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Impermanence: Good, bad or both?

WisdomandcompassioWisdomandcompassio
edited October 2010 in Buddhism Today
I am interested to read your thoughts on this.

Impermanence is an important teaching in Buddhism. Some people believe impermanence is a negative because
- Happiness and good times will end.
- Death
- Can seem to make life pointless: If we die anyway, what is the point of life?
- Creates suffering. Good times end and bad times eventuate.

However, there are positives to impermanence too.
- Because everything is impermanent, that means negative situations will end too. Also, because everything is subject to change, impermanence gives us hope for improvement. If things were permanent, then will would never recover from negative situations. Suffering is impermanent. So, impermanence causes suffering yet it also relieves suffering.
- Impermanence leads to learning, improvement and progress. Without, humans will still be living primitively.
- A temporary positive experience is better than never experiencing it at all. This is my answer, to if we die anyway, what is the point of life?

My opinion is that impermanence is both, in some situations impermanence is viewed as a negative and in others it is viewed as a positive. Impermanence is an imperfect, and it has positives and negatives.
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Comments

  • ShiftPlusOneShiftPlusOne Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Wouldn't impermanence be neither? Impermanence just is, any label is a subjective judgement of it's effects.
  • WisdomandcompassioWisdomandcompassio
    edited October 2010
    ShiftPlusOne wrote: »
    Wouldn't impermanence be neither? Impermanence just is, any label is a subjective judgement of it's effects.
    I agree. Impermanence without considering its effects is neither.
    Impermanence considering its effects can be negative, neutral or positive. And even negative, neutral and positive is subjective.
  • EngyoEngyo
    edited October 2010
    Want a koan?

    Impermanence (change) is the only constant.
  • GuyCGuyC Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Wisdom and compassion wrote: »
    - A temporary positive experience is better than never experiencing it at all. This is my answer, to if we die anyway, what is the point of life?<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

    Realizing there is a way out of impermanence gives purpose to life.
  • naturelovernaturelover
    edited October 2010
    GuyC wrote: »
    Realizing there is a way out of impermanence gives purpose to life.
    Realizing that all is impermanent is freeing. From that realization, we can move on.
  • nanadhajananadhaja Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Engyo wrote: »
    Want a koan?

    Impermanence (change) is the only constant.
    Hey i get that one...................or do I?:confused::lol::eek:
  • GlowGlow Veteran
    edited October 2010
    In and of itself, impermanence is neutral. However, the path of the Buddha is one in which we learn to transform the truths of impermanence, not-self and suffering into causes for rejoicing. Here is how Pema Chodron puts it:
    It’s easy to get the idea that there is something wrong with imperma*nence, suffering, and egolessness, which is like thinking that there is something wrong with our fundamental situation. But there’s nothing wrong with impermanence, suffering, and egolessness; they can be celebrated. Our fundamental situation is joyful.

    Impermanence is the goodness of reality. Just as the four seasons are in continual flux, winter changing to spring to summer to autumn; just as day becomes night, light becoming dark becoming light again—in the same way, everything is constantly evolving. Impermanence is the essence of everything. It is babies becoming children, then teenagers, then adults, then old people, and somewhere along the way dropping dead. Impermanence is meeting and parting. It’s falling in love and falling out of love. Impermanence is bittersweet, like buying a new shirt and years later finding it as part of a patchwork quilt.

    People have no respect for impermanence. We take no de*light in it; in fact, we despair of it. We regard it as pain. We try to resist it by making things that will last—forever, we say—things that we don’t have to wash, things that we don’t have to iron. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

    Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality. Many cultures celebrate this connectedness. There are ceremonies marking all the transitions of life from birth to death, as well as meetings and partings, going into battle, losing the battle, and winning the battle. We too could acknowledge, respect, and celebrate impermanence.
    Source: When Things Fall Apart
  • ZaylZayl Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Answer this, and please think long and hard about it.

    Would you want to live for eternity?
  • WisdomandcompassioWisdomandcompassio
    edited October 2010
    Zayl wrote: »
    Answer this, and please think long and hard about it.

    Would you want to live for eternity?

    Insightful responses!

    As for the question, depends on the quality of eternal life and on the absence or presence of impermanence.

    Ideally I would prefer eternal life with impermanence that enables us to improve but without the impermanence that causes us to decay. I know that sounds contradictory, but there is some impermanence I prefer to have and others I do not.

    If it was eternal life but with no opportunity for improvement or compassion, then, I would rather be mortal.

    If it was a difficult eternal life filled with suffering that cannot be relieved, then I would rather be mortal. If the suffering can be relieved and progress made, then yes, I would like to say.

    In a way, our lives are already eternal. We have past, present and future lives. Even people who do not believe this, I believe, that there is more to our existence than is not revealed to us when we are alive.
  • WisdomandcompassioWisdomandcompassio
    edited October 2010
    Glow wrote: »
    In and of itself, impermanence is neutral. However, the path of the Buddha is one in which we learn to transform the truths of impermanence, not-self and suffering into causes for rejoicing. Here is how Pema Chodron puts it:

    Source: When Things Fall Apart

    I love the article!
  • TheJourneyTheJourney
    edited October 2010
    Zayl wrote: »
    Answer this, and please think long and hard about it.

    Would you want to live for eternity?

    If you're asking in regards to nirvana, I would definitely say that nirvana is different from living forever. There is a fundamental difference between nirvana and samsara: in nirvana, there is no suffering. It is greater than even the highest heavens.
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    edited October 2010
    OP: Because in truth all things possess the quality of no-self, or are empty, we are already eternal. This is not to say there is a being or entity that is eternal, but only that the constituent parts that make up these bodies now have always been and always shall be (in one form or another). All transient phenomena arise and fall, eternally. :)
  • naturelovernaturelover
    edited October 2010
    Cloud wrote: »
    OP: Because in truth all things possess the quality of no-self, or are empty, we are already eternal. This is not to say there is a being or entity that is eternal, but only that the constituent parts that make up these bodies now have always been and always shall be (in one form or another). All transient phenomena arise and fall, eternally. :)
    Except of course for those people who attain Nirvana.
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Remember that there is no self nature. Even those who attain Nirvana are still subject to old age, death and dissolution of the aggregates. The matter that composed those aggregates is recycled and will constitute new life in the future. Whether you believe there is a "consciousness" that is specific to those aggregates that will not arise again... that's up to you. But impossible to say that those aggregates are no longer a part of existence; they always will become new things (that is to say, there's nothing new only new aggregations).
  • TheJourneyTheJourney
    edited October 2010
    nature lover wrote: »
    Except of course for those people who attain Nirvana.

    Nirvana just is. "People" don't attain nirvana.
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