Buddhism: Impermanence & Emptiness

In this talk and guided practice, we examine the concepts of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness, which are called the three marks of existence in Buddhist philosophy. Understanding the truth of impermanence and emptiness allows us to let go of attachment to aspects of self-identity, and to allow ourselves to move closer to perceiving reality as it is, and ourselves as we are. In so doing, we release unnecessary suffering and move towards the natural state. 25min talk, 20min guided meditation

Transcript

For today's class,

I'd like to talk about the Buddhist concepts of impermanence,

Suffering,

And emptiness,

Which are sometimes referred to as the three marks of existence.

Before we jump into that,

I just want to say that many of you already know this from previous classes,

But I tend to draw on a lot of different traditions,

And the way I view it is that it's not that one tradition is inherently right or better than any other tradition,

But that they are all simply different perspectives on the nature of reality,

Existence,

And our experience as individual human beings.

And so what matters to me is not finding what is correct or best,

But learning how to use the different perspectives to gain greater understanding onto our own experience,

And how to make meaning of all that we experience,

How to make meaning of life,

And how to learn to relate to all that we experience in ways that help us to reduce our level of unnecessary suffering,

And enable us to experience greater degrees of happiness and life and beauty that is always right here,

Right now.

So I'll start with a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh,

An amazing Buddhist practitioner and teacher.

It is not impermanence that makes us suffer.

What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

So in Buddhist philosophy,

Impermanence is one of the fundamental truths of reality.

Everything is continually changing.

There is nothing in existence in material form that does not change over time.

Us as individual human beings are continually growing and changing.

New cells are being born and cells are dying off every moment of every day.

The world around us is continually changing.

The trees grow,

The mountains over time will start to flatten and subside as they wear down through erosion and the rain.

So even things such as rocks or a table and chairs that can seem to be permanent,

Only seem to be permanent because we aren't seeing them closely enough and we aren't seeing them over a long enough time span.

If we were able to do a time lapse,

We would see that over time everything is going to degrade and change,

New things will be reborn,

And if we were able to see closely enough the nature of the reality of a table,

As we can do now through some of the scientific tools that we have,

We would see that all of the individual molecules of the table are continually vibrating and shifting.

So everything is continually changing.

And every change that occurs leads to innumerable other changes.

Because besides everything being impermanent,

Everything in existence is also interdependent.

Nothing exists in isolation.

And so part of the reason everything changes is because everything is continually interconnected.

And so when one thing changes,

It causes a ripple effect that changes everything in its surrounding environment.

You know,

Some of you might be familiar with the butterfly effect.

You know,

The concept that a butterfly flapping its wings can create changes in the weather on the other side of the world.

And so rationally,

Intellectually,

There are many different ways that we can see the truth in impermanence.

Existentially,

We tend to fight against it with all of our being because we don't like it.

The mind has a tendency to want things to be permanent,

To believe that there's some form of stable,

Unchanging aspect of reality that we can hold on to and ground into.

But there isn't.

And it's that desire of the mind to have things be permanent that is what causes us so much suffering.

Because it creates a greater gap,

A distance between how the mind is perceiving reality and the nature of reality as it is and ourselves as we are.

When we open to the fact that everything is impermanent,

Including our physical bodies,

That actually gives us a great deal of freedom because we realize that there's no certain way that any of us are supposed to be all the time,

That we are all continually changing and growing,

That we're all having different experiences,

And it gives us new ways to work with our experience in each moment.

This ties into some of the talks I've shared on working with self-compassion and letting go of attachment to aspects of self-identity.

Because so much of our suffering comes from the conditioned patterns that we create of how we perceive ourselves to be or how we think we're supposed to be all the time.

And that's the concretization of self-identity,

Of starting to believe in the delusion that we are finite,

Two-dimensional beings that are supposed to be some certain way all the time or that are some certain way all the time.

When that's actually a delusion of the mind that is a misapprehension of reality,

Of not perceiving ourselves as we are,

As impermanent,

Multi-dimensional,

Continually changing beings that are also continually connected and interdependent with the world around us.

And that we do not exist in isolation,

And nothing that we do or say exists in isolation.

And that even all of the thoughts and emotions that we have,

They are indicative of some unchanging essential aspect of who we are.

They're an experience that's occurring in the moment that is often precipitated by what we're experiencing or through our interactions with those around us.

And as we realize the truth of impermanence,

We also realize that all that we experience internally,

All of our emotions,

All of our thoughts,

That those too are also impermanent.

It can get,

It can be easy sometimes to attach to our thoughts,

To start to believe that they are inherently true in some sort of absolute form.

Sometimes this is due to the defense mechanisms physiologically,

You know,

That when we get caught in fight or flight or we're afraid,

We want to project some sort of absolute reality,

So then we can make a choice of what we are supposed to do.

It can be challenging for the mind to deal with the uncertainty that comes with accepting impermanence.

But that attachment to thought,

To believing that some certain thought is absolutely true,

Actually causes us more suffering,

Because it closes us off to the variability and therefore the complexity and beauty that is inherent in life.

You know,

There's a common saying,

You cannot step in the same river twice.

Because even if we go to a river one day,

And then go back to that same geographical location the next day and step in the river.

The river has completely changed.

The water that is flowing through it,

That we stepped in yesterday has continued flowing downstream.

It's different water that we're stepping in.

Whether we are able to see it or not,

The contour of the river and the underlying river bed has slightly changed.

The content of the water itself,

How much silt is in it,

How fast or slow it's flowing.

Whether there's leaves or debris,

Everything has changed in the course of those 24 hours.

And so we cannot step in the same river twice.

And yet,

So often,

That's what we try to do.

We try to recreate our experience based on conditioned patterns of what was,

Rather than seeing things as they are in this moment.

And just as we cannot step in the same river twice,

We are not the same person that we were 24 hours ago.

The cells have changed within our physical body.

Emotions and thoughts have changed.

And if we're able to be present to ourselves as we are,

We'll see how we continually change.

If we think that we are the same as yesterday,

Or that we're having the same thoughts or emotions as yesterday,

That's the conditioning of the mind that's trying to hold on to that idea of permanence,

And it's imposing it on us.

It's the mind projecting this way that we think we are,

Which actually creates a separation between what we think we are and how we actually are.

And this is why it's important to let go of who we think we are in order to allow ourselves to be who we are in each moment,

And who we are becoming in each moment.

Because with impermanence,

We start to realize that there is no static state of being,

That we are actually in every instant,

Continually becoming.

It's a continual unfolding.

So another core Buddhist concept that ties into impermanence is the concept of emptiness.

And it's very important to distinguish that emptiness is not nothingness.

Nothing is nothing.

Empty is empty.

And empty is limitless potential.

A vase is empty,

But a vase is not nothing.

And it is the emptiness of the vase that allows it the unlimited potential to hold anything within it.

To hold liquid,

To hold food,

To hold flowers.

Even when the vase is empty of holding anything,

It still has air,

And it still has the space for other things to be held in that space.

So how does emptiness relate to impermanence?

When we believe falsely in permanence of being,

Permanence of physical reality or thoughts or emotions,

It gives us the illusion that there is some form of essential self,

Some essence to our being or to anything,

Whether it's a chair or a river.

We start to believe that it has some inherent essential characteristic that is that entity.

And yet by the very nature that everything is impermanent and everything is continually changing,

Means that there can be no inherent essential unchanging aspect to any entity.

In other words,

Every entity is empty of an essential characteristic.

So there's a well-known example that the Buddha used to describe this concept of emptiness,

Of being empty of an inherent essence.

And he used the example of a chariot.

So he points to a chariot and he asks,

Where is the essence of the chariot?

Is it the wheels,

The seat,

The axle,

The cart?

No,

None of these contain any essence of the chariot.

And if each of these parts is broken down into their smaller parts,

There is no essence in them either.

The chariot as a whole is simply a particular arrangement of parts,

Each of which themselves are also a particular arrangement of smaller parts.

The chariot is a thing that exists interdependently.

So the essence of a chariot only comes about and exists because of the interdependence of all of the individual parts.

And each of the individual parts,

Such as the wheel,

Has no inherent essence.

There is no essence to the wheel,

Is in the spokes,

Is in the circle.

And so you continue breaking it down and you realize that no individual thing or entity has an independently existing essence.

Everything exists interdependently,

Which means that everything is inherently empty of a self existing essence.

So this might be a little esoteric.

But it has extremely practical consequences for how we perceive ourselves in reality and how we choose to interact with all that we experience.

Another example,

Which takes it to a different level,

Is looking at a flower.

So if we look deeply at a flower,

We'll see that a flower is inherently made up of non flower elements.

In other words,

While the flower is empty of its own inherent essence or characteristic,

It is actually full of everything else.

There is nothing that is not present in the flower.

If we look closely,

We can see sunshine,

We can see rain,

We can see clouds,

We can see the earth.

And we also see the time and space that went into its creation.

The flower contains all of those aspects.

And so the flower contains everything.

And yet it's empty of any self existing essence,

Because the flower could not be the flower without everything that went into making that.

Sometimes they'll use the example of a sheet of paper.

When you look at a sheet of paper,

And you see a sheet of paper.

But if you look deeply at it,

The sheet of paper could not exist if it were not for the machines that milled the pulp,

The people that manned the machines,

The trees that created the pulp that it came from,

The sun,

The earth,

The rain that went into making the tree.

Everything that has come into existence only comes into existence because of everything that has come before it and contributed to that.

So I said that this has practical application and consequences.

And I meant it.

And that's where meditation comes in.

Because meditation is a practice of turning the gaze inward to look deeply at ourselves,

So that we can move closer to perceiving ourselves as we are in reality as it is.

And often where we get caught as individuals in our daily lives is we get caught by the emotions and the thoughts and the challenges that occur through being human,

Through the experiences of pain and loss and suffering.

And we get caught because we wish that things were different than they are.

And we get caught because we tend to become conditioned into seeing ourselves as fixed and solid and separate entities that have a self existing identity that is independent from the rest of reality,

Which is inherently false.

None of us can exist independently.

And so there's a common meditation used in Buddhism on the emptiness of self,

Where we use this knowledge and awareness of emptiness to turn the gaze inward and look at ourselves to try to see if we can find and locate somewhere within us an independent,

Existent,

Essential aspect that is us.

So for example,

As I do this practice,

I would be scanning through the body and I'll guide you through this step by step,

But just to give you an idea of where we're going.

I would be scanning through my body,

Trying to find the essence of Thomas.

Where can I locate it?

Is it in my brain?

Okay,

And if I think it's in the brain,

Start going deeper.

Where in the brain?

Looking at the individual cells.

If it's in my left thumb,

Is that where Thomas is?

Is it in the heart?

And you keep going.

And if you think you found it,

You start taking whatever part that is that you think you found it,

And you break that apart.

You look deeply internally and try to find an independently existent essence of being,

Of who you are.

And as you do this,

You realize that there isn't.

That it's not possible to find.

Because we are empty of an inherent essence of being,

Even while we are full of everything in existence.

Because emptiness is what gives rise to limitless potential.

And it's when we think that we're not empty,

When we're full of ourselves,

So to speak,

That we miss out on the limitless potential that we all always have.

So if you will,

Please find a comfortable posture for meditation.

You can be seated or lying down.

If you're seated,

Check to make sure that your knees are below your hips.

You have a stable base.

Let your torso and spine rise with the natural curves up towards heaven.

Allow the shoulders to relax back and down.

Whether you're seated or lying down,

Feel into the stability beneath you that is supporting you and holding you up.

And allow yourself to release any unnecessary tension from the body.

Become aware of the breath and simply observe the natural movement of the breath.

Without trying to change it.

Simply observing it as it is.

Whether it's long or short,

Choppy or smooth,

Shallow or deep.

Allow the breath to be as it is.

As you continue to observe the breath,

Use the exhalation to consciously release any unnecessary tension from the physical body.

Now,

Begin scanning your body.

Searching for the physical body with your awareness.

Searching to see if you can find an independently existing essence of yourself.

Looking at the head,

Scanning the sense organs,

The scalp,

The brain.

Moving down through the body.

And searching to see if you can locate the essence of who you are in any part of the physical body.

If you think you locate it,

Look even deeper into that part.

For example,

If you think you've located yourself in the heart,

Look deeply into the nature and structure of the physical heart.

With individual tissues,

Even down to the cells.

If you realize that it is not located in that part,

Continue scanning through the body.

Searching deeply and thoroughly through the muscles,

The skin,

The bones,

Through the individual organs.

When you finish scanning the physical body,

Having not found an independently existing essence of self,

Consciously affirm the emptiness of self within the physical form.

Next,

Begin scanning your emotional body.

Scanning through all the different feelings,

Emotions that you have.

Searching to see if you can find an independently existing self within the emotions.

When you finish scanning through the emotions,

Having not found an existing independent sense of self,

Affirm the emptiness of the emotions.

Acknowledging consciously their impermanent and changing nature.

Next,

Bring your awareness to the realm of thought,

Of the mind.

Allow your awareness to scan your thoughts,

Searching to see if you can find an independently existing essential self within the mind.

As you scan the thoughts,

And do not find evidence of an independently existing self within the mind,

Consciously affirm the emptiness and impermanence of the mind.

Now,

Bring your awareness back to the breath.

Begin to observe the breath more closely.

Notice the impermanence of the breath.

How it is not fixed.

How it continually changes.

How each inhale is different than the one before it and the one after it.

You cannot step in the same river twice,

Nor can you take the same breath twice.

And with every breath you take,

There are innumerable,

Infinite changes that occur within your physical body,

With every single breath.

You cannot step in the same river twice,

Nor can you take the same breath twice.

As you observe the breath,

Even more closely,

Start to become aware of the stillness that lies beneath the movement of the breath.

This stillness,

Which is empty of any inherent essence or characteristic,

Is also full of unlimited potential.

Allow your awareness to rest in the empty stillness.

Do the same with the pen,

Feel the sense of freedom.

Of softness.

Inherent in the empty stillness.

Being empty can hold everything.

Can reflect any characteristic.

Any emotion.

Any thought.

Without becoming any of them.

Be aware of the felt sense of your body as a whole.

Feel the solidity beneath you.

Supporting you and holding you up.

In the air around you.

In which you are immersed.

Like a fish in water.

And take a moment to feel the emptiness within your being.

The emptiness in the solidity beneath you.

And the emptiness in the air around you.

Feel how all aspects are empty of inherent essence.

And yet all are fully connected and interdependent with each other.

Could not exist but for each other.

And how they all contain everything.

Allow your breath to become deeper.

When you are ready.

Maintain a connection to the empty stillness.

As you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes.

Letting the world around you flow through you.

Seeing all that you take in as empty and impermanent.

As manifestations of the all in its myriad forms.

And as you go throughout your day today.

Try to detach from taking yourself or others as permanent unchanging beings.

Allow yourself to relax into the limitless potential of being.

Allow the meditation practice to help you remember who you are beyond names and forms.

Realize that you have the infinite within you.

The entire universe has conspired in your creation and is within you and a part of you.

The world of form seems to be unlimited and infinite.

But it is actually an illusion.

All our outer coverings of that which is found within each and every one of us.

Which is truly unlimited and infinite.

Thank you all for joining me today.

Reviews

Wonderful. I will need to listen to this talk on Emptiness again- probably several times. This example of the vase was helpful.
Grateful to you.

Thomas,
As always, thank you again for these talks and meditations.
Listening and meditating on Thanksgiving day.
And Happy Thanksgiving to you.
What I thought was emptiness is not empty at all. And I'm able to redefine who I thought I was (which I wasn't proud of to be honest) but see we are so much more. We're connected to everything.
Question: Would it be correct to say that emptiness also equals potential?

This is deep and vast and somehow very comforting. Thank you for your kind service. 🙏

Thank you Thomas

So beautiful to think of the entire universe conspiring to make us.
Thank you as always for your guidance and teaching🙏🏻

I see the great value of detachment from identity, fixations and thought constructs. I trust in impermanene of form. A part of me holds to the idea of essence. In my heart it feels like a space to small to see with a mircroscope yet as vast as the universe. The cells of tissue, organ and skelleton all holding a large amount of the periodic table of elements and fire with electrical charges of nerve and neuron. Each cell full of living energy that dies is consumed and reborn. My mind so full of synaptic firing , chemicals and knowing, while still other parts are under my conscious awareness. This all seems like essence to me. Yes it will change and is never the same yet the energy of breath and light and chemical compounds will go somewhere? Change into something. I think of this as essence. Perhaps my definition is flawed? I concede
it is possible my desire for enternal life is delusion based on bias ,fear or both. Yet this nagging sub conscious memeory taps me on the shoulder to remind me of ecstatic experience ,visions and visulization, stillnes deep levels of peace, euphora , pain, suffering and mourning all experienced in relational sensing of other and I. The bliss of the Budda mind or the mind of Christ seems to shine with essence to me. This could be called the Holy Spirit , Divine, Higher Power, Higher Self, True self, Soul, Source, Life Force, Prana, Spirit , Incarnation or Essence.

I James am not who I think I am yet I am a part of a bigger I or maybe not. I choose to double down on the little i in the big I.

Much love and respect to you my friend. Your work has been a valuable gift in my healing journey.

Having said all that essence is just a word or idea and I can let it go with great pleasue as you guide the meditation. It is wonderful to be a vessel that holds something very beautiful. Much repect and grattitude. 🕊️🕯️❤️‍🔥🙏🏻

This meditation is perfect for where i am at now. My husband of 35 years recently died. I find I need to talk and hear others talk about impermanence. and the meditation brought me to an amazing place 🙏 namaste

thank you, i have found those two talks and will listen to them soon

What a great talk + meditation! Thanks Thomas. 🌀🌏

Thank you for the focus on emptiness and how that promotes non-attachment to thoughts and emotions. It is easy to buy into the illusion of permanence but your teaching and reminder that "this too will change" has given me a great focus for my day.

Familiar concepts, well knit together.

Thank you

Thank you Thomas! It was a mystical experience, far far away from the ego 🙏✨💕

Lovely, I found comfort in the teaching. Much needed today. 🙏🏼🕊

For listening to unlimited times

Deep, powerful! “You cannot enter the same river twice” Thank you 🙏🏽

Wow. Just listen once and see.

Wonderful sharing of the powerful concept of emptiness and support into mediation on our actual essence.

Exactly what I needed in this moment. Thank you! 🙏🏼 💞 ✨

What a profound teaching! Thank you for sharing your wisdom Thomas, and so eloquently articulating the lesson. Much love and blessings ♥️🙏🏻

Wonderful teaching and practice. Illuminating. Thank you very much 🙏

Explains very clearly complex concepts. I was moved by the final words of the meditation. A true gem.

Excellent, thank you for recommending this one.