So last week we started exploring together the three characteristics of all of life and how they live in our direct experience.
So the first characteristic is change.
So much change has happened since last week and maybe it doesn't feel that way in your scheduled life but certainly there's been so much change from the cycles of the moon to what's happening politically and world affairs.
So much change is always happening.
So important to kind of tune in to change.
According to the discourses,
Insight into impermanence is the first,
The very first of the path factors.
It's right view,
Wise view,
Understanding that this body,
These feelings,
These thoughts,
The concepts and perceptions that we have,
This very consciousness is transitory,
Not permanent,
Ever-changing.
And if you experience this directly,
That everything is constantly changing,
It can powerfully alter the habit patterns of your mind.
The other two characteristics of conditioned existence are dissatisfaction and the absence of self.
They become evident as a consequence of directly experiencing the truth of impermanence.
It's quite remarkable.
Last week I invited you to get closer to this second characteristic,
This characteristic of dissatisfaction.
You know,
Also keeping change right close to it to see and experience the unsatisfactory nature of what is felt in the body as unpleasant and is also impermanent.
It's all impermanent.
I shared a short saying that I learned years ago from the Dharma teacher,
Eugene Cash,
Who started the San Francisco Insight Community.
What he used to say is,
What's in the way is the way.
And as a reminder,
What's in the way is not permanent.
It may feel that way in the moment.
Perhaps you have chronic illness or you're dealing with health issues.
It will change.
But what happens is,
The mind clings to it changing in the direction of your preference.
And that change doesn't always happen in that way.
Change happens,
But maybe your health actually doesn't improve,
But it's changing.
I think this is why,
In some way,
The Dhammapada,
The first instructions that were offered in the saying of the Buddhist instructions were that all things are created by mind.
They're led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak and act with a mind that is not liking,
That is not wanting.
Then more of that not wanting will follow.
Speak and act with a peaceful relationship to what's happening,
A balanced relationship to what's happening,
A kind way with all that is changing,
And peace and composure follows.
The Buddha taught that whatever is impermanent cannot provide lasting satisfaction,
And it doesn't qualify as me,
Myself,
Mine,
Or I.
I'm going to say that again because it's so important.
The Buddha taught that whatever is impermanent cannot provide lasting happiness,
The second characteristic,
And doesn't qualify as I,
Me,
Mine,
Or myself,
The third characteristic.
So as I mentioned last week,
The second characteristic of our existence relates to the third.
All this sense data that comes in that occurs as painful tension,
You know,
The feelings,
The emotions,
The thoughts,
We regularly and unconsciously misinterpret those sensations,
Discomfort,
As what makes up our individual separate self,
Our I am-ness.
I am this feeling,
I am this emotion,
I am this thought,
I am these views.
We take ownership of them.
Ownership of them.
We're generally caught,
And this is humanity,
We're generally caught in this habit of assuming that there is this controller called I,
And it's seemingly permanent,
This thing called me,
And we're continually attempting to maintain the illusion of this separate self in a world that is impermanent and changing.
So this takes a lot of propping up,
Like sort of this,
I am this in this changing world,
I am that,
I am,
I am,
I am.
Our whole world is involved in this propping up of an illusion,
Making it really hard to take in this teaching of not-self.
So when we can really understand impermanence,
That first characteristic,
When we know that we are not this body,
This body is changing,
When we know that we are not these feelings,
They come and go.
That our mental cognition,
Our views,
Our concepts,
They're not fixed,
They're also changing.
Our habit patterns,
Our reactions and intentions,
They're also changing.
That consciousness,
That is being conscious of things happening,
Is also ever-changing.
So consciousness,
In terms of what makes up ourselves,
Is rooted in this I,
This I,
Me,
Mine,
And it's changing.
A really pithy example of this,
To illustrate consciousness,
Is when I say apple,
Perhaps an image of an apple comes up in your mind's eye.
It may come up as red or yellow or green,
It may,
It generally comes up as round,
But it's also white on the inside.
And it can be made into sauce and baked and all of these different forms.
So name and form are really behind all conscious experience and they change.
So I share this not to confuse you or to get too heady.
I think there's so much confusion around the not-self teaching because people are trying to think their way into it.
But if we can understand impermanence deeply,
That could be enough.
That could be enough.
There's a story in which the Buddha instructed his first disciples to become aware of impermanence,
Impermanence,
The impermanent aspects of subjective experience.
And in this he was referring to what are known as the five aggregates,
Which we will look at together in the coming classes.
The five aggregates are form,
So the body,
Feelings,
Cognition,
Which is our perception,
Volition,
Which kind of refers to our habit patterns and our reactions,
And consciousness,
Which I just described as this sort of name and form we give everything.
And he instructed his disciples to know each,
To know impermanence in each of these areas.
Of the of the human body,
Each of these areas are always changing.
They're not providing lasting happiness and they don't qualify as an independent permanent self.
And so as each of these first five disciples experience this for themselves,
The impermanent nature of this being,
They were free from suffering in this life.
So that is my hope for us,
That we wake up in this way.
Thank you for your kind attention.
