Impermanence

Recently, whilst on retreat, we were offered a reading from Satish Kumar’s book ‘Earth Pilgrim’. About this chant, he writes, ‘I have come to enjoy every action in itself; for every action is a complete action. The bud does not need the flower to complete itself…nothing is incomplete.’ Kumar links the chant to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita which, in 2.47, reminds us not to be motivated by the fruit of our actions.

On returning home, I found out that Meadowlark Yoga Studio, my workplace and yoga home of the last eight years, is closing. A beautiful flower of my life turned over to the compost of memory. When something ends, my immediate experience – unlike Kumar’s – is still usually one of loss. Still, if I hold that experience, like any action, to be complete in itself – where is the lack. The sense of lack arises from the sense that in some way that experience was still to bear fruit or that I am somehow not quite whole without it. 

Yoga and meditation traditions remind us that when we awaken to present moment experience, we acknowledge that our short lives are one lifelong lesson – and many short ones – in impermanence. Still, much of human endeavour offers the illusion of permanence, as this promises the sense of security and stability so many of us crave. In yoga, much klesa (affliction) stems from this. The root of our suffering is avidya (ignorance). We are ignorant insofar as we attach to a seemingly permanent mental construct of our ‘I’ self and our experiences.  

However, change and loss are inevitable and due to our false refuge in these illusions of permanence, when forced to move on, this can feel harsher than ever. Instead the teachings of yoga suggest that we heighten our awareness of impermanence in order to accept the flow of life. Might it also be true that by awakening to impermanence, we savour life more, through recognising its fragility. Herman Hesse writes in Knulp, “If a beautiful thing were to remain beautiful for all eternity, I’d be glad, but all the same I’d look at it with a colder eye. I’d say to myself: You can look at it any time, it doesn’t have to be today.”

Judith Lasiter writes, ‘Life is about letting go, of every exhalation, of the day as you fall asleep, of your children as they leave home. When we resist letting go, we resist the flow of life itself. What can I let go of right now.’ It is our raga (attachment) to all we love which makes this much harder to do than say. 

Of course, we desperately want certain experiences to pass. The Persian adage states, ‘This too shall pass’, reminding us that our pain, like our joy and all experience, will pass. Maybe then we can see our sense of sadness when things pass as a measure of the joy we took in them. Reframing in this way might help us to accept change with greater equanimity.

To come to terms with impermanence takes a radical type of acceptance. Some parts of ourselves might accept change, but most of us have at least some parts, which – without practice – are deeply resistant to it. In my morning sits over the last few weeks, I have been attempting to be present with my sadness at what is past; slowly I feel more excitement and trepidation for the future, because of course all endings are also new beginnings.