If everything is always
changing, where can we stand? What can we do?
It's one of those interesting things in Buddhism, is this idea
that when you really understand impermanence in a profound way,
in a profound sense, it is as if you understand that it's as if
you're saying, you're standing on the carpet that somebody is
holding, and somebody is going to pull out from under your feet
at any one time, right? When somebody pulls out the
carpet from under your feet, you fall, you stumble.
And this is life. Life is like that, because of
the uncertainty of life, because everything is always unreliable,
it's as if the carpet is always being pulled out from under your
feet. You will stumble, because you
are attached to things, those things you are attached to will
eventually show their unreliability and impermanence,
and then the carpet will be pulled away.
So if the carpet is always being pulled away, if everything is so
unreliable, what can we do? And the answer of course is, and
this is one of the reasons why the Buddha's teaching is called
a refuge, because it is precisely a refuge from the
unreliability of the world. It's one of the few places you
can go, and you can get some guidance for how to deal with
this. You go to the teaching of
Buddhism, you go to wherever these teachings are found, and
there you can come to understand how to deal with these things.
This is why, one of the main reasons why we have this.
And the first thing that the Buddha has to say about this is
that just reflecting on it itself is very powerful.
So remember to remind yourself of the problem of impermanence.
Remember that things really are impermanent.
Remember this in your daily life.
The Buddha quite specifically says that we need to remember
that everything that is dear and agreeable to me will become
otherwise, will become different.
Everything that is dear and agreeable to you will change,
right? This is the first thing.
And when you do that, every time you reflect like that, every
time you take that a little bit deeper than before, and you
remind yourself of all the things, right?
Everything. So you can start to understand
the circle of things that you that are unreliable.
Start with the easy stuff so you don't feel too challenged and
gradually move out to the more difficult stuff.
But when you think of that you start gradually to detach a
little bit. You don't hold onto those things
so strongly anymore because you understand that if you do, it
will give rise to suffering. But there's a very important
counterbalance to that because if you do detach from many of
the things in the world, you have to find some other place to
find security, to find happiness.
If all our happiness is found in our belongings and our
relationships and you see those things as impermanent, you see
those things as problematic, you have to find your happiness
somewhere else. That is where the teachings of
kindness, of morality, of goodness, of thinking kind
words, of doing meditation practice, where all of that
comes in. Because every time you do
something kind, every time you avoid doing something bad, every
time you have a kind thought and you develop your mind in
compassion and understanding of the people around you, you're
building up happiness, you're building up peace, you're
building up contentment inside of you, you're building up a
sense of independence. And this is really a very
important part of the Buddhist path, this independence that you
start to feel inside of you after a while.
The world doesn't matter so much anymore, the world can go this
way or that way, but I still have this inside of me, this
sense of solidity, this sense of freedom from the things around
me. This is what you're building up.
So these things have to go together, right?
Reflecting on the one hand, yes, things, everything that is dear
and agreeable to me, what are these things, right?
Count them up, they are all unreliable.
One side of the story, the other side.
Act in a good way, and when you do those things together, you
act in a kind and compassionate way in the world, and you
reflect in the wise way, these two become two sides of a very
powerful way of living. And it gradually moves you in
the right direction. But sometimes I know people say,
it is difficult, how do we really bring on board, how do we
really get a good feeling for this idea of impermanence, that
things are unreliable, how can we actually get a real gut
feeling for these things, right? It's important that these things
become emotional. This shouldn't just be
intellectual ideas that kind of swirl around our head.
How does it go deep inside of us?
And one of the ways of doing that is to take notice when in
your life something drastic happens.
At a certain point we all experience impermanence in a
very powerful way, right? Those are the times to really
reflect on these things. Wow, it really is impermanent.
When those things happen sometimes we just end up
grieving, we end up becoming sad because somebody dear to us has
passed away or is very ill, some very difficult thing has
happened in our life. We end up just grieving and
being sad and we forget to use this as an opportunity to also
grow in wisdom. Sure, of course, very often
there is going to be some grief and sadness, but also remember
that there is a way of dealing with this from the point of view
of Dhamma, from the point of view of Buddhism.
Reflect on this. Remember this is a fact of life.
This is the way it is. And when you take that on board,
when it actually is happening to you, right here, right now, it
becomes very powerful. We had a very small example of
this here for the whole Buddhist society.
That was just a week ago. And some of you may know that we
had a very senior Sri Lankan monk known as Bhante Gunaratana.
He is very beloved around the world, a very very old now,
almost coming to 90 years old. When kind of monks and nuns
become very old, wow, they become so venerated, right?
People really love the really old monks and nuns for a good
reason. You have been a monk for a long
time. You have got a lot of wisdom.
You have shown that you have practiced this life well.
Otherwise, you wouldn't have lasted so long.
And he has been a monk for like 70 years or something, right?
70 years as a monk. You know, I am not even close to
getting that old myself. But, so he was supposed to come
to Perth, right? But of course, you are getting
towards 90 years old. It is very uncertain.
And we all thought he was going to come.
He was going to lead a weekend retreat here.
But then just before the retreat is to happen, about five or six
days before, we get to hear, we get an email saying, sorry, he
can't come. He has been hospitalized in Sri
Lanka. Supposed to come from Sri Lanka.
He actually lives in the US, but he was visiting Sri Lanka at the
time. He has been hospitalized and
told not to travel anywhere for a week.
Because his health isn't quite up to it.
Right? And that was because he is a
very beloved in Buddhist circles.
Many people in the Buddhist society here were looking
forward to meeting him. He has been here before.
Last time he was here was maybe 20 years ago or something.
I remember meeting him myself when he was here.
He is a very nice, very, very wonderful old monk.
And teaches very good meditation.
And people were very disappointed.
But then, of course, the way, the right way, the right
attitude when that happens is to remember of course it has to be
like this. This is the nature of existence.
It's unreliable. It's impermanent.
It's uncertain. You have no idea what's going to
happen next. I was foolish to think that he
was going to come in the first place.
We all fall into that trap all the time.
It's impossible to avoid falling into that trap.
Occasionally you may avoid it, but generally speaking you have
to fall into that trap. And then you remind yourself, I
was foolish in thinking that. That's what I reminded myself.
And then initially you feel a bit of sadness that he can't
come. But then you let go.
You think it has to be like this.
He will now probably never come back to Perth.
He's just too old. We'll never see him again.
And when you take it on board, when you remember this is the
nature of life and it sinks into you, something beautiful
happens. You're letting go.
Right? You are letting go you
understand not only is this true for this particular situation,
this is a truth for life in general.
This is always the case. When you see one example like
that, it has ramifications for your whole life.
The letting go becomes quite big.
And when you let go, something very amazing and powerful
happens when you let go. When you let go, every time you
let go, you feel peaceful as a consequence.
Why? Because the opposite of letting
go is holding on. The opposite of letting go is
attaching. The opposite of letting go is
desires. When you let go, all of that is
gone. When you have no desires, when
you have no attachments, when you have no holding on to the
things of the world, you naturally feel peaceful.
Desire, craving is an unpeaceful state of mind.
When that is gone, you feel peaceful according to nature.
It just happens. This is the power of letting go.
This is the power of understanding impermanence in
the right way. So it's a blessing, right?
It is not suffering to go around thinking about impermanence and
unreliability. It's not, oh no, everything is
so unreliable. My friends are going to pass
away. No.
When you think about in the right way, it's a beautiful and
wonderful opportunity to let go of the world around you.
And you start to feel a beautiful sense of peace inside
of you. This is the real power of this
teaching. And I would recommend you when
you come here to the Dhammaloka Center, or if you go to Jhana
Grove or wherever it is, and you do some meditation practice for
yourself, see that impermanence in action inside of yourself.
Right? You sit down for a while, you
start to feel more peaceful. Why is that?
The reason is because you have let go of stuff.
That's basically the reason. And the more peaceful you feel,
the more stuff you have let go of.
The less things you are thinking of, it means you have let go of
those things. And when you start to get very,
very peaceful, it's like you're just inside of yourself.
Inside your own little cocoon. It's as if the whole world
outside you has disappeared. You know that feeling when that
happens? It feels so safe inside of you.
This is your real home, right? This is where you really belong.
Safe inside of yourself. And then, again, you understand
the power of impermanence. All of those things that you
were holding onto before, all of those things that were important
to you, you have let go of them. They are gone.
And how do you feel? Much, much, much better as a
consequence. You start to see that this idea
of things fading away, things being impermanent, when it is
applied in the right way, is an incredible blessing in your
life. It is something very beautiful,
something very powerful. And that is the real lesson of
impermanence. It is how we look at things,
that matters. If we look at impermanence in
the right way, instead of being a problem that we have to fight
in society, that we have to fight to stay alive because we
don't want to die, instead we understand this is nature.
We let go. We become peaceful.
And our life takes a turn for the better.
And we start to look at life in a different way.
And it becomes very, very powerful for us.
Okay. That is the talk for this
evening on impermanence. Okay.
So, are there any questions or comments or anything else,
anything anybody would like to say?
There is, of course, a very well-known teaching that often
is mentioned here at this time, is that if you want to be wise
in the future life, you should ask questions, right?
That is the way to do it. Anybody want to say anything
here? Oh, over there.
Okay. Great.
Hi. Thank you for the great talk.
Is the paradox of impermanence that there is a permanence of
peace? There is permanence of peace?
Or being able to return to that place?
Is there any impermanence or impermanence?
Okay. Okay.
There isn't really, because that peace itself is a conditioned
thing, right? So you, the reason why you
become peaceful, you know, you might come here to the
Dhammaloka Center every week, perhaps, take part in the
meditation, all these things, and one thing that you find out
is that some weeks, you actually become quite peaceful.
Other weeks, you're all over the place.
The mind wants to think about all kinds of stuff.
It is so variable, right? And the reason why it works in
certain weeks is because you are able to touch those right causes
and conditions that give rise to peace.
So peace itself is a conditioned phenomenon.
It happens because you're tapping in to the right things
that actually give rise to this thing in the first place.
So is there any permanence in impermanence?
It's interesting. Is anything at all permanent in
this world? Is there anything we can rely
on? And the Buddha actually says
there are certain things that are permanent.
And the things that are permanent are really the ways
that nature functions, the laws of nature are really permanent.
So impermanence itself is, if you like, permanent.
Things are always impermanent, right?
This is the way it is. Another thing which the Buddha
says is permanent is this thing which is called dependent
arising, dependent origination, which shows you how things arise
in the world. In particular, how suffering
arises in the world based on delusion and lack of
understanding. So some of the laws of how
things work are always there, always the same laws.
But actually, the experiences we have, the experience of reality
is always impermanent. Yes?
Just a question. You talked about being kind and
noticing conditioning in somebody.
You know, noticing the condition that has caused someone to be
cruel or difficult or even difficult to you.
One of the things I've found is even though I can see the
conditioning, sometimes there's a need to be right in that
situation. Sure.
But there's the ego or whatever just, you know, because this
person is, in some way, it's affecting you or affecting me,
it's very hard to sort of lean on the compassion because you
feel attacked. Yes.
Indeed. And I think it's very important
to also bring, remind ourselves that we too are conditioned,
right? You are conditioned as well.
And your ability to forgive somebody who's been very
difficult in your life and not to feel right about yourself,
you know, you have to understand that this is probably the way
you have to be at that particular time because of all
those causes and conditions. And to forgive somebody who has
been very difficult towards you is going to take time.
And you have to give it time and you have to allow yourself time.
This is about compassion for yourself.
Don't expect too much of yourself either.
As long as you're moving in the right direction, that's really
all you can expect. You can't change yourself, bang,
like this in one moment. That's almost impossible.
That is impossible. It's a gradual path, a gradual
movement. So you too are conditioned.
The same compassion understanding that you show to
other people, you also have to show to yourself.
You're also part of this. But sometimes it's so hard,
right? Because it feels like we are in
charge. We are responsible.
It's very difficult to fully grasp the conditioning of
ourselves. But that is also a very
important part of it. So yes, you feel that you are
right. And that is okay to feel that
you are right. And that's perfectly, you know,
at that time, that's what you have to feel.
Maybe you are right, for goodness sake.
Might very well be the case. But by understanding your
conditioning, by understanding the conditioning of the other
person and gradually deepening that, gradually, gradually, all
those things will tend to disappear over time.
Thank you. I guess the good thing is, the
positive thing is that in those cases I've been aware of the
conditioning. There's some compassion sneaking
in there, even in a difficult situation.
It's just hard to sort of go completely with the compassion.
Sure, indeed. Well done.
Good. Okay.
Um...
Anything else? Anybody else?
Everybody happy? Everybody is happy.
That's good. Okay.
Thank you. Okay.
So here we have some questions from overseas.
This is from Chris from Germany. This is from Chris from Germany.
I would like to know if everything is uncertain and
falling apart, how to find hope and still stay positive through
life? Well, this is kind of the point,
right? Just because it is really our
attitude to things falling apart, which is the most
important one. And with the right attitude, as
I was saying towards the end of my talk, it becomes a force for
good instead. Because it means that you can
allow you to let go of things in the world.
This is the beautiful thing about that.
And you find so much more contentment and happiness
ultimately by understanding that impermanence, by embracing it,
and by trying to fight it all the time.
Our world is almost about fighting impermanence.
It's not going to work. You have to go with the flow.
And then as you go with the flow, and you allow things to be
impermanent, boy, you can find so much happiness as a
consequence of that. And also remember that one of
the great things is if you are somebody who practices the
Buddhist teachings, this is precisely what the Buddhist
teachings are about. They are a refuge from these
problems. That's why they are called the
refuges, right? Sadhana, sadhanang in Pali.
So you go to the Buddhist teachings, if you feel a kind of
sense of despair, just read what the Buddha has to say about
these things. Lift up your spirits, you feel
so much better. It's not actually a cause for
despair at all. Why?
Because there is a solution. There is a way out.
There is a way forward. Choose the way forward.
And then the opposite happens. What happens is that you feel a
sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, that there is a place
to go. A place where you can free
yourself from all those problems.
So, no sense to despair. Instead, do it in a positive
way. It's an important question
though, so thank you for that. This is from Indonesia, from
Adri Sentosa in Indonesia. If all of this world is
suffering, and we should let it go, should all of us become
monks? If everyone is a monk, what is
the best way to get rid of it? What would the world be if
everybody becomes a monk? Well, if everybody becomes a
monk, great! Wonderful!
That would be great! If everybody wanted to practice
the spiritual life to the maximum, I think it's a
wonderful thing. Let everybody become a monk.
But I challenge you to try to persuade everybody in the world
to become a monk. It is going to be a very tall
task in persuasion to be able to do that.
It's never going to happen, right?
People ask this question often, what if everybody becomes a
monk? But really, it's a non-starter
because it's never going to happen.
We're not going to have everybody being monks or nuns in
this world. It just doesn't happen that way.
So, in a sense, you find this already in the Buddhist
community. The Buddhist community is nicely
divided between monastics on the one hand and the lay community
on the other. They're like two pillars
supporting each other. That's a wonderful thing.
Maybe not everybody should be monastics.
Maybe not everybody should be monks or nuns.
It depends, right? How committed you are.
It depends on your ability to practice this path.
It depends on the commitments you have in lay life.
So maybe that isn't the best way anyway that everybody becomes a
monk or nun. Maybe some people should stay as
lay people. Maybe that is the fastest path
for certain people. I don't know.
I don't know if monastic life is well lived.
It is by far the most powerful path because you're fully
immersed in these teachings and fully immersed in the practice.
But I'm very glad we have lay people to support us, right?
Otherwise we'd be very thin up at Bodhinyana Monastery.
We'd be like a bunch of skeletons up there.
So it's great to see many of you coming there.
Many of you are regulars up there.
It's a wonderful thing. So we support each other.
And remember that if you support the monastics as a lay person,
get some joy out of that, right? It's a wonderful thing to be
able to support the monastic community in their practice.
It's a wonderful thing for me as a monastic to support the lay
people in their practice. We are supporting each other.
Isn't that a wonderful thing? And when we support each other
we grow a very strong and powerful Buddhist community as a
consequence. So please don't worry about
everybody becoming a monk or nun because it ain't going to
happen. Last one.
This is from Maja from Slovenia. Dear Ajahn, is it right of you
to find good in impermanence? It is just nature, right?
You can't really say that impermanence is good or bad as
such. It is just the nature of things.
The world is, things are impermanent.
So it is just nature. And when things are in a certain
way, we have to accept that. If we try to say, oh I don't
want to see, oh it's impermanent, no, no, then of
course we are creating trouble for ourselves.
We have to open our eyes and see things in accordance with
reality. So it is neither good nor bad.
We just make the best of the situation.
When you understand that there is impermanence, OK, we deal
with that in a different way. And one of the ways of dealing
with that is by letting go. This is the powerful result of
seeing impermanence in a deeper way.
And you let go more and more and more.
And as you let go, you find this beautiful peace inside of you as
a consequence. So neither good nor bad.
Just make sure you take on board these truths in your life.
Then it becomes as good as it can be.
OK. So that is all for tonight.
So let's just pay respect to the Buddha Dhamma Sangha.
Svarga Sammasambuddha Bhagavan Buddha Bhagavantham Bhagivadhe
Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha Svakkha
Svakkha Svakkha Thank you.
Thank you.