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Sometimes it is easy to forget - particularly if you didn’t know this in the first place - that Buddha taught the truth of the three marks of existence. Impermanence. No self. Suffering. Nothing stays the same, even us. Life is tough. For every single person.
In the Flower Ornament Sutra, each of these marks provides a backdrop to the teachings. Every once in awhile one of them moves to center stage. In Book Five of the Sutra, the main character, Universally Good, is settling down to teach. His concentration is strong. And he is ready to rock and roll.
“In each of the systems of worlds, The worlds are inconceivably many; Some forming, some decaying, Some have already crumbled away.
Like leaves in a forest, Some growing and some falling.”
In each moment, some growing some falling. Some birth, some death. New cells forming in our bodies while others die off.
Winter is such a wonderful reminder of this sweet dynamic. Everything is cold, quiet, still. The trees are without leaves. Even so birth is going on; buds are just below the surface of time.
This is emptiness. This constant changing of things; this constant transformation. Buddha taught emptiness ad nauseum. It is everywhere – in the Dhammapada, the Diamond Sutra, you name it.
Here’s the thing: when we fight it, when we fight emptiness we get into trouble, whether we’re talking about relationships, work, the state of the world, parenting. When we fight it hard, the troubling consequences are immediate. I think of Michael Jackson, a true genius. He built a 3,000 acre “Neverland” around him so he can stay childlike, writing songs in his favorite tree. But he is 44, a father, and clinging to “childlike” has caused millions of dollars of problems for him - from lawsuits by untrusting parents to problems with his record company to waves of unwanted photographers who hound him without end.
Or then there’s the national move toward plastic surgery so we can all stay young and beautiful. Perhaps the most famous example is a woman called “Catwoman” whose husband finally divorced her because she has had so much plastic surgery that her face no longer looks human. When I was in Chicago last week there was a special on the television in the train station about a woman who had saved $6,000 (I can’t remember the exact amount) to have butt implants so she could look more like Jennifer Lopez. This, even as lawsuits for plastic surgery gone awry climb to an all time high.
Everything changes. Everything. One of my best friends just turned sixty and even though he is on a limited income he can’t make himself ask for senior discounts when we go out to eat or to the movies because he can’t admit that he is that old.
When we fight change so hard we lose opportunity after opportunity to appreciate a moment, a place, a feeling. We don’t give ourselves permission to stay in the land of “just this” where everything about our lives is authentic, is honest. In this place, real joy is possible, and a contentedness that can ride the waves of impermanence without the need for a new face.
I think of my great grandmother. She embraced the “whole damn mess of her life”, polishing it off as the too old floozie in one of Boston’s Irish pubs. Not that she like alcohol. She just liked the lipstick and the flirting and the being who she is with people she really liked. Her’s is a great gift – a gift of pure acceptance of emptiness. This is real freedom.
