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.