Training in impermanence


Student: I was wondering if you could touch on impermanence for a second. It’s a part of my practice in the teachings that I haven’t had enough time to study.

Ken: [Laughs] Because things keep changing, right?

Student: Impermanence—almost on an even deeper level—dealing with death and the fact that it’s inevitable, that we are all created from the same things, and we all end up in the same place. It becomes ever so apparent to me in my practice because I’ve learned now that I’m not my material possessions. I’m not my clothes. I’ve come to learn that I’m not my thoughts. And, as I grow a little older, I’ve realized that I’m not my body, as I start to lose my hair and my feet and my back hurt. I realized that’s not who I am. So can you talk about how that relates to who we actually are, beyond our body, thoughts and possessions, if that does relate to impermanence in any way?

Ken: Well, it certainly does. That’s great. Okay. I need to dig a little deeper if that’s okay with you. What’s the question behind the question?

Student: Who are we really?

Ken: No. You’ve asked this question, but it’s coming from someplace in you. So what’s the question behind the question?

Student: Maybe, possibly, who am I?

Ken: Who am I? Ah, okay. [Pause] Well, you’re going to find this terribly glib. I wouldn’t worry about it. [Laughter] No, I mean, as I said, that’s a little bit glib. So let me expand on that a little …

What you’ve been doing in your practices is very good and I want to put it in a slightly different framework, which may help me and I hope to help you. It’s my intention anyway. We train in impermanence, including contemplation of our own mortality. And, in the traditional teachings it’s said—at least the way I was trained, and this may have some resonance with you—to sever attachment to this life. That sounds familiar? Okay.

Now, the key is what does this life refer to? Usually—at least in the Tibetan tradition in which I was trained—this life refers to the life we’re having now, and when we sever attachment to this life we’ll focus on things which are really important, like what’s going to happen in future lives. Somehow this never really passed muster with me because I wasn’t really sure that I was going to be around.

Now, somebody asked me the other day, how do you know you’re not going to experience future life? I said, “I don’t know, but all I know is that it’s not going to be me, because I’m a product of this life.” I’ve taught death and I practiced it myself a lot, and I’ve taught it to many, many people. But as I dug into this more, what I came to appreciate, and what I found happening again and again, is that people, when they practice death and impermanence, had exactly the kind of understandings that you’re describing. Like, “No, I’m not, my possessions, I am not all this material stuff, and I’m not even my body,” because there’s the sense of something other. What people found that changed is they stopped—stopped is not quite the right word—they found themselves being freed from socially and culturally conditioned notions of success and failure. We’re meant to have this great body and we’re meant to have all this wealth and we’re meant to be famous, and well-known, that’s success, right? And obscure and unhappy, and, you know, scraping our way through life, that’s failure, and so forth. And just as they really came to accept that all of the stuff that we’re told is so important, wasn’t actually important.

Oh, so the question about “Who am I” became, “What’s really important to me?” And they moved out of the socially conditioned life and started living their own lives, which is horribly dangerous, at least as far as society is concerned, because now you’re no longer subject to the usual rules. They start with “What’s really important to me?” And that’s the question that’s at the heart of the matter. And in this you’re in very good company, because the Stoics back in Grecian times did exactly the same set of contemplations. They phrased it a little differently, but they used very similar meditations and they said, anything that can be taken away from me is not to be valued.

Could my material possessions be taken away from me? Absolutely. You know, somebody can come in and steal them tomorrow. Can my wealth and job be taken away from me, my career? Yup. That can be taken away. Can my health and wellbeing, or health and comfort be taken away? Yup. Can my family and friends be taken away? Yup. Can my body be taken away? Yup. So if anything that can be taken away from me is not to be valued, then what do I actually value? And they come out in a remarkably similar position as Buddhism does. The quality of what I’m experiencing now, or my experience now is the only thing that can’t be taken away from me.

And so you come—when you approach, whether it’s through death and impermanence or through the stoic approach—you come to, okay, how am I right now? Am I experiencing this? Am I in this experience? And am I doing things that are contrary to whatever values I hold in myself? And this becomes one’s primary concern in life, living in a way which is in balance and doesn’t create imbalance and struggle with our experience. This sounds very simple, but it’s actually very, very profound.

Work well and lie low


Ken: I brought along these just in case I might need them today. These are a couple of translations of Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching. And it’s so on this topic. There’s one particular, I’ve got a couple of translations here, but one from, this is Ursula Le Guin’s, which is really quite a lovely translation:

Brim-fill the bowl and it’ll spill over. If you make things too full, you just make a mess. Keep sharpening the blade and you’ll soon blunt it.

Tao Te Ching, Ursula K Le Guin, 1998


So if you keep working at stuff without taking any respite or really looking at what you’re doing, you’re just going to ruin things. Nobody can protect a house full of gold and jade. No, everybody’s going to try and steal from that. You know, Southern California has been the bank robbery capital of the world for ages. Wealth, status, pride are their own ruin. To do good, work well, and lie low is the way. Does that help? Okay.