Nothing lasts

Recently I got some almost out of the blue e-mail from various people I've not had contact with for a while. We talked about various things that have happened over the last decade or so. Whilst enjoying the nostalgia, it really made me aware of how

There are things, people and places that once played an important part of my life that are gone forever, never to be seen again.

To some extent this shouldn't come as a shock or anything, change is after all the only constant. But in the modern Westernised world this is somewhat of a taboo subject, especially when it comes to our own inevitable and approaching death. Barely over a hundred years ago people would die at home, now they are hidden away in sanitised death factories.

Sadly it's not just the final reality of death that is hidden from view. Our whole culture now is one of convenience and comfort, which ties us intimately into the cult of youth whilst ironically pushing the planet closer to breaking point both socially and ecologically.

I think our collective discomfort with impermanence is what is making Buddhism in the West relatively weak. Sure there are retreat centres and temples around, but a lot of the time these can simply become playgrounds of spiritual materialism, or even spiritual capitalism. I’m confident spiritual materialism is one of the things which fuels the attractiveness of numerous quick enlightenment packages on offer, particularly the misconception that things like Ngondro are something which is an obstacle to be gotten over and out of the way.

Meditation on impermanence from a personal perspective should probably be performed daily by everyone wishing to engage in any sort of serious practice. By serious I mean something other than simply meditation as a health supplement.

It really is essential to understand that impermanence here isn’t a doctrine to be understood intellectually as an abstract concept, or something to be believe in as an article of faith, but rather it is to be experienced and internalised as this will then make us more able to deal with it as it arises in everyday experience and be less affected by it as well as being mindful that the opportunity to engage in spiritual practice is itself not something to be taken for granted and as such must be prioritised. Can you say you won’t die tonight?