Impermanence, Multiple Truths, And Door-Knocking

When I think about impermanence 
I think of it as an immutable quality of life.
When I think about democracy, though,
 I want to believe in its permanence.



That belief, or illusion,
 is what gets me knocking on doors,
making calls, and mailing my ballot. 



Maybe both are true: empires come and go, 
and there is wisdom in believing in the illusion of their permanence, 
at least until proven otherwise.

Transcript

Okay, Hi everyone, It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 462 and here we are less than three weeks until the U. S. Election. I've been, I'm at Tahoe, I've been knocking on doors in Nevada asking people to vote for Kamala Harris and re-elect Jackie Rose into the Senate and today I want to talk about that and impermanence and multiple truths. So impermanence is one of the four characteristics of life. There's also dukkha or suffering, There's emptiness or not-self, And then there's peace. Dukkha, We all know what dukkha is, It's the quality of dissatisfaction that arises not from the difficulties of life but from wanting those to be other than they are. Sometimes with dukkha it's about something simple, Of course not easy thinking about our friends in North Carolina and Florida and so many places, But something simple like not wanting it to be raining so much, Something clear, Something that we can understand. And sometimes it's about something more complicated like the closeness of the presidential race and not wanting it to be so close. Emptiness or not-self is the understanding that even though I walk around thinking of myself as this very well-defined constant human, In fact there is no fixed me or mine. I'm accomplishing things, Hopefully contributing to making the world a little bit better, But the effort is coming through me rather than from me. So emptiness is about being powerful beyond measure and also not taking anything personally. My favorite example is when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, I am very happy to be here with you today to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I feel honored, Humbled, And deeply moved that you should give this important prize to a simple monk from Tibet. I am no one special. So impermanence is the way that everything is arising and passing away, Our experiences, Our relationships, Our lives, And the lives of everyone we know and don't know and love and don't love, Our projects, Our political systems, Our borders, Our planet. And then peace is remembering that each moment is just as it is, That all moments are empty and that everything is in flux and already slipping away. So it's remembering the first three characteristics and bringing some ease to that remembrance or that recollection. We can practice with all four characteristics in the absolute, We can do that on our cushions, We can do that on retreat. And in my experience, Insight into each characteristic will arise and these moments of insight, These glimmers of what feel to me like truth, Have been some of the most, I don't know, Important, Rewarding moments of my life. And what I notice when I keep the four characteristics in mind in day-to-day life is that they're more mutable, Meaning there's also peace in knowing that my discomfort with the way things are motivates me to work for change. There's peace in knowing that I'm one of the humans doing the work, Even though credit goes to the causes and conditions that get me to that moment when my hand is about to knock on a door. And there's peace in knowing that there are things I'm working really hard right now to preserve and also in which I have to believe as relatively permanent structures if I'm going to be able to do that. Like democracy. So from that perspective, It feels to me like there are multiple truths. The truths of dukkha and permanence and emptiness and peace and the truth of needing to believe in at least the illusion of permanence when it comes to the political system I'm working to preserve, Because otherwise, How would it be possible to do the work? So in November of 2021, So obviously before this current US presidential race got really going, A student named Adam Littlestone-Luria wrote a short article in the Law Review Forum of NYU's Law Review, And it's called The Illusion of Permanence, Post-Trump America, Rome, And the Challenges of Restoration. So we might not be in a post-Trump America soon, Although I hope that we still are. But that said, One of the reasons we may no longer be in that post-Trump world, If that comes to pass, And according to Littlestone-Luria, Is because well-functioning political systems, This is a quote from the article, Depend not simply on a sense of legitimacy and rightness and fairness, But also on a widespread illusion of permanence. People comply with the basic structure of institutions and norms in large part because they think that the system is not going anywhere. They translate dissatisfaction into reform rather than revolution because their imagination is restricted, Interesting choice of word there, By the sense that the basic structure will inevitably endure. Long-lasting republics from the US to ancient Rome have relied on this constrained imagination. Rome's example shows that when the illusion of permanence breaks, Democracy may be in danger. And then he talks about how Rome broke down because its citizens lost the illusion that their republic was permanent. And then he draws parallels to how in the US we had that illusion as well, And then began to lose the illusion during the 2016-2020 Trump administration, And then more so on January 6, And then more so after that. And of course, When he was writing the article, Which I mentioned was in 2021, Or published in 2021, Littlestone-Luria didn't have the benefit of assessing the Biden years. But I'm not sure that if he had, He'd revise his argument that our illusion of a lasting democratic republic in the US has been fading. So on the one hand, There's the understanding from mindfulness that everything is impermanent, And that includes empires. Norman Fisher, When he spoke at the 2024 Mindfulness in Law teacher training, Said he's reading Chinese history, The history of empires rising and falling. I don't know that Benjamin Franklin was a mindfulness practitioner, But he foreshadowed the impermanence of our republic at the time of the Constitutional Convention. Elizabeth Powell, Who was a Philadelphia intellectual and socialite, Asked Franklin after the Constitution was signed, What have we got, A republic or a monarchy? And he replied, And we all probably remember this, A republic if you can keep it. So can we keep it? I hope so, At least for a while, But it seems like to do that as a nation, We'll have to revive our belief in the illusion of its permanence, Or maybe its stability, Or its principles. And yet as mindfulness practitioners, Maybe we should all be reading Chinese history or Roman history, You know, Because in a way, It's reassuring to remember that everything, Including the U. S. , As we know it, Will arise and pass away, No matter how much we wish that weren't so. Door-knocking this week, I met people who hope as fervently as I do that impermanence is not in immediate play in our country right now. And I also met people who think impermanence isn't at play no matter who wins the election. So multiple truths, Multiple truths. And it feels like a moment in which we're all being invited to hold multiple truths. So the truth of impermanence, And also the need to believe in relative permanence. If we want to see this particular democratic republic continue, Or at least in the words of Benjamin Franklin, For as long as we want to keep it. So that's it. So finding a comfortable posture, Whatever posture would best support your practice right now, One that's also upper height, Easeful, Attentive, And just sensing into the body. How's the body feeling today, This morning, This afternoon, This evening, Wherever you are? How are you feeling? What's going on? Seeing if it's possible to attend to however you're feeling right in this moment without wishing that it were any different than it is. Maybe today we'll just do a body scan and starting at the top of the head. Just tap into the sensation of the top of the head, Bringing the attention to the forehead, To the eyebrows, Eyes, Letting the eyes drop back into their sockets, No straining. And in general, If there is straining or tension, What is it possible to let go of? In the cheeks, In the jaws, The nose, The nostrils, Mouth, Tongue, Letting the tongue rest in the mouth, Ears, Throat, Back of the neck. How are the shoulders doing? Letting them drop. The arms, Forearms, Wrists, Hands, Fingers, Front of the chest, The heart space. What is it possible to let go of? What can we make space for? Can we make space for multiple truths in this moment? In the heart? In the belly? In the back? Strong back, Soft front as Roshi Joan teaches us, Roshi Joan Halifax. Can we keep our backs strong and let our front be soft? Scanning the body. How is the pelvis, The hips, The sit bones, The internal organs? Can we let everything go just for a couple of moments? Tops of the legs, Knees, Calves and shins, Attention to the ankles and the heels, The arches of the feet, Tops of the feet, Balls of the feet, Toes, And just attending to the whole body, Sitting, Standing, Walking, Lying down, Driving, Whatever your posture, Just the whole body. How is it feeling now? And just knowing that this practice is available to us at any time, Just taking 10 minutes or even half that amount of time to check in. How am I doing? Multiple truths could be more than one thing. And that's okay. Thanks everyone for being on the Wake Up Call today. Take care out there, Be safe, Be well, Work hard, Win this election. See you next Thursday.