Behold, O monks, this is my last advice to you. All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation.
Gautama Buddha
Impermanence (Pāli anicca) is the foundational Great Truth. Nothing lasts forever, everything always changes, change is the only constant. This contradiction is a true paradox - true both in is paradoxicity and in it’s absolute correctness in our universe.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
Heraclitus
Your body is impermanent - the molecules in your body are completely changed every 7 years.
Your brain is impermanent - within a single lifetime neuroplasticity can see your own brain rewire itself.
Your personality is impermanent - today you are happy, tomorrow you are angry. Which one was you?
Once we appreciate the universality of the Darwinian perspective, we realize that our current state, both individually and as societies, is both imperfect and impermanent.
Bacteria to Bach and Back - Daniel Dennett
Evolution (generate, test and select) makes our world non-stationary. They find local optima, exploit them until conditions change and then continue to search the vast space of natural selection.
Natural selection requires separation - the ego and concept of ‘me’ as separate from the rest of the world derives from the need for competition and selection of this over that.
We have a constant drive for things to be different. Adaptation is fundamental to human psychology.
Human beings are excellent at adapting to change - the success in achieving a goal quickly turns into wanting something else. The human condition is one of always wanting things to be slightly different.
This biological need for improving our situation relative to others stems from the hyper competitive nature of our society. All our intelligence derives from this competition - in the form of an arms race of deceiving and detecting deception.
Our fight to out compete each other creates suffering. Our desire to prop up the illusion of a separate self creates a false barrier and false construct of separation from the universe that doesn’t exist. Our attachment to what is mine creates separation - a false duality we impose on a singular universe.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past; Into different lives, or into any future; You are not the same people who left that station; Or who will arrive at any terminus.
The Four Quartets - T.S. Elliott
The truth of change means that permanent happiness isn’t possible - nothing can be permanent. Even if you were to finally achieve a situation of perfection, tomorrow it wouldn’t be. Impermanence causes suffering because perfect situations cannot last (neither can the bad times).
Evolution has given us a strong sense of self - a dualistic way of looking at the world as me and everything else. But if everything always changes, then the self also changes. If the self changes, are you still the same self?
Our body is constantly regenerating and changing. Our personality changes on the scale of seconds - we can go from being cheerful to being sad within a moment. Which self are you - the cheerful self or the sad one?
The truth of change is not the only vector we can use to attack the idea of a separate, independently and inherently existing self. But it is a foundational one.
I have seen these marshes a thousand times, yet each time they’re new.
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
Overcoming the suffering driven by change requires us to embrace change, to expect and accept it.
The solution to satisfaction is acceptance. We must accept the world as it is - what else could you do? Enjoy pleasure when it is here, don’t miss it when it is gone. Accept suffering when it occurs, don’t miss it when it is gone. Engage with the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
Great art is created by making friends with impermanence. Bob Dylan and Neil Young embraced intentional change throughout their careers - changing what made them successful time and time again.
Thanks for reading!