The curse and the blessing of impermanence
Impermanence can be a curse or a blessing.
The curse of impermanence: when identified with the seen
It is a curse if there is an identification with the seen, typically our human self. Then, we are at the mercy of birth and death, illness and loss, getting what we don't want and don't getting what we want. Identified as our human self our happiness is precarious at best.
The blessing of impermanence: as a guide to find ourselves as that which does not change
And it is also a blessing, as a reminder to find ourselves as that which does not change. We can notice sounds, sights, smells, tastes, sensations and thoughts come and go. All of this which makes up our human self, which we have been so closely identified, comes and goes, constantly, in our own immediate experience.
Yet, something does not change. What is it that does not change? It is this awake space that all of this comes and goes within, it is the awareness it happens to and as.
Here, impermanence becomes a blessing. It helps us shift out of a blind identification with the seen and find ourselves as the seeing itself. It helps the center of gravity shift our of our human self and into and as the witness.
And here, there is first an intuition and feeling of no separation between the seen and the seeing, both seem to have the same flavor, to be aspects of a larger whole, be born from the same Ground.
Shifting into realized selflessness
Then, there is the noticing of both the seeing and the seen as inherently absent of any I. They are Ground in its seeing and seen aspects, yet with no I anywhere.
The sense of center falls away. The sense of I and Other falls away. The seeing and the seen arises as a field absent of center, absent of I anywhere.
Relative and absolute
Impermanence as a curse or blessing is a relative truth.
The absolute shows us that impermanence is inherently absent of either, so allows both. It allows any relative truth about impermanence, including any and all stories about impermanence that comes up in us, including this one.
Labels: impermanence, realized selflessness, relative and absolute