I was just reading Thich Nhat Hanh on the subject of impermanence. He makes note of the fact that it appears that our suffering in life comes from the impermanence of things. Life itself is impermanent as death takes us all away in time and when we lose the ones we love, we suffer. However, he points out that the Buddha suggested we look again and discover the fact that without impermanence life is not possible.

How can we transform our suffering if things are not impermanent? How can our daughter grow up into a beautiful young lady? How can the situation in the world improve? We need impermanence for social justice and for hope.

Of course this is quite true. Existence is nothing more than our awareness of events transpiring, of impermanence, whether it’s the impermanence of the salad you ate for lunch or the impermanence of you reading this blog post (as you peruse these words you move inexorably from a time in which they are unfamiliar to you towards a time in which they are familiar to you). This means that our cause of suffering in life is not impermanence itself, it is our attitude towards it. We cause ourselves suffering by attempting to stop change, by attempting to counteract life itself or, at the very least, by our refusal to accept this fundamental fact of existence.

If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent. When a flower dies, you don’t suffer much, because you understand that flowers are impermanent. But you cannot accept the impermanence of your beloved one, and you suffer deeply when she passes away.

This perspective on life is one that I have only recently worked to acquire and in the process of doing so I have come to realize how diametrically opposed it is to the Biblical view of the world in which permanence, eternity, stasis, are not only considered possible but are the chief aim of life.

What is heaven other than, to quote Talking Heads, “a place where nothing ever happens”? What was God supposedly doing for the eternity in which supposedly “lived” before he created the universe? Does it qualify as living if you’re not changing? If you are eternally unchanged and unchangeable? If no events are taking place? And what about the paradise earth that the faithful witness of Jehovah looks forward to? No death? No crime, wars, revolutions… sounds great until you ponder, what would happen, what would it be like? Would it be any sort of life at all?

I suppose you could look at the two philosophies as opposite proposed solution to the same problem. In the case of the Buddhist teaching on impermanence, the universe as it appears is accepted and the cause of suffering is found within, with our failure to adjust to reality. Reality is that our earth, our selves, the sun, the universe itself, will all pass away. In the world of Christianity, our lives, our planet, God, heaven, even the Bible itself, are all supposed to be permanent, lasting forever. Even at death the consolation is, “yes, but this life isn’t all there is, when you die you go on to another place”. It’s all a denial of death, a denial of impermanence, or at the very least an entire system of thought built up around coming up with ways that God is going to set things right, going to make up for the losses.

When Rhett died there was no consolation for the people in attendance at his funeral beyond, “we’ll see him again in the New Order”. The reality, that there is not going to be a “New Order”, no resurrection, no seeing your dead loved ones again, can be responded to in one of two ways, denial or acceptance. Denial, the Christian way, never truly allows you real peace because it is still contingent on you being a good enough Christian, pleasing God well enough, for you to make it to heaven or the paradise as well. Your whole life is a test and a trial and the solution is only available to you if you can develop enough faith to believe in things you cannot sense with your eyes, ears, nose, mouth or skin. If you are a person who can hold to faith, truly believe, the denial approach must provide a level of comfort but it seems to me that it comes at a cost.

The Buddhist approach doesn’t involve faith and it doesn’t involve denial. It says, this is the nature of things. It is all anybody has ever seen. If you feel pain at this, it is because you wish it to be different. Stop wishing it to be different and you will no longer feel that pain. I’m not saying this is easy, but isn’t it, at the very least, more conducive to our ultimate well-being as we replace superstitions and faith that run contrary to reality with a harmonious acceptance of life as it is?

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