Loving Impermanence
Impermanence is an inescapable feature of a compassionate reality.
The ability to adapt, make, and use things, is a quality human beings possess. On the most basic level, manipulating stuff is essential for wellbeing and survival, and this is nothing but impermanence too. Obstructions appear when our creation and use of things (including thought), is seen as a corrective to impermanence. There is no fault, remedies or cures are neither needed or possible.
As there is nothing outside of impermanence, it is misunderstanding that allows for the development of fear and doubt of this aspect of existence. Within acceptance, neither impermanence or permanence arise, and so there is no need to conjure up ideas about either. Acceptance actualises a flawlessness that doesn’t come, go, or stay and cannot be grasped by thought; an unbreakable constant of the permanence of impermanence. It is only from a delusive viewpoint that impermanence or permanence become things to contend with. The same is true of anything that can be given a name.
This is a part of what is found in what used to be called, the great matter of life and death. To clarify this great matter requires an ongoing and thorough surrendering of oneself, a capacity which is always graciously allowed for. When someone is giving themselves like this, they are nothing more or less than just themselves, they live and die fully without avoidance or complaint, and within this, there is everything.
“Ultimate serenity is the coming to rest of all ways of taking things, the repose of named things; no truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone, anywhere.”
– Nagarjuna (c.150-c.250 CE)
Willard Lee October 2025