IMPERMANENCE

13 May 2014 06:30 pm Views - 1500

Before long, on a Wesak Full Moon Day he realised what he came for! Through his own efforts, discarding every erroneous teaching he learned, and sticking to The Middle Path, he was able to develop his mind to such an extent that he achieved – the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, and the light – those that he had never known, heard of or experienced, before. In other words He had attained Enlightenment.


I am sure that some of us can recall instances at sometime in our lives when we have had to change our perception of certain things because we saw those very things later on, in a completely different light. It may seem such a surprise to one, when one is jolted into accepting a different picture of things one always thought one knew so well. This change of perception may be due to our own maturity of comprehension, given that we are constantly and automatically upgrading our memory stores with new information or just that we made the wrong assumption in the first place, based on flimsy and shallow impressions we had then believed to be correct. And I am also sure that we experience huge satisfaction when we have been able to ‘see the light’, and so were able to amend our old incongruous impressions.

 It must have been a similar revelation for Prince Siddhartha when it dawned on him that there seemed to be more than what met his eye, on the occasion of seeing the sick man, the old man and the dead body on its way for its last rights. The prince was then stirred into thinking on these three ‘omens’ but his profound disappointment to explain these phenomena, prompted him to go looking for the reason why such unacceptable things happened to people. Seeing next a passer-by, a saintly man who had discarded all his worldly ties to lead an ascetic life, gave the prince a desire to follow an ascetic life and go seek-out the answers he was looking for. He had no satisfaction and indeed no patience, hanging on to open-ended questions that were so irksome to him. Becoming perplexed and confused in his own mind he was restless; and with this compulsion to look for an explanation, he found no option but to go out to meet other holy men to learn from them any lessons that may show the way to finding those evasive answers. With this view in mind he promptly left the palace to become a wanderer in search of the truth behind what happened to those human beings and to find out why.

"So, the reality of this existence, however distasteful it may be, is Impermanence – A Principle in the Doctrine of the Buddha. Nobody is exempt from the vicissitudes of Impermanence. As the Buddha explains, this birth is not the beginning nor is it the end – the reality being that one is tied up in a cycle of birth and death, from which ties we need to ‘free’ ourselves"

He went from teacher to teacher learning their ways and practising their methods for over 6 years. He carried to the extreme, the methods of self-mortification as taught by those various teachers who believed that the truth dawned on those who lead as rigorous a life as was possible. .This was in line with the general trend of thought that existed in India at the time, and some still believe even to this day, that these methods would yield the ultimate result. In his effort to practise self –mortification to the best of his ability, he became emaciated, decrepit and was hardly in a state that was likely to lead him to his answers. He had no doubt that those ascetics were true to their conscience but he felt that with such dire methods they were unlikely to be fit enough to ‘see the light’. Thus, not finding a clear pathway towards reaching his goal, he set out to use his own ingenuity to find what he came looking for. Having given up all luxury and comfort from the time he left the palace, he decided to do away with all extremes of austerity too. He chose instead, to take The Middle Path (Majjhima patipadā) which he thought would be more conducive to effective contemplation and help achieve his goal. It may be worth reflecting here that during the time of Prince Siddhartha, information was scarce, hence he had to learn from masters of repute and in the hard way. How fortunate we are today! This fact must surely encourage those who do wish to research the Buddha’s word to proceed without delay.

Being left to his own devices, he started to think deeper and deeper into the issues that baffled him. His contemplation took him into the depths of reasoning and reflection and from thereon, he spent most of his time meditating on one-pointedness – a method of mind culture. Before long, on a Wesak Full Moon Day he realised what he came for! Through his own efforts, discarding every erroneous teaching he learned, and sticking to The Middle Path, he was able to develop his mind to such an extent that he achieved – the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, and the light – those that he had never known, heard of or experienced, before. In other words He had attained  Enlightenment.

With Enlightenment He became an exceptional human being who strived to apply his mind to seek out the answers to his questions and in that process ended up cultivating unfathomable understanding on all aspects of our existence. He thereby not only found the explanation to the three ‘omens’ He saw, but also became uniquely qualified to expound this Truth He understood, to others as well. First in line were the ascetics who were also taking this arduous journey.
He found that everything in existence, was subject to change, that nothing remained the same for any two consecutive moments and inclusive of the human being, all living creatures born would undergo irreversible and undesirable change while being assigned to an appropriately programmed finite lifespan. Having nothing permanent within this ‘fathom-long body’ of the human being, the remains will wither away and disintegrate into the same elements as those within the rest of the universe. This is the Truth of our present existence, so we are all subject to ill health and various other morbidities – as in the case of the sick man Prince Siddhartha saw, earlier. Likewise, we will slowly but surely go into old age ‘without so much as a nod for our consent’– like in the case of the old man He saw. Similarly, like the dead man He saw, we need to contemplate that our own departure is as certain as our own programmed lifespan comes to an end.

So, the reality of this existence, however distasteful it may be, is Impermanence – A Principle in the Doctrine of the Buddha. Nobody is exempt from the vicissitudes of Impermanence. As the Buddha explains, this birth is not the beginning nor is it the end – the reality being that one is tied up in a cycle of birth and death, from which ties we need to ‘free’ ourselves. This can be done only through our own efforts as there was no one else who could help get us out of this system. He affirms: that you cannot depend on anyone but yourself as you are your own saviour; that you are your own salvation; so you should try hard to break away from this eternal cycle of birth and death if you are truly keen to achieve liberation from the ‘suffering’ it entails (the First of The Four Noble Truths – ‘Dukkha’). In order to understand that statement, one needs to be convinced that this life offers little by way of happiness but is compounded with components of ‘suffering’ – grief, sadness, misery, anxiety, woe, sorrow etc. Therefore during this season of Wesak, let us contemplate on the Buddha’s message, if we are inclined to do so, and make a start at breaking away from the cycle of birth and death, thus firing up our determination to achieve our goal of Nirvāna or emancipation from ‘Dukkha’, as early as we possibly can, just as Buddhists all over the world energetically aspire to do. There is however, no compulsion whatsoever on anyone to follow this path. The choice is entirely yours!
May all beings be well and happy!
Blissful Wesak to all!