Impermanence

I know I have touched on this before in several of my posts, but I haven't given a whole post to it... until now. Impermanence is many things. It is a noun meaning "Not lasting or durable; not permanent", it is something that everything is subject to, and it is a state in Buddhist beliefs. I think I will be referring to all three in this post - and not even on purpose!


I choose to use the word "mandala" when giving myself online names, and in other places. This is because the sand mandala takes a long time to make, each intricate detail meticulously fussed over by its creators, and when finished it is beautiful. It blows my mind that such a beautiful thing, that takes so long to make, is so easily ended. That's right - they make these things and then they ruin them on purpose - it is a metaphor for life and everything in it. Everything is impermanent - everything.



This particular mandala was apparently ruined by a small boy - not the ritual ruining that usually happens where they swirl it all up with a large paint brush - no, a small boy messed it up because it was fun to do so. Everything ends and not always the way it was meant to.

We all know this all too well and humans for centuries have tried various ways of evading it. From keeping artefacts for the afterlife in Egyptian pyramids, to today's plastic surgery to make us look younger. We are all in denial. We have always been in denial. We keep the Royal Family who are and have always been obsessed with keeping the bloodlines alive. We do that on a smaller scale with those biological urges to continue our genes - often in some kind of attempt to replace ourselves and somehow keep a little of us alive. Our governments try to keep the economy alive even though it is killing our planet. Denial denial denial.

I am in denial too. I know all of this stuff and yet I am terrified of impermanence. I don't want to die. I don't want to not exist. I don't want my beautiful friends to move away. But I will, and they do. Like anybody else I cope with these things because I have to. You have to carry on knowing that everything beautiful will end - including you. I think if we actually had a real concept of what that means, life would become either a lot harder to face - or we would live it with much more passion. It is interesting that when we know something has to end, we either jump right into it or we hang back a bit from it because we don't want to get attached. This is usually my experience anyway, depending on the thing. Each week goes by and we can only look back on it. Events in the future are looked forward to and then they are over. What seems like it is a long time away eventually becomes a memory. This is scary, but this is real. Each experience is fleeting.

I use this word "mandala" to remind me so I never lose sight of this fact. There is no silver lining to it. You may get married but it may not last because happily ever after is a myth. You may have children but they are not you, and they never will be. Neither will their children. Everything ends. Bad things, good things, everything. The trick is to enjoy them now. But how the hell do you do that? It's always in the back of your mind that it will end, right?

This is what I seek to discover.