Everyone seems to know impermanency superficially but does not understand the real comprehension of the concept. We often hear Buddhists or other people mentioning the Chinese phrase, “人生无常” (life is impermanent) but how aware are we on the understanding of impermanence in life?
What Is The True Meaning of Impermanence?
The true meaning of “impermanence” or “impermanency” is that, where there is existence, there will also be non-existence in the future.
Whenever there is life borne into this world, there will be impermanency. And where there is impermanency, there will always be attachment involved.
When one has cultivated to achieve non-attachment, then there is no more impermanency. But how do you go about achieving this non-attachment?
Non-Attachment, The Answer to Impermanency
Non-attachment comes from our ability to control our five senses’ desires until we are able to live simple, eat simple and dress simple. We learn to be humble and practice moderation in life. These are the solid foundations towards eradicating our attachments to this world.
Though it may look simple and easily adoptable, however in reality, it is indeed very difficult to practice due to our time differences, environmental changes and the change in our living patterns compared to the people in the past or even of the ancient times.
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In recollection, in the olden days, people ate only two meals a day, slept around 9.00pm and woke up at 5.00 am in the morning. They worked daily in the cottage industries and hardly yearned to desperately buy houses or cars.
In those yesteryears, there were only wooden houses and free land to build their home while automobile and gadgets were nonexistent. Hence, life was always simple in living and people tend to have no cravings to buy luxurious things.
It is when there is no craving in our everyday outlook, then there is no attachment and subsequently, there is no impermanency. Ancient people rarely possess any jealousy and discontentment upon seeing their neighbors or friends wearing beautiful dresses or luxurious cars, for there is no compelling reason for them to compare, and they also have none of these items to witness this sort of unnecessary drama at all.
The Awareness of Impermanence in The Modern World
In comparison with today’s world, everything is well developed with all the high-speed automobiles, modern concrete houses and buildings, and luxurious furniture. Land becomes scarce and expensive day by day. People begin to follow the Joneses, striving so hard to buy a new car and a house as their mark of being successful people.
All these materialistic demands give birth to extra commitments to keep up with installments and financing of a new house, which leads one to feel great mental pressure – this is also where one’s attachment is then born. When attachment arises, we will gradually witness the agony of impermanency.
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Nothing is ever permanent. The moment we begin to feel attached to anything, impermanency is set in.
We will always fear that one day, our income is depleted due to disasters or epidemic causing the whole world to come to a standstill in economy. We will constantly feel restless and fearful of the possible loss of the things we cherish, be it wealth, status, the people we love, career and more – all because we allow ourselves to be highly attached to those things and people, granting the course of impermanence to take root in our lives, to the point of negatively affecting our mental and emotional states.
The Habit of Taking Things For Granted
Our earth people always take for granted that the world will exist peacefully and remain intact most of the time, even when history has shown us that nothing is permanent in this world, from the change of country leaderships to the rise and fall of global economies.
This is the true meaning of impermanency when one is always uncertain of the future ahead. Many of us will always clamor for security in our surrounding, hoping that things can continue to be intact, which is an impossible thought because the whole world is always moving in motion and eventually ceases its presence. The truth is people never accept that everything in this world must come to an end regardless of time and space.
Sometimes, we are so used to our daily living that we may be oblivious to our surrounding area, family ties, romantic engagement as well as our career advancement, as all these phenomena obliterate our mind that this earth world is full of illusions and therefore is impermanent.
Only when one suddenly loses a child, faces death of an immediate family member or breaks down in marriage or suffers from failure in business tradings, does one only start to realize that nothing is permanent.
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How to Realize and Be Aware of Impermanency in Life
Anyone who wants to truly understand the meaning of impermanency will need to do a lot of contemplation and pondering in order to instill the power of realization of this concept.
This self-realization will then open up our mind to develop instinct and intuition, both of which will guide us to understand the origin of impermanency. Otherwise, many of us will conduct our daily life in the same take-for-granted manner to the point we completely lose the awareness and consciousness of the fact that this earth world is nothing but an illusion and just an impermanent abode.
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Final Thoughts
Impermanence has always been a part and parcel of our life on earth. As long as one possesses attachment, impermanency will definitely come into play.
Impermanence is not something you can eradicate in life, but as a human being on earth, it is more important for us to be aware and realize how impermanency affects us, and how we can better conduct ourselves in our day-to-day living to lessen our attachments to avoid letting the impermanent situations impede our spiritual growth.
The way forward is to constantly practice mindfulness through daily pondering and contemplation. However, it seems like futile effort for people nowadays to be encouraged enough to practice pondering and contemplation since young due to their wrong brought-up and the lack of awareness in parents themselves.
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Not only are many people not properly taught discipline at home and cultivate moral values, but they also lack good manners and respect towards elderly people. When all these important vital foundations to procure our wise thoughts are absent in our character, then they are totally oblivious to the urgent need to understand the true meaning of impermanency.
In fact, many people nowadays only prefer simple thoughts and processes, fast and easy materials to practice anything in life while avoiding anything that requires complex thinking, all of which are not healthy ways to learn and delve deeper into the concept of impermanence. This learning manner will always be beyond the reach of any ordinary rigid people not willing to broaden their mind, for remember: Good and pure things are never easy to come by, and anything that is fast and easily achievable is never solidly materialized.