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question about impermanence
Hello.
I am new to Buddhism and this site. I am actively studying the Dhamma. There are so many things I have questions about, and I suppose this is good since we are told to question the teachings and see if they work in our own lives, instead of taking it all on faith
I am going through some Buddhist teachings and trying to understand them clearly. I'm taking it slowly to make sure I get a vivid understanding of ideas. I have come across several things in reading that I do not agree with, but the way I see it, I don't have to agree with everything in Buddhism in order to take some of it and profit the world from these teachings.
This brings me to the teaching of annica. Impermanence. All psychological, physical and physiological phenomena are said to be changing. I can not agree with this, but I want to be able to agree with it, so someone please tell me where I may be getting confused.
I will use "character" to support my logic. When someone is called in court to be a character witness, this is based on the logic that people generally have a set attitude, personality or character- a predictable pattern of behavior- that classifies how a person will respond. I have known people who, over the course of 25 years, never changed in their qualities, attitudes, and the actions that spring forth from these attributes. So it is no surprise that courts call for character witnesses when trying to discern the truth in a case.
Using myself as an example, I can still recall actions I took and feelings I experienced when I was only 4. The underlying "feelings" and "intentions" have not changed much for me, ie, I am still terribly sensitive, intuitive and basically, a bleeding heart. These qualities have not changed. I believe they make me who I am. They are my intentions, my purpose and will. I am 29, so along the way, from the time I was 4 until now, there have been obvious modifications to my actions and the way I perceive the world, based on evolutionary experiences, but the essence of "me" hasn't changed. My character is still the same.
Further, I can't accept anatta because of this arguement I present to myself. I fully accept that I may be looking at it all wrong, and that is what brings me here in hopes of finding someone to explain.
Thanks so much.
magpie
I am new to Buddhism and this site. I am actively studying the Dhamma. There are so many things I have questions about, and I suppose this is good since we are told to question the teachings and see if they work in our own lives, instead of taking it all on faith
I am going through some Buddhist teachings and trying to understand them clearly. I'm taking it slowly to make sure I get a vivid understanding of ideas. I have come across several things in reading that I do not agree with, but the way I see it, I don't have to agree with everything in Buddhism in order to take some of it and profit the world from these teachings.
This brings me to the teaching of annica. Impermanence. All psychological, physical and physiological phenomena are said to be changing. I can not agree with this, but I want to be able to agree with it, so someone please tell me where I may be getting confused.
I will use "character" to support my logic. When someone is called in court to be a character witness, this is based on the logic that people generally have a set attitude, personality or character- a predictable pattern of behavior- that classifies how a person will respond. I have known people who, over the course of 25 years, never changed in their qualities, attitudes, and the actions that spring forth from these attributes. So it is no surprise that courts call for character witnesses when trying to discern the truth in a case.
Using myself as an example, I can still recall actions I took and feelings I experienced when I was only 4. The underlying "feelings" and "intentions" have not changed much for me, ie, I am still terribly sensitive, intuitive and basically, a bleeding heart. These qualities have not changed. I believe they make me who I am. They are my intentions, my purpose and will. I am 29, so along the way, from the time I was 4 until now, there have been obvious modifications to my actions and the way I perceive the world, based on evolutionary experiences, but the essence of "me" hasn't changed. My character is still the same.
Further, I can't accept anatta because of this arguement I present to myself. I fully accept that I may be looking at it all wrong, and that is what brings me here in hopes of finding someone to explain.
Thanks so much.
magpie
0
Comments
Have you considered that "anicca" is a Pali word, only one of whose possible translations is "impermanent". Others include: "Inconstant; unsteady".
I'm no expert, but perhaps one way to think about 'impernanence' is to consider something like an itch. When you have an itchy sensation and you withhold scratching it, after a time, it goes away. The itch is both a metaphor and a real thing. You certainly have had the experience of the real thing. As a metaphor, it shows that what one might consider unbearable while it's happening (i.e., itching), once it's over, it's no longer 'real'.
The same is with our minds, ourselves, our perceptions of the things around us. We take them as real but they are inconstant and unsteady.
Others here will certainly be more eloquent than I in such matters. Perhaps this thread is more appropriate to "Buddhism 101"?
Peace and welcome.
Examples, for me...
Fact, each active cell in the body only takes in enough to material to sustain itself for three seconds.
Rub the skin on your arm as the sun shines through the window, even your skin is not permanent.
If you stub your toe today, does the pain continue into the next day, week month, year?
Are your grandparents still alive, great grandparents, great-great grand parents?
Actually, that was a trick question, they are still present within you!! Consder that you are but a continuation of your ancestry, there is a continual life chain that you are connected to that has gone unbroken for a mellinium. Does that thought call you to action!!
I would like to thankyou for the warm welcome. I chose to call myself by the name of a bird that is very common to where I live here in Colorado.
I was thinking about how everything is always in a state of flux, right? So, I may be in a good mood this hour, but a nasty one the next, then a neutral one the next...But within a set of parameters I act, think, etc.
I knew this man for 25 years. He was cruel to all, selfish and mean. He never changed. I always waited for him to but he never did. I mean, he wasn't always screaming, so that wasn't permanent. He wasn't always cursing or lying, sometimes he was quiet. But when he acted, his intentions, his motivations were to cause sorrow. This never changed. How can I therefore incorporate the teaching of annica into this?
Take care,
magpie
I especially liked the example you gave of my ancestors. I have thought of that before and it always tripps me out when I do! It's kind of a rush, of sorts.
Thanks for your welcome.
magpie
In Gassho
As you are a newbie to our site, I HAVE moved this to the Buddhism 101 forum....
But don't let that put you off from looking at, and posting in any thread you'd like to participate in - !!
Well, Impermanence means just that - it doesn't stick around for ever...his means of expression was always in flux....
Are you sure it was always actually his Conscious Intention to cause sorrow....? Was he forever deliberately seeking to make others unhappy? Or was it not just his own internal bitterness and misery that made him act that way.....? Do you not think that maybe, he acted the way he did, with no thought whatsoever to what anyone else was going through....?
I believe that you are speaking of the conditioned mined. What I PM'ed you and the offer I made addresses these things.
See post #2 refering to the conditioned mind.
http://www.newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?p=30751#post30751
A metaphor that I find useful is an eddy in a stream. It bears the same basic shape throughout its "life cycle" in the stream, and yet it is not a real, solid object: it is an ongoing, relatively stable pattern of activity which arises due to specific causes and conditions in the water. When those causes and conditions cease, it will cease as well.
Impermanence doesn't necessarity mean a particular "object" we can identify -- a star, or one's character -- lasts only a second or two and then disappears. The teaching of impermanence is tied in to other Buddhist teachings, some of which emphasize the dependence of all things on various causes and conditions for their existence. One argument is that anything that is dependent in this way is by definition impermanent, since it must have a discrete origin in time and it is continuously dependent on other patterns of activity for its own appearance.
So, taking various character traits that you can identify in yourself or others, how would you describe them? Are they caused (physically, psychologically) or uncaused? Is it conceivable that you could alter those traits in any way, either through a discipline, or through a very significant or shocking event that will destabilize you and cause you to reorganize yourself, or maybe through (God forbid) a brain operation in which a portion of your brain must be removed? If so, the conclusion must be that, even while certain traits appear to be relatively stable and abiding, they are also ultimately impermanent.
Peace,
Balder
I'm relatively new to Buddhism too.
I don't know if the fact that we keep some character traits for a few years - or even for the whole of our brief lives - amounts to a lot in the way of permanence. As Balder implies, certain traits may appear stable, but that just means the conditions for them persist for a while.
As for an eternal soul, I watched my Dad die of Alzheimers. As the disease progressed, I saw what had appeared to be his character disintegrate in front of me. Where was the eternal unchanging "him" then, do you think?
Martin.
Magpie,
I like your questions. We don't have to look at anicca as a constant flux. We know by experience that some changes happen suddenly, some happen gradually, some happen constantly at differing paces. The Buddha mostly taught anicca is a practical matter of seeing that nothing lasts forever and so is not ultimately reliable, ultimately satisfying. And he meant forever. The only way to contradict anicca is to say, despite knowing otherwise, that some observable things we know are not subject to change at all, they remain as they are forever.
Even though we know better, still some things we do habitually see as persistent phenomena. For instance during your lifetime certain personality traits do not seem to change. Also your habit of identifying with these things do not seem to change. Also, for instance, your body changes, but it remains identifiable as the "same" body (I guess thanks to dna, the basic apparent characteristics of your body don't usually constantly undergo radical change as your cells regenerate--you look basically the same as you did a couple years ago, even though you have, basically, a "new body" from the one you had before ), and through this, your identification of this body as "me" is also persistent. However, none of these things is everlasting, or even permanent. As they are, they are given to causes, they are compounded of other elements, and such are they subject to dissolution. What happens to the identity with your body when your body is dead? What happens to the man's persistent mean-spiritedness when his body is dead?
Of course, all this also occurs within the context of a religion that includes rebirth in its soteriology: how likely is it that you would have the same character traits if reborn as a tiger? How about a slug? When all basis of personality has become completely different, is the persistence of personal character traits so credible anymore? Even more appropriate to the Buddha's teaching is: if character is essentially persistent and unchanging, how could cultivation of oneself even happen? How could you improve your character and change your attitude? What would be the use of the eightfold path if your orientation, your personality, could not be changed? This is also one of the reasons why anatta touches on this point as well. Anatta is "not-self," and speaks of that which is impermanent and suffering as "not myself". This is critical, because if the Buddha's teaching is for the ending of suffering, and you really are something that is impermanent and essentially subject to suffering, then no end to suffering could be found or taught. Instead, expressed conversely, only because you are not something that is impermanent, not something that is essentially subject to suffering, or in other words are capably of truly saying "this is not myself," of all things subject to dissolution and suffering, then you are capable of separating yourself from suffering, from casting off the tendency to cling to that which is suffering, thereby ending it.
Part of the persistence of character has to do with the persistence of clinging. So long as we cling, so long does our samsara, our wandering, perpetuate. In other words, we create the persistence of our character by the quality of our deepest willing, and our reluctance to give it up. If our clinging is endless, so is our samsara. But this does not make the objects of our clinging any more desireable, any more permanent. On the contrary, it makes them all the more terrifyingly destitute of any lasting satisfaction. 25 years of a personality trait is nothing in comparison with the long ages we have labored under the perpetual changing of bodies, of realms, of status, of all we contintually wrongly mistake at any moment as "me".
in friendliness,
V.
i still have a weeping heart and its a bizarre and annoying experience.. because before it was just depression from a weeping heart..
now its kind of an accepted.. bandaged heart that is still wounded and won't heal but is mantained better and nursed slightly..
it creates a conflict of emotions in me which is reaally annoying
as for our ancesters i just don't accept that.. i mean i dont think they have anything to do with us.. and i view them seperately because i dont know them and i dont care about them.. nor are they my mind really.. i mean yes their genes exist in me and their presence has surely passed down the line.. hmm mebe they are with me lol.. damnit i understand now lol..
dont see much revelance of them.. i mean really.. the qualities of my parents.. theres a lot i dont want to have and will never have.. i know i have some of their qualities but i've kinda not got a lorra others...
scientists believe your friends influence you more.. so does that mean.. that i have an enormous part of the UK in me?
you must understand the meaning and depth of suffering to patch your heart, it might now heal but at least it will be helped... i need some love..
You asked if the actions were intentionally meant to cause pain...I gues it was a mixture. Of course it was, I know that. It was as if within a certain spectrum, as on a scale from 1-9, there were all kinds of different actions and intentions. Lets say a 1, 2 and 3 were actions that were learned and habitual ways of responding to life. Let's say a 7,8 and 9 were actions participated in that were meant to really hurt others. Where this brings me back to Impermanence and Not-Self is when I consider the spectrum. That 1-9 way of existing in the world was this mans "Self." If everything is always in change, why didn't the [1-9] turn into 20-30]?
Thank you so much for your kindly replying. I enjoy being able to learn.
Angela
I like this metaphor with the water.
take care,
Angela
Actually, I don't know what that is, I haven't looked it up yet - but, be well, and best wishes to you...
Talk later..
I must say, it is beginning to look like humans are the biggest computer, programmable in any way, but when the hardware is changed or removed, the software changes as well.
Where, I wonder, does free will fit into all of this? Maybe I should start a new thread.
Angela
In your last post, I liked the content is consciousness theme.
I have never really identified with my body because, the way I was raised was to believe that I had a soul that was the real "me" and that the body wasn't really me. So, when I came to Buddhism, I already understood that concept. If I was my body, I should be able to change it and make it as I wanted it to be, but as it is, oh well.
I don't know? I get confused when I hear of people who've had near death experiences and say they were still themselves when they went to the other side. Then I have read that the Tibetan Buddhists believe in the bardos, and I don't know what all goes on there but from the little I've read it seems like Catholic purgatory. I just don't know if this man's mean spiritedness will end at his death, or maybe continue as such and therefore have a rebirth in which this predominat characteristic will continue in another realm. I suppose if it did, it could change there too. That's impermanence, right?
Nope. I see what you're saying.
Where does free will play into this? Free will is just the Christian word for volitional action and thought. What could move a person to want to actually change for the better?
What could make this man want to change?
Many thanks for the woderfully helpful post, V. I look forward to continuing this.
Take care,
Angela
Hi again, Angela,
Maybe we are getting around to the idea of conscience? It is said in Buddhism that a converted disciple of the Buddha has a sense of shame or conscience over faults in himself. I guess this means that they have seen a better way, have had a taste of a happiness found through pacifying oneself rather than through their former worldliness, and so have a guide to keep in mind (sati) as they seek to increase the way. In other words Buddhists have a guide in the vision of Right View, borne more and more in mind through Right Recollection. So, in the case of an unconverted person just wanting to change their attitude, I think probably the only way to it would be to get a glimpse in themselves one of two things: how the course they are on will bring worse things for them, not better; or to get a taste of a higher happiness than what they know now together with the knowledge that it is in increasing store for them only if they turn to a better way. A third alternative would be a realization of compassion, or a sense of the golden rule.
You do have some interesting questions. I don't have answers to a lot of it, just thoughts.
in friendliness,
V.
I know what you mean here, because I have begun to experience this already. I am starting to view all things as conditioned, therefore not worth getting terribly upset over.
As far as the ancestor thing goes, I just look at it like the existence of a "family culture." My family definitely has a culture, although not a skillful one. I found many of the things that had been passed down, at least since the time of my great grandmother, were so difficult to overcome. But because of being able to see others in society, I took inspiration from them and changed. Then, there's the genetic component. All I know is that, without the genes of all who came before me and helped contribute to me, there would not be a me.
That's what we studied in Psychology too. I can see how that would be true. So, I guess we are partly our friends too.
take care,
Angela
This is inspirational. It also helps me to be more non-aggressive when I encounter a person who appears to be intentionally causing suffering. Maybe such a person has not met with the right conditions that would prompt him to have a conscience. Maybe he does not practice Right Recollection. Or maybe he just isn't capable of tasting the means to true happiness.
Thank you.
Angela
Welcome, Magpie. Nice to see you!
Brigid
I think that free will is a very appropriate subject for Buddhist debate. There is always a risk that, in reaching for some understanding of karma, we fall into the trap of determinism. Start a thread!
And welcome to this friendly campfire "amid th' encircling gloom."
Take care,
Angela
Thanks and take care,
Angela
The way I see it, all things are born and all things die therefore it is the nature of all things to change. Change is a natural and necessary process for all of us as living creatures. It's all part of the ... y'know ... impermanence of the Cosmos.