Anitya-- Poem

I laid in bed in the silence of the night,
Clasping to a toy in my arms, tight
T’was the only comfort I could get
As I wept and asked my Lord “why”…

“Well, you know such things don’t last….”
Was what my godmother said
“Move on; and don’t live in the past”
Was what’s resonating in my head

My heart seems to yearn to grow,
But everything seems to be so wrong
My mind seems to know the path to go,
But why does my heart cling on to that pain, so strong?

Anitya—Impermanence
Is something that my head knows
Tho’ when feelings fade and things change
The true extent of my knowledge shows….

Anitya

I was on the phone with my godmother a couple of weeks ago, and it was one line that she had said to me that really made me reflect:

“Well, you know, such things don’t last.”

My godmother is not a Buddhist, and she probably doesn’t know the implications of what she had said. Unknowingly, she had touched on a very important aspect of the Buddhist tradition—the second mark of existence.

Anitya: impermanence, ever-changing-ness, and in my godmother’s words: “Such things don’t last”.

Here, is the eleboration of what Anitya is in my life.

I have had many different types of relationship in the past, just as most people do. And I have lost some... many, in fact, and all my life I grieve and asked "why"... But slowly, I learnt to understand... Bhavana-mayi-prajna. Wisdom that I have acquired with experience and loss.

Being born, we have relationships with our parents; siblings born, we have relationships with our siblings; going to school and meeting others, we have relationships with our peers; growing up and starting courtship, we have relationships with our potential spouses; being married, we have relationships with our spouse, his/her family, and his/her friends; having children, we have relationships with our children; relationships with our children's friends, their spouses, their children, our grandchildren, and the list goes on...

In the above paragraph about all the different relationships, we can already see that our lives are never a standstill. With the new people we meet and come across in our lives, we keep growing and changing. Nothing is permanent.

In my previous entry, I spoke about Dhukha: cravings, desires, dissatisfactions, suffering. I also mentioned that through Dhukha, we can come to accept Anitya in life, in our emotions, our ideas, and our environment.

In a way, the argument is circular. The fact is that Anitya is an aspect of life that, in a way, results in Dhukha. And it is also through Dhukha that we, as humans, learn to accept Anitya. Let me explain what I mean.

Anitya, impermanence is an expect of life. In life, things are always changing. Nothing is the same all the time. Our emotions go up and down, our environment is different with every breath we take… But, we crave and desire things to be the same. We cling on to the ideas that we have and in a way “go against” the “Law of Anitya”. When we hold on to something, and that something is changing, that something that we were holding on to before has become the past. In that way, we hold on to the past, and we refuse to accept the growth and change that is coming. We are upset and dissapointed when things are not the way it used to be… Dhukha….

We feel distraught, we go into a depression, we wish we didn’t exist… We start to grieve, we confide in others, we cry in the dark of night, we wake up every morning with nothing to live for in life… Then we start to heal, we start to cultivate our hearts towards peace, we start to practice patience as we wait for the heart and the soul to heal… sometimes, we revert back to grieving… we cry a little, our emotions go on a roller coaster ride… and we try to cultivate our hearts again… We think about things, we learn from our past…. Finally, we come to accept Anitya in our lives. We have come a full circle where Anitya resulted in Dhukha, and Dhukha resulted in the realization of Anitya.

The idea of Anitya is not merely a Buddhist thought. Einstien has also said that the only thing in the world that is constant is change. And below are 2 passages from the Bible that I have come to realise their meaning….

1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
2A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
3A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
4A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
5A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
6A time to gain, And a time to lose;
A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
7A time to tear, And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
8A time to love, And a time to hate;
A time of war, And a time of peace. (Ecclesiastes 3: 1—8)


3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matt 5: 3—11)

These 2 Bible passages refer to the idea of Anitya, impermanence. Things come and go, and there is a time for everything. Blessed or happy are those who mourn because their time for comfort is coming. Without mourning (the Dhukha environment), there can be no comfort (cultivation of Wisdom). In Luke 6 of the Bible, Jesus gave “the woes”, the anti-theses of the Beatitudes. For example, “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep” (Lk 6: 25). To me, Jesus is referring to that since there is a time for everything, woe to those who are laughing now because the time for mourning and weeping for them is near…. In essence, it’s saying that what goes up, must come down, and what goes down, must come back up. If we keep Anitya in mind, we will realise that there is nothing too big or too small to handle. Our very existence will put things in order. All we have to do is to keep learning from our experiences and to cultivate Wisdom-- love, patience, understanding, peace, joy, and so on.

Anitya—Impermanence—the second mark of existence. I choose once again to embrace it, to learn from it. Bhavana-mayi-prajna. With my recent loss, I have experienced Anitya once again, and I have acquired Wisdom... I am blessed to say that I have experienced the second mark of existence.

Dhukha

As promised, this next entry is the elaboration of Dhukha in my life.

Dhukha-- craving, desire, dissatisfaction, suffering... the first mark of existence in the Buddhist tradition.

We crave for things and we desire for situations to be one way when it's the other. We are dissatisfied with what we have and/or what we are given in life. In turn, we suffer pain and unhappiness.

We crave for understanding, we desire love; we are dissatisfied when things turn out differently than what we wanted them to be. Sometimes things are thrown in our paths and we do not know what to do... Dhukha—a nature that resides in all human-ness.

I recently experienced a grave loss in my life; A loss so great that my life will forever be changed. No doubt it brought me a lot of pain, and it continues to do so, but I have gained Wisdom once again—Bhavana-mayi-prajna, Wisdom based on experience and practice.

I have acquired the understanding of Love—unconditional and true Love, which was something that I did not understand before. However, I do regret. I regret that it turned out that I had to lose this Love in order to learn and understand fully the meaning of it. But I am still blessed.

Some would say that I am a sucker for pain, but I believe that pain brings about growth and thus, life. And to bring a little Christianity to this discussion, the passion and suffering of Jesus on the Cross, was for our growth and was for Life—abundant Life.

I count myself very fortunate to be blessed with a lot of Bhavana-mayi-prajna in my life, because that is the most important type of Wisdom in the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, though that means that my life is quite a struggle.

However, it is through the cultivation, the healing of the heart, and working through struggles that Wisdom can be acquired, and this would mean to have to go through Dhukha in the first place in order to have that environment for cultivation.

I guess I can say that I choose to embrace Dhukha, to accept that this is a very important aspect of our existence. We can’t hide or run from it, although we could learn and use it to cultivate peace, understanding, love, and qualities that will bring about Life and ultimately, Happiness.

Perhaps this can parallel what some people mean when they say if you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards that situation. It is then, we will be happy.

Dhukha, I think, is also brought about by the desire of the heart to be attached or hold to an idea, a situation, a person, etc. Although the idea of having a goal is good, I have learnt that we have to be opened to what life brings to us.

Sometimes, we think that we know what reality is, and we hold on to that idea so tightly that if anything were to disrupt it, we get upset or unhappy. Perhaps, here, we should learn from Jainism, especially the Syadvada School, the “could-be” school of thought of Anekantavada—the doctrine of manifoldness. We view reality and hold ideas of reality from different perspectives, and each of these perspectives only see a part of the entire Reality. Maybe as humans, we could see things from different perspectives and always challenge our own views in order to see Reality as a whole. To be opened, I guess, to the ideas of others, new environments, and situations that life throws to us. To put ourselves in the shoes of others, to empathize, and to cultivate compassion that way. To see things from the spectacles of others, and to adjust our own constantly to see Reality as a whole.

Through Dhukha, we come to accept Anitya, impermanence, in life, in our emotions, our ideas, and our environment. I will elaborate more on this point in my next entry.

However, I do desire and crave simplicity too. Sometimes I wish my life was simpler than it had been. But as life would have it, many things are not up to us to control… Different people make different choices in their lives, and since humanity is interconnected, one choice made by one person often affects another person. But as I have mentioned above, if we are always opened to life and what life has to offer to us, we will be able to rise up beyond those cravings, desires, dissatisfactions, and pursue Happiness.

I guess through the recent Dhukha I had to carry, I have gained a lot of Wisdom-- openness, understanding, patience, peace, love... I believe that I will continue to realize and acquire more Wisdom as I heal, and as I cultivate my heart towards Happiness.

I choose to embrace Dhukha, I choose to embrace Life. With these, I have experienced the first mark of existence. I am blessed...

The 3 Marks of Existence

So much thoughts, so much to write. Where do I start.... Let's just start at why I named my first blog what I named my first blog.

Dhukha, Anitya, Anatman... the 3 marks of existence in the Buddhist tradition. So what do they actually mean?

Dhukha: craving, dissatisfaction, desire, suffering—this is the first mark of existence.

Anitya: impermanence, ever-changing-ness—this is the second mark of existence.

Anatman: no Self-ness, negation of the idea of Self—this is the third mark of existence.

In the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, there are different types of Wisdom. The 3 of which that are of more importance are:

1. Sruta-mayi-prajna: Wisdom based on that which is heard (Sruti-hearing)
2. Cinta-mayi-prajna: Wisdom based on reason (Cinta- reflection/thinking)
3. Bhavana-mayi-prajna: Wisdom based on practice and/or experience (Bhavana-cultivation/practice)

Of the 3 types of Wisdom stated here, that which is the most "authoritative" and thus most important is (3) Bhavana-mayi-prajna.

Over the 23 years I have been in existence, I have experienced many things. Experiences are fundamental aspects of being in existence. I must say, I have been blessed over the years with all 3 ways/types of Wisdom. For the people who know me well, they must agree with me that I have been blessed the most with Bhavana-mayi-prajna—practical Wisdom, cultivated through experiences in my life. My godfather once said to me after a very trying year that he asks for nothing else for me except that God blesses me more with theoretical knowledge and wisdom rather than having to learn through practice. I laughed… because this year, he told me again that I am truly a sucker for pain…

I consider myself more blessed than cursed in that way because the very point of existence as it is in the Buddhist tradition as I have mentioned above, are those 3 marks of Dhukha, Anitya, and Anatman. All 3 of which I must say I have experienced… What better and greater Wisdom can I be blessed with having to carry Dhukha, experiencing Anitya, and realizing Anatman. I will continue to elaborate what I mean in the next few entries of this blog…

Stay Tuned!!!!!