Why does the concept of impermanence strike such fear into my heart? ANITYA
There have been times it has given me freedom and lightness to take things easier and with less grasping, which I think is supposed to be the point. But most of the time it does the opposite, I just want to cling harder and am filled with existential angst. What can I do to let that fear go?
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level 1
Fear is very useful. It points both to: (i) where our mind is fixated, and (ii) the fact that everything changes and the things we are fixated on have no intrinsic “self”.
Buddhism teaches that we live in a state of delusion. The way things actually are, there is no basis for fear.
The traditional analogy used to explain fear is the analogy of the rope and the snake. In our lives, we are like a person who is in a dark room and we see a snake in the corner of the room. In reality, we are deluded. There is no snake. What we think is a snake is really a piece of colored rope. Nevertheless, we are terrified.
The conventional way to relate with fear is to apply the three poisons. The three poisons are passion, aggression, and ignorance. Passion is the habit of grasping at pleasant things. We might try to collect antidotes to poison or put on heavy clothes that might protect us from snake bites. Aggression is trying to destroy what is fearful and unpleasant. We might try to kill the snake. Ignorance is distracting ourselves and ignoring our fear.
The three poisons don’t work. They don’t get to the root of the problem. We are afraid of death. We try to eat healthy food and hope that if we eat a lot of fruit smoothies, we will live a long time. We adopt belief in philosophies that say that Jesus or the Buddha will save us and that there is a heaven and that death isn’t real. Or we distract ourselves with video games or we get drunk or become workaholics and spend our lives preoccupied.
The only solution that works is to confront fear. We do this through meditation practice. We look into the nature of who we are and discover that there is no intrinsic self that needs protection from death. We are more like a process or a continuous unfolding of experience than we are like a person. It is not that we are impermanent and dying. It is that, in a single moment, we can’t put our finger on exactly who we are. We can’t identify who we are. What we are afraid of losing is an illusion. There is no snake.
Of course, writing this (or reading it) is an intellectual exercise. It is necessary to actually practice meditation and to sit and to look into the nature of fear — to look into what we are attached to and what fear really is. It takes bravery.
A good book on this subject is Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
level 2
This is so thoughtful and so beautifully written, thank you for taking the time to respond. With all due respect wasn’t Trungpa an alcoholic? Maybe I’m misinformed? But if I’m going down this path of facing fear (and pretty afraid about doing it) I want to make sure to have the right guides.
level 1
You could take this feeling and channel it into something more productive - like creating positive karma! Volunteer! Go to a Dharma teaching! Performing a random act of kindness! Your idle mind is clinging to the fear. Simply put, do anything (as long as it's virtuous) to distract yourself.
Knowing that your time is limited and that you could die at any moment, what are you doing wasting time being fearful for?! What does being fearful accomplish? When you logically see that fear serves no productive purpose whatsoever, it will be easier to let go of. When you have distracted yourself from the fear with virtuous activity, you will know that fear is not the only option.
Does this make sense?
level 1
Fear is mental. Is impermanence hurting you in this present moment? Learn to be more present. Impermanence permeates this present moment, not just the dread you may feel when applying it to the future.
Do you meditate consistently? Do you practice sila? Do you work with metta in both daily life and practice?
These will calm you, increase your capacity to be present and allow you to recognise impermanence for the priceless treasure that it is. With time the thoughts of the future will become very light and thready, not weighing on you, because you will see that you are much bigger than these thoughts.
Trust your capacity to handle what is here now, then all things become manageable and your true strength will unfold.
level 2
Thank you, this is very helpful and hopeful. I have not been regularly mediating in a long time. I let it go with kids and the fear has defiantly increased since the time I had a regular practice.
level 1
Impermanence is part of your perception of existence.
As for emptiness, the Buddha mentioned it only rarely, but one of his definitions for emptiness (SN 35:85) closely relates it to another teaching that he mentioned a great deal. That’s the teaching popularly known as the three characteristics, and that the Buddha himself called, not “characteristics,” but “perceptions”: the perception of inconstancy, the perception of suffering/stress, and the perception of not-self. When explaining these perceptions, he taught that if you perceive fabricated things—all things conditioned by acts of intention—as inconstant, you’ll also see that they’re stressful and thus not worthy identifying as you or yours.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/uncollected/FirstThingsFirst.html
To me this passage indicates the importance of neither clinging to nor averting ourself from these perceptions. Instead try to understand them: when adopting right view towards them right understanding will result. In my personal belief system it is OK to be scared of anicca and anatta because they go against the cultural expectations of existence that I picked up from Western belief systems. We are supposed to have some kind of eternal soul and be able to achieve some kind of lasting happiness. Or humans are supposed to be able to achieve some kind of technological stability and stave off human wants forever. Neither of these positions seem likely to be true to me and that leaves me disappointed.
The next part is important too:
His purpose in teaching these perceptions was for them to be applied to suffering and its cause as a way of fostering dispassion for the objects of clinging and craving, and for the acts of clinging and craving themselves.
This dispassion is samvega. It is an important spur for practice. It is tempered by pasada, which is a serene confidence. I fully believe you can keep practising until you possess this confidence more and more (more reading here).
To respond to your points and answer your question in a straightforward way as best as I can (I am no expert, so find a chunk of salt if possible):
...which I think is supposed to be the point.
You can respond to your perception of anicca however you want. That's your choice. While partaking conditioned existence necessarily leads to physical dis-ease -- and, without mental practice, mental dis-ease also -- you are free to experience this dis-ease in what seems to me to be an infinite plethora of ways.
...I just want to cling harder and am filled with existential angst...
Look at the first noble truth. Don't read it, hear it, or remember it. Look at it. Appraise it from all angles. Consider different translations. Look at the potential meaning of the words in those sentences. See how true the overall meaning(s) you find to be for you: as true as a tower which never falls?, or as true as the phenomena of clouds which will always sometime and somewhere mark the sky of some wet planet?, or as true as the brightness of a mistake which defines your existence? Relate your experiences to it, both happy and sad. Is there anything which you have ever been able to cling on to which has or which truthfully promises to fulfil you, you and you alone, in a way which will protect you from all the onslaughts that conditioned existence brings.
Start with the four noble truths. Start with the first of those four. Start there and do not move on until you accept there is no solution for this angst in the world around you. No matter what you do, no matter who you are, there is no escape from it... not within the world of conditioned existence.
Start with the four noble truths. Start with the first of those four. Start there and do not move on until you accept there is no solution for this angst in the world around you. No matter what you do, no matter who you are, there is no escape from it... not within the world of conditioned existence.
What can I do to let that fear go?
Practice. To practice means to work towards the absence of desire/clinging. It's all in the four noble truths: the existence of, the cause of, the existence of the cessation of, and the existence of the path for the cessation of. But you have to start with the first, because without understanding it fully there is no reason to walk the path.
level 1
I feel the same way a lot of the time! Maybe instead of trying to escape this fear, just sit with it and examine it? Even your fear is impermanent, so the good news is that it will go away! :)
level 1
Maybe you don't quite understand fully what is meant by impermanence? It doesn't mean you don't exist, if that's what fills you with dread. That's what I needed to understand anyway. Its not impermanence which causes your dread, it's the views you hold which conflict with impermanence which do.
level 2
That is defiantly part of it it. Or maybe all of it. So what does it mean?
level 1
It’s not really possible to leave my 1 year old unattended, I could probably get away w it w my 4 year old, or take time at night when my husband gets home and can watch. There is a time at 7 after dinner but before bed when my husband is home and I just watch TV. Its very hard to motivate after a long day with them but it’s probably worth the difference in my life
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