Letting Go - The Wisdom Of Impermanence

Seeing the impermanence of everything includes emotions, thoughts, feelings, and us. That when an unpleasant emotion arises, to see there is nothing solid there for that emotion to stick to. Seeing impermanence frees us - because there is the realization that what is happening here is always in flux, change. There is nothing to cling to, nothing to hold onto. Seeing this is when our suffering ends.

Transcript

I wanted to start with a story tonight about a king that was always going back and forth between having these emotions of extreme happiness and excitement and then flooding right down to despair and unhappiness and depression. And that for as long as he could remember, He was always going back and forth between these just extreme highs and extreme lows. And he finally decided, Like, I got to do something differently. Like I can't do this anymore. So he calls his attendants and he asks them to go into the kingdom and find a really wise person, Someone that could help him deal with the situation so he could be more at peace, He could be more content. So his attendants go out into the kingdom and they're asking everyone who's the wisest person and everyone's indicating this sage that lives way off in the forest at the very edge of the kingdom. So the attendants go out to this little hut way out in the forest and they knock on the door and this little old sage, Little old woman answers the door and they're like, Oh, This is the woman. And they ask her, Will you come to the palace with us? The king is really distressed, He needs some help and we could really use your guidance. He's like, Absolutely, I'll come. So she goes to the palace and she's standing before the king and he's explaining this problem of going from this extreme happiness to this extreme sadness, Just back and forth all day long, Just constantly back and forth. And he said, I would give you all the money I have, All the gold I have, I would give you everything if you could help me to be more at peace, To be more at ease. And the sage says, What I have for you is far more valuable than any gold that you have, Any jewels, Any prized possessions you have here in the kingdom. But I will give this to you as a gift as long as you promise to really treasure it, To value it, To use it. And he says, Absolutely, I will value and treasure whatever it is you have. So she goes away and a few weeks later she comes back to the kingdom, To the palace and she hands the king this really beautifully engraved ornately carved wooden box. King's just delighted, Oh, What is this? And he opens it up and he's kind of disappointed because he just sees this simple metal band sitting inside. And the sage says to him, Read the inscription and he reads the words, This too shall pass. He's still a little disappointed. He was hoping for something a little more spectacular. And she tells him, Before you label anything as good or bad, I want you to read these words. I want you to allow these words to set you free. And he did, Before he labeled anything as good or bad, No matter what was happening, He would read those words, This too shall pass. And just with those words, He'd feel free from the excitement, From the happiness. It's like, Oh, This is going to pass. Or if it was the despair and the sadness, Oh, This is going to pass. There's nothing to cling to, Nothing to attach to. And with this teaching, He became more at peace. He was more content. He was happy. So our teaching today is on the wisdom of impermanence, Of seeing that everything in the world is impermanent. That if we look, That everything that we see that is made up of different parts, Different causes and conditions, Like the house, Has different parts. It has walls, It has concrete, It has wood, It has tile, Windows, Doors. All of these different parts make a house. And because of that, It has a beginning, A middle, And an end. A rainbow, We use this example a lot. It's made up of different parts. A certain amount of water in the air and a certain amount of light hitting at a particular angle. So because it's made up of parts, It has a beginning, It appears, A middle, Maybe appears for a little while, And an end. That when those conditions change, So does the rainbow. And this is how it is for everything that we see in the universe. A tree comes into being because of a seed, The soil, The nutrition in the soil, Light, Water. The tree arises through causes and conditions, Different parts. It has a beginning, A middle, And an end. There is nothing in the universe that we can point to that we cannot see is made up of parts. I mean, Even an atom that we used to say, Well, It's made up of electrons, Protons, And neutrons. And then we're like, Oh, Actually they're made up of quarks. And oh, Actually quarks are made up of bosons. And that's as far as we've gotten so far. But it's like everything has parts to it. Everything is impermanent. And we can see this intellectually when we walk through these examples. Yeah, Yeah, Of course these things are impermanent. Even those things that look solid, The mountains, The oceans, The big buildings, The roads, Like we can see, Yeah, They actually are impermanent. But we have a really hard time as soon as we put a my in front of something, When it's my car, When it's my cell phone, When it's my house. Like if it's my car, My new car that I just got off of a lawn and it's shiny and it's pretty and it's not scratched and there's no dents, Right? And we spend all this time looking for the best parking space so that we don't get the car scratched. We don't get it dented. Right? We'll park a half a mile away if we have to, Right? We'll go to the softest, The best car wash that has the soft car wash so that it doesn't get scratched. All this time we spend trying to keep that which is impermanent, Permanent because it's mine. We do it with the cell phone, Right? I don't want the cell phone to be scratched. We do it, Oh, Don't put the cell phone there. Don't do that. Be careful with the cell phone. Like all of the stress and tension around the cell phone, Trying to keep that which is impermanent in some kind of permanent state. And it doesn't mean then that we are careless with our things. That we go, Oh, It's impermanent. I don't care. Go ahead and scratch it, Break it. Just drive down by a bunch of cactus or something and scratched all up. That's not what it means. It's about seeing the nature of all of these things as impermanent so we are not surprised when it eventually gets scratched, When it eventually breaks or cracks. I mean, This is what the zen master, When she sees the cup has already broken, It doesn't mean that she's careless with it, That she tosses it around and doesn't appreciate using it. But when it does get chipped or cracked or it breaks, The only response is get the dustpan, Right? That's where it was eventually going to be. And so understanding the nature of these things doesn't mean we don't appreciate them when we have them. It doesn't mean we don't care for them. But this understanding that its nature is to break, Anything mechanical is going to break. We shouldn't be so shocked every time this happens. And while it's easier, Again, Maybe to see it in some of these examples that we're using, Where we have an even harder time looking at this is with my emotions. Because we do have somehow this unrealistic view that we should only experience pleasant emotions and we should never experience unpleasant emotions. And I think this even gets more distorted on the spiritual path. We come here because we want to reduce our suffering, Our self-created suffering. And then somehow we seem to think that, Oh, Well, The spiritual path is just eternal bliss and enlightenment. And that's not what enlightenment is. Enlightenment is not eternal bliss. It is seeing the nature of reality and the nature of us and understanding that and flowing with it, Not fighting it. It's not that we don't experience emotions. We should experience emotions. We will experience emotions. You cannot not experience emotions. You don't want to fight that. If someone you love has passed away, You should feel sad. That's the appropriate response. If a friend of yours is in pain and you're going through some physical pain or health problems or financial troubles, A divorce, Something, We want to be able to open our hearts with compassion to be able to connect with them at their pain. That's not necessarily a pleasant emotion. There's a lot of stress and compassion. Or if someone's hurting another person, A child, An animal, Anger should be our response. So we do something. We do want to experience emotions. But we have this idea that we shouldn't be experiencing emotions. And yet emotions come into being through different causes and conditions, Just like the car, Just like the cell phone, Just like the rainbow, Just like the cup. That all these different causes and conditions are coming into for our emotions to arise in each moment. I mean, The people that you're around, Whether you're on a call right now, What you ate for lunch, How you slept the night before, How busy your day was, How un-busy your day was, Whether you're feeling sick or not, Whether your partner is sick or not, Whether your parents are sick or not, What's the weather like? All of these different conditions are coming together. And this is what our emotions are coming, Are rising through all of these different conditions in each moment. They are impermanent. They have a beginning, They have a middle, And they have an end. But we don't believe that when it's our emotions. We can tell someone else, This too shall pass. But when it's happening to us, We know this, We freak out. As soon as something goes bad, Oh no, I shouldn't be feeling bad. This is what we do. And in our response to believing we should only feel positive emotions and never feel negative emotions, We are constantly chasing the positive emotions, Clinging to the positive emotions, And pushing back on the negative emotions, Ironically creating more unpleasant emotions for ourselves. And so again, We can see this when we've had a really nice morning and maybe you got together with friends for breakfast or you went for a bike ride and it's just you're kind of on a little high, Feeling really good. And then as the afternoon comes around, For whatever reason, Your energy levels start to taper off. Maybe you had pancakes for breakfast and it's starting to kick in, You're coming off the sugar high, Or just the leaving of all of the laughter and the joy that you were having with your friends in that moment. And we start to come off of that a little bit. And this is where we scramble, Like no, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, I got to get back to the good emotions. I can't, I can't experience this. This isn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be up here and never leave this place. And what happens is when we come off of those highs, When we come down into the neutral or the unpleasant emotions, Instead of just accepting that emotions are impermanent and this is normal to experience this, Instead of doing that, We start to look for a story to match what's going on with how we're feeling. So it's like, I don't feel good. There must be something wrong. Let me go look. What's going on? What can I find? Oh, That's right. I've got to do this later this week. Oh God, I forgot about that. Yeah, That's why I feel so bad. Or we're replaying the morning with friends and like, Oh God, I probably sound like an idiot then. Oh God, That's why I'm feeling like this. Oh, It's always my energy in the afternoon. Something's wrong with me. We just, We try and create a story to match the unpleasant emotion that we're experiencing, The unpleasant feeling that we're experiencing and thereby causing the unpleasant emotion to persist longer than it normally would, Because now I've got this story attached to it of why I'm unhappy. My energy was just coming off. That's all it was. That's all that was going on. And we know this happens. You send the mind out looking for a problem. We'll find one. It always does. And out of these stories then, Now we're telling ourselves about why we're experiencing this unpleasant emotion is where the little separate self arises, Right? The ego, Where we feel like this independent, Separate, Solid, Permanent little me that's the center of the universe. This is where we think our emotions are sticking to something permanent, That we are the center of the universe. We are in fact permanent. This is what we tell ourselves, That we believe there's something, Something solid here for this temporary emotion to stick to. And so whenever the emotions are unpleasant, We get locked into these stories and what should have just been a rising and passing away, We come down and we stay there because we are telling ourselves a story that makes the unpleasant emotion last longer. We start looking for a solution to the imaginary problem about what's not happening, To then come up with some imaginary solution to the imaginary problem to appease some imaginary self that doesn't even exist. And this is what we're doing all day long. Every time our emotions are changing, We're always imagining. The mind is always coming in to try and tell some story to explain what's going on instead of just accepting, Oh, My emotions are changing because they too are impermanent. And the more that we keep our attention on the separate self, On the story, The narrative, Matching up with the unpleasant emotion, Believing that there's something solid and permanent there, What we don't see is that we are also impermanent, That we are rising and passing away in every single moment, Not disappearing, But we are changing in every single moment based on all the different causes and conditions that are arising in this moment. You are different in this moment than you were 15 minutes ago before you got on this call. It seems kind of consistent, But we are arising and passing away in every moment. We think that we are having an experience of a pleasant emotion or an unpleasant emotion. We are the experience. This is what's arising and passing away. There is nothing there to stick to. It's the mind coming in afterwards, Trying to tell a story that keeps this illusion going, That believes there is someone that is wounded inside, Someone that shouldn't be feeling this, Imagining that there is something solid and permanent, That everything in the universe is impermanent except for me, Because I'm the center of the universe, Right? We are impermanent too. We know this. We arise, We pass away, We have a beginning, A middle, And an end, But then we still think, But no, There's still something solid in there. If we really want to be free of our suffering, What we are trying to do here is to see what is really happening, To see the nature of reality that everything around us is changing, And we are always changing too. There is nothing here. There's nothing solid that we could stick or hang any emotion on or any experience on. We can try with our thoughts. Our thoughts will try and make something feel permanent, But that's just an illusion, And it just creates more suffering for us. So when we remember this Two Shall Pass, It's about understanding that when our energy changes, It's just changing. That's all that's happening. That's the experience of change. You had high energy in the morning, And now it's a little bit lower. That's all that's happening. There's nothing to cling to. If someone you love has passed away, Sadness is the experience that you are in that moment, Is sadness. It changes when you start thinking, How is this affecting me? I'll never find anyone again. I can't deal with this. I can't handle this. There's the little separate me. It inserts in there, Making us believe there's a little something solid where this emotion is sticking to, Not allowing the emotions to move through us. Naturally, Or sorry, That we are the emotions moving, But thoughts trying to hold on to something creating suffering for us. Even if we use the example of someone's being harmed, And anger is the appropriate response, And we go and do something. We help someone. We help a child, A dog, A friend, Anyone that's being harmed, And we help. Just notice how quickly the mind wants to go in there and go, Look at what you did. Look at what you did. Or God, I can't believe that person did that. They're going on and on and on about that. Those people are just awful, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Constantly going on, Creating a little solid me there. It happened, And it passes. Whatever happened has already passed away, It's not happening anymore. The mind is trying to make something out of it, Trying to make something out of you every single time, And thereby stopping us from seeing what's really going on. Even a positive emotion, You're getting some award, Or you got some little award. We'll say you get an award for something. Great, Wonderful. Have gratitude, Appreciate it. But notice how your mind wants to go in and claim something on there. It wants to try and make something out of it. It wants to create a little me to make something solid for this to stick to. There's nothing there. So when we're experiencing pleasant conditions, Have gratitude, Of course, Appreciate them. In gratitude, There's no clinging. Disgust is acknowledging this moment is changing. When you're bored, This too shall pass. Appreciate the space that you've got in that moment. It's not going to last. And when something unpleasant is happening, This too shall pass. There's nothing to cling to. There's nothing to make something out of this. And we're free. Every time we do that, Every time we remember, There's nothing here to cling to. You don't create the little separate self, The solid me. The solid me that thinks it's having an experience. If you don't create that, If you acknowledge it's impermanent, Whatever it is that's arising, You're less likely to create that image of something separate, Solid and independent, Which completely takes your attention off of what's really going on. So this too shall pass. It's a huge teaching. It has little implications that we can just use it wherever we are in our practice, Just reminding ourselves this isn't going to last. But for those of you that are a little bit have been with me for a while here as well, Start looking more closely. Everything's impermanent. There is nothing to stick to.

Reviews

Wonderful lesson and reminder. 🙏🏼💚🌷

TYVM ❤️

This too shall pass is always a very good reminder. It’s a common saying in AA too. but for some reason when I’m in a difficult emotion, this too shall pass is the last thing I think about lol. when i’m in it it feels like it’s going to last forever. 🙃😘🙃😘🙃😘🙃

Anaya and anichya explained well. There is nothing solid or permanent about me

Thank you. This is such an important lesson to learn. It takes practice.