Change Is Inevitable

Sand Mandala a Buddhist Symbol of Impermanence

A major concept that the Buddha taught his followers was that everything is impermanent and that nothing will last forever; we will all grow old, become ill, and die in our lives and there is nothing that we can do to stop this. Impermanence is used in Buddhism to help people realize that nothing is forever and to not become too attached to people and items in our lives because that is one of the reasons why we suffer. “What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not” (132). We suffer because we enjoy our friends and our family but we have a hard time realizing and coming to terms with the fact that family members will die and friends will come and go, and so we become too attached to. When you care too much you suffer when that relationship ends or possession breaks.

“Flowers decompose, but knowing this does not prevent us from loving flowers. In fact, we are able to love them more because we know how to treasure them while they are still alive” (131). This quote is true, we cherish people in our life, friends, and family members, because we know (we don’t like to think about it but deep down we all know) that friendships can change and that people can die and so we value them and our interactions with them. The fact that nothing is forever makes us treasure a friendship or our mother much more than we would if everyone lived forever. This pushes us to make the most of our time with those people and to give them the attention that they deserve.

Impermanence is something that I have a hard time dealing with even after learning about this concept in Buddhism. When I was young and during the summer, after completing the 4^th grade, we moved from California to New Hampshire so my dad could retire. I was ok with this because I was young and not really aware of what was going on, but I still had friends in Californian and used my time left in California to hang out with them a lot. I was pretty sure that moving all the way across the country would make keeping my friends and actually doing things with them pretty hard. After the move I tried to keep in contact with them but ultimately it amounted to nothing. I suffered because I tried to hang on too long and cared too much about them. The next summer I had completely forgotten about them and was ok with losing those friends because they were replaced with new friends in New Hampshire.

I learned the lesson of moving on and that things change back then and even now have learned it through my ethics class but I am still really afraid of losing my laptop, (looking for something... a little more deep there?) although losing a loved one will be worse but I really don’t have that much control over family members or friends and whether or not they will stay my friend or pass away so I don’t worry about what I don’t have direct control over. However, my computer is under my direct control and it is my responsibility to keep in working order for work and entertainment. It is the possession that I care the most about and still even now as I’m writing this blog post I would be really upset ( to put it nicely) if it was broken or destroyed. In order to guard against the latter it is locked to my desk all the time and as for keeping it in good condition and working, I still have the plastic covering over the screen on it (Now I am cheating a little here, originally it was left on to keep dust out but now is only on it because I’m too lazy to take it off but officially it’s because I don’t want the damn dust on the screen). I care to much about it and would become upset if something happened to it because replacing it would be hard to do and I don’t think I will ever be able (unless I have a replacement  for it) to not care this much about it. If I had a replacement it would be ok but until that comes it will remain under (literal) lock and key (Again I’m cheating here a little bit because it will always be locked when I’m not there because that’s the smart thing to do but I only have a lock for it because I care a lot about it, it’s a catch 22).

     Nhá̂t, Hạnh. The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy & Liberation. New York: Broadway, 1999. Print.