While impermanence pervades every aspect of our phenomenal world, it is only the human mind that can grasp this fact. The vast flora and fauna, flying and crawling creatures swarming over the planet, our beloved pets, dogs and cats, are spared this awareness. It is only when they themselves, or one of their own, are on the verge of death that this instinctual knowledge comes into play. Yet in the normal course of life, we humans also do as much as we can to avoid or ignore this over-present reality. And that is well and good—unless one is interested or compelled to go beyond mundane appearance and look deeper into the nature of the world, the self, the mind.
Techniques to confront the nature of impermanence are foundational in Buddhism, Hinduism, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and many other contemplative traditions. But there are many ways to engage in this study. Some practices look at more obvious, material forms of impermanence, while others get into more subtle and nuanced aspects. Here we can look at them from a five-element perspective, as they naturally place themselves along a spectrum of gross to the more subtle perspectives.
EARTH – living to dying
The most clear and present way of confronting impermanence is simple death awareness—the fact of our inevitable end. Sitting with this knowledge on a daily basis, even for a short time, can have profound effects on the psyche. In Buddhism, this is used as a “carrot on a stick” kind of motivator, giving us a healthy perspective on what is of importance and what is of lesser value or meaning. This is also the classic method of inducing “renunciation,” especially in religious professionals, a turning away from the activity of the mundane world. We learn to let go of more superficial aspects of life and make good spiritual use of the time we have. That orientation is essential and part of the extensive teachings on the foundational “four thoughts that turn the mind toward the Dharma.”
WATER – the time thief
There could not be a more appropriate analogy than contained within the phrase “the flow of time.” Time is as relentless as it is ruthless, being heedless of our needs, cares, wants, hopes, or fears. Physically, every day we undergo the death of cells and tissue, and the rebirth of others. This may be imperceptible to us until we look in the mirror, five, 10, and 20 years down the road. But we see it in the people all around us. Aging highlights the truth that the whole of life leads toward dying, complementing the Earth perspective on impermanence. But beyond this, we see the current of time sweeping away our experience, our connections, our attempts to hold on to a moment or avoid another.
Over the course of a long life, we have met thousands and tens of thousands of individuals, in interactions tiny and grand. There are so many partings of the ways, family members lost, connections that evaporated, strong friendships that faded into some vague mist, moving on and moving along. All the endless events both remembered and forgotten are a form of loss, of small and larger deaths. We can think back on them, we can regret, we can ponder, fondly recall, experience poignancy, longing, but they are gone from us.
Contemplating this inexorable flow, the only meaningful response—if we wish to transcend life’s rushing river—is to let go, to not cling, to recognize the impermanence of each moment. It is both sobering and liberating. There is no glib answer to what this does to our being as it is a sea voyage that must be taken in order to be understood. On the farther shore we may sense something there, beyond mere comings and goings.
FIRE – chasing sparks
Death and rebirth become even more intimate when we watch our mind and emotions twinkling on and off, igniting feelings and passions. In watching this endless cavalcade within the mind and in our body sensations, it is our wishes, our desires that are easiest to catch, pushing all else before it. Some impulses are slow, while some have sudden hairpin turns. Some are mundane and shallow, some fascinate and some repel, and some suspend us in their magical depth. Thoughts come out of nowhere, as do impulses to “do” something. But they are all carried along by some kind of fuel, some energy that brings them to life.
Meditating on the luminous movement and sensations within each moment, we may glimpse the birth and death and birth again of thoughts, feelings, and desires. It takes patience and a mental reset to learn to not be seduced by any of them—at least not while we sit on the meditation cushion. What we may see is a common thread in all this multiplicity, these wild narratives. Particularly, that has something with the mystery into which they all slide, while the next storyline takes mind’s center stage.
AIR – the crucial instant
An even further refinement of understanding impermanence happens when we direct our attention to the totality of the single moment. For this, the meditation cushion is no longer necessary, as this is a skill we can take with us anywhere and anytime. Each instant is a single panorama containing sights, sounds, movements, sensations, identities, values and maybe even a past history and a future hope.
While clearly each moment derives from all that has come before, it is also vividly different. If we are alive to it, we may even notice that it is utterly unique. The past dies, the now is reborn. The constant process of dying and becoming can become a visceral, almost tactile experience. Moving through the busy day, we (largely of necessity) just label and ignore the objects and events around us in order to get from one task to another, from A to B,—from moment to moment. Instead, each instance can become a living rosary of pearls made of air, strung out on a string made of wind.
SPACE – the death of impermanence
A final aspect of this progression is awareness of the presence of consciousness itself. But there is a contradiction here. Our other observations demonstrate unending change and impermanence. Yet here, we may sense something still and unchanging, something that feels perpetual, even eternal. Yet if we drop the “semantics,” the word games that define or constrict our experience, we may resolve this apparent contradiction.
Consciousness is, in one sense, ever-present. But its tone, the texture in the moment, is never the same. Is it evolving, winking at us, dissolving the logic of what is fixed and what moves? Now is always there, yet it is a different now. The content of the colors of reality, their hue and shade, taste and smell, their trajectory, is in continual change. But the container seems to be also freshly minted.
Permanence and impermanence are experienced simultaneously, two sides of the same coin or a seamless part of some essence. The outer world and inner experiencer are no longer separate entities, the senses, the knower and the phenomena merging into one field, one taste, one quale. Life, death, change, a paradox of unity and relentless time. Self and non-self, dissolving into a now that has no present tense. Or all of them. This sounds confusing, but the is precisely the invitation of Space Element, to enter the confusion joyfully.
These five aspects of impermanence, of daily dying, pervade our entire life. They provide a rich field of investigation, a path full of surprises, shocks and delights. Each one can, and does continually arise before us, like catching the glint from the oblique angles of a faceted diamond. But it all boils down to one thing. As one great spiritual master dryly advised me so long ago: “Fix your feet firmly on a moving point.”
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