All the good shit is going to end too!

When talking about impermanence, there is often a tendency to talk about mortality and change in a somewhat physical sense. Being aware of the unique, fleeting and brief, opportunity for Dharma practice, and even Buddhahood, that a human life provides us with is essential, however sometimes it seems the more subtle and equally essential stuff is overlooked.

Faith is essential for practicing Dharma. This might piss some of the "Buddhism isn't a religion" crowd off, but life isn't always how we want it. Faith is a mental state/experience.

Most of the traditional Tibetan practice commentaries classify faith in the following ways; clear faith, aspiring faith, trusting faith and irreversible faith.

Renunciation is also essential. Again a mental state, attitude or experience.

Devotion is another of these and for those of us pretending to be practicing the Vajrayana path, it is as essential as the above.

Compassion, essential for all vehicles, but particularly Mahayana, whether in the form of Vajrayana or sutric forms, is yet another mental state, attitude or experience.

All of these are mostly non-physical, although they can manifest physically in the form of tears etc, however they are primarily experienced as mental events.

Bearing in mind how important they are, it's worth cherishing, nurturing and valuing them whilst we have them for they too are impermanent and as reliable as a chocolate tea-pot.

We are often able to let go of loved ones, fun and pleasant experiences, possessions and so forth by having some understanding of impermanence, however how aware of the transience and unreliability of our mental experiences are we?

For those with some mental stability and good karmic propensities for faith and so forth this is probably less of an issue. However for people like me who barely understand the concept of renunciation on an intellectual, and thus superficial, level, it's a bit more problematic. In my own case, I basically have right now to use the limited faith I have as going on my actions in this life, it's unlikely it will arise in the future, even if I happen to be born human, which again is unlikely.

Whatever we experience mentally seems to be transient at a much quicker rate than the physical experiences of transience we have. This difference is somewhat false and irrelevant, however on a meditational level it's useful to be aware of. However distracted, excited or drowsy we feel, however unclear our visualisation, none of this is solid or fixed, so getting too involved in it or being discouraged or overtly enthused by it is pointless and probably counter productive. I realise it's unhelpful to view meditation as "productive", but I couldn't think of another word.

In his awesome "Creation and Completion", effectively a how2yidam commentary, Jamgon Kongtrul points out that both clear and foggy visualisation have the same basis. If we remember this, we are less likely to get discouraged and say "fuck this bullshit" and walk away from practice during the rare moments when we are actually inspired to do it.