Come with me for a walk in the woods. It is hot, silent, and nearly midday but there are patches of shade here and there where we may sit.
Around us trees of forty years are only twenty feet high, so great is the struggle to survive. Many die young and never mature. You can see their young skeletons being relentlessly devoured by the termites. Taller trees are scattered here and there, battered survivors of a continuous fight for life. Many of their limbs have been torn off in sudden monsoon squalls, or else they have rotted away by fungus and disease and finally fallen off. You see that "sawdust" about this tree? Its top will soon fall as some grub is eating away its heartwood. Look over there at that young tree all askew — its roots have been attacked by some predator and so it has been blown over….
What have we seen that does not pass away? Even though I may say that I look out of the windows of my hut every day and see the same trees, how near to truth is this? How can the trees be the same? They are steadily changing, they are unstable and certain to come to an end in one way or another. They have had a beginning and they must have an end.
And what about this "I" who sees these trees, the forest, the burning ground and so on? Permanent or impermanent? Everyone can answer this question, for we have seen the answer in the forest.
When "I" feel depressed and look at the trees they seem stark, ugly moth-eaten specimens. But when "I" am glad and look upon them, see, how beautiful they are!
If, while on our walk, we looked only at the impermanence "out there," now is the time to bring the lesson home to the heart. Everything that I am is impermanent, unstable, sure to change and deteriorate.
If impermanence meant change all the time towards better and happier states how excellent our world would be! But impermanence is allied with deterioration. All compounds break down, all made things fall to pieces, all conditioned things pass away with the passing of those conditions. Everything and everybody — that includes you and me — deteriorates, ages, decays, breaks up, and passes away.
And we, living in the forest of desires, are entirely composed of the impermanent. Yet our desire impels us not to see this, though impermanence stares us in the face from every single thing around. And it confronts us when we look within — mind and body, arising and passing away.
So don't turn on the TV, go to the pictures, read a book, seize some food, or a hundred other distractions just to avoid seeing this. This is the one thing really worth seeing, for one who fully sees it in himself is Free.
— Phra Khantipalo, A Walk in the Woods
May we see the impermanent as impermanent - and not build our house on sand,
Simeon
Quote of the Week
“All conditioned things are impermanent—when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”
— The Buddha (Dhammapada, Verse 277)
The Unreality of You
Step into the heart of Buddhist philosophy with a question that’s as unsettling as it is liberating: do you really exist? This video invites you to loosen the grip on fixed identities and consider the fluid, ever-changing nature of what we call the self.
Suggested Reading
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
What if death was not the end, but a teacher? In The Five Invitations, Frank Ostaseski reveals how facing impermanence head-on can lead to a more vibrant, meaningful life. This book is a compassionate guide to living fully, even in the shadow of life’s inevitable changes.