impermanence

Spring (Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573)

Everything is impermanent. Everything is on fire, smoldering at the edges, burning¹. Moment to moment, everything suffers a miniature death and miniature rebirth. Like frames of film, fast enough to be imperceptible when immersed. But then I go away and come back and I don’t know what the hell is going on in the movie anymore. I’ve lost the plot.

That’s why they say, “You won't find the same person twice, not even in the same person.”

Impermanence means everything will pass. The heartbreak, the nights spent alone, the fear of not being enough. The empty pockets and the busy head. The days of waiting and hoping and working. Wondering if it’ll all amount to anything. But also the glory days, the golden days, those moments I feel so impossibly happy.

I tell myself: You don’t suffer because life is empty or evil or ugly. You suffer because life is bursting with beauty, both in its joy and its pain, but demands you to let go, a million times over². You can’t hold on to anything. 

The world is full of painstakingly beautiful things that are all careening toward decay. 

—

After leaving my seven-day silent meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, above anything else, the idea of impermanence was tattooed on my brain. The next week, I met an older German man who was once a monk, meditating fourteen hours a day, sleeping three. He had a single tattoo: the Pali symbol for impermanence, sprawled in dark ink across his forearm. (naturally, I joked the tattoo was permanent, which he didn’t think was as amusing as I did).

Because I struggle with impermanence, life has made such an effort to drill it into my skull. I have lived out of my backpack this year, flitting between places like an escaped convict. I have seen friendships falter and fade, knowing they may never return to what they once were. I have walked down sidewalks in strange cities, nudging into the lives of locals who will continue the same routine long after I leave. I have said a goodbye for almost every hello. I keep thinking, over and over, “It’s impermanent, it’s all impermanent”. 

The lesson is clear: you can’t hold onto anything. Stop trying. When the time comes, let go, let go, let go.

Impermanence is a law of reality³. Invisible, but no less real than gravity.

My brain loves to believe that my current state will last forever. That happiness should never leave. Or, that darkness is all there is and will be. There’s a human tendency to cling, to hold what we have close, to want things to stay the same. I think clinging is an attempt at control. If I can hold onto something, it’s mine. If I can keep it, I’m safe. Even if it’s crummy, at least I know what it is. All because I’m terrified of being left alone and empty-handed. To face an unfamiliar world.

But it’s amazing how good it feels when I let go of the need to control everything. Lifting a weight off my back I didn’t even realize was there. Releasing tension that is marrow-deep. A guttural, full-bodied exhale.

Holding on comes naturally. What I need to learn is how to let go.

Just because something beautiful ends, doesn’t stop it from being beautiful.

—

We’re thrown into life, we’re scrambling to make sense of it all, everything feels like it could disappear at any moment, there is so much work to be done, there are so many problems to solve, so many experiences we haven’t had. This is it. This is the reality we’re born into. It’ll never be more permanent, there will never be a better foothold, a firm thing to hold onto. The world will always spin a little bit faster than we’d like it to. Life is continually saying “After this, I’ll have a handle on things”. And then it ends.

Aliveness means impermanence. It’s all flooding in, it’s all passing away. Love and loss, celebration and grief, life and death. My job is not to barricade myself with the slightly-more permanent. My job, really, is to cede to the rhythm, enter the conversation, step into the dance.

The key is to orbit these cycles gently. With grace. To not fight impermanence. Perhaps even welcome it in.

With all my love,

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Thank you

Haley Brengartner

for your wise feedback on this piece.

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👋 what i’ve been up to:

• My first week back home, I’ve been adjusting to the jet lag, writing then re-writing, reading the Bible, running, losing golf balls, listening to Mt. Joy on repeat, seeing friends, doing admin work, and helping pack as we move (again). I’ll be living full-time at my cottage.

• On Sunday, I went to a local church service. I’m not religious, but the warmth I was welcomed with, the wisdom of the sermon, and the felt sense of community wowed me.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick on facing the hard things in life:

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”

📸 photo i took:

Shots from home this week. There’s nothing better than going to your local bakery.

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1. Buddhists observe that we’re all on fire. It can be beautiful, sometimes, to tune in and see the flickering.

2. You feel nothing, you feel everything, you feel it all completely.

3. Impermanence is a law of reality and I’ve learned the more I can accept reality as it is, the less I suffer. Accepting that everything is impermanent is liberating because when people, places, emotions inevitably change, I’m not surprised or upset or disappointed.

The Buddha taught that living in constant realization of impermanence is a shortcut to nirvana. The cessation of suffering. Bliss.