Broken Buddha — Contemplating Impermanence
“‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.” The Buddha
Lately, the evidence of impermanence has been repeatedly bashed against my brain and heart like a bird pecking and chasing a cat from its tree. Most recently, in a “life is funny way”, I came home to find my favorite Buddha smashed on the floor. (The feline at fault still receives sidelong glances) This wasn’t just my favorite Buddha. It was an inheritance from someone dear to my husband. It was beautiful. It was perfect for our home. It was the Laughing Buddha which spoke to me, and had instant meaning in my life once it was discovered in an old storage unit. Its pure form mirrored the abundance and happiness that I have felt for our life changes over the past year.
Learn more about my experiment by reading The adventure begins…
As the symbolism of the event started to sink in, I realized that life has been teaching me about impermanence over the last several months. From birth to death, routine to chaos, and joy to depression — it has been a regular primer on Buddhist practice. At moments, the suffering I felt due to events was so intense that I was sure I was seconds from imploding. Despite my stubborn need to hold on to the pain, impermanence swung back around and taught me again. A smile is all it takes to break the suffering.
Impermanence effects all thing. It is neither good or bad. It is simply a constant. In Western culture we have many idioms to explain this. For example: “Nothing lasts forever.” While this phrase does not capture the depth and significance of the concept of impermanence within Buddhism, it does well enough to remind us that all things change. A bad day ends when we fall asleep, the last mile of an uphill ride will be conquered, and joy is nothing without sadness.
In a way, our experiment to cast away possessions, travel halfway across the country, and make drastic changes to our careers and health is an experiment in impermanence. Soon enough my husband will have the career he strives for and his internship will be over. We will have yet another routine to adjust to, a new home to discover, and maybe — just maybe — I’ll have improved my health. When this happens, I will thank the universe for the existence of impermanence.
“It is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during his entire life time. He changes every moment. He actually lives and dies but for a moment, or lives and dies moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next.” Urbandarma.org.
