Without impermanence, there would be no beauty.
If it were possible to eradicate impermanence, from that point on there would only be a hellish eternity where nothing moves or breathes.
Doubting impermanence, we may attempt to create a permanence and imagine that it is working. This could be a dramatic manifesting of delusion, or more commonly a quiet, repetitive desperation of unease. Because these efforts immediately and continuously fail, our sufferings aren’t such an unremitting hell as above, but more like momentary, accurate reflections of the distortions that we are creating. Even though there may persist a perception that permanence is desirable, and that a separate self really does exist independently, it’s a good thing that neither can be made absolute.
The way of zazen is the way of our own original nature and the way of enlightenment. So it is the way of impermanence too. In practice we are steeping ourselves in the dynamic factors of existence, letting them infuse us, not fighting or holding them at bay. It can be known throughout our being that impermanence is not eroding the integrity of anything at all but a ceaseless vibrant interplay, the dance of connection. All this is ordinary and not necessarily exciting or obvious to our conscious mind.
The story of impermanence is good to know. To go on and realize that the story is not what impermanence actually is, is much more significant because it actually transforms experience and behaviour. If I think that I understand impermanence because I know the story, I still believe that I can have a point of view on it and that it is enough. Quickly that point of view masks doubt and continues problems because it is encouraging the perception that something is permanent and outside of everything else. Should this belief ever meet impermanence it would lead to its imagined destruction and this is frightening. In effect the illusion of control is only crippling as long as it is in the driving seat, when released, it’s clear that nothing is destroyed.
Realizing impermanence throughout body and mind is making real the colourful, tonal, changing activity of being, there is no need to speak again of impermanence or permanence when it is like this for us. Even though impermanence is invisible to the eye, somehow there is a beauty and generosity to its dynamic and so there can be appreciation and gratitude for the way things are. The precepts, (the moral and ethical teachings), are intertwined with impermanence and no- separate self. Far from making the world pointless, actualizing impermanence respects and cares for the precious uniqueness of each and every moment and thing, without this being a burden or requiring artifice.
We laugh and clap our hands at a delight and weep and hurt at loss. The way of enlightenment doesn’t wipe out human nature but makes clear that there is no experience to avoid or seek after. There is no need to be confused about what life brings, nothing is truly coming together out of nowhere to impact on us, and nothing can be magically created from a vacuum by our own efforts. Conceptual understandings of life are good but not enough on their own. When we are stuck with intellectualism and idealism, there are seeming paradox’s blocking our path. Thankfully we can give up trying to be right in our our own heads and misusing thought to control. The way of our original nature is to entrust ourselves over and over to the faultless rich detail of existence by giving ourselves to it willingly. In doing so we share ourselves too.