A brief Talk on Impermanence in Buddhism
Given at Hong Kong Buddhist Tri Virtues Advocate Centre on Jul 31st, 2011
Namo Fundamental Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha!
The Dharma, infinitely profound and subtle,
Is rarely encountered even in a million kalpas.
Now we are able to hear, study, and follow it,
May we fully realize the Tathagata”s true meaning.
Dear dharma Masters and dharma friends,
Good evening! Tonight we are gathering at Tri Virtues Advocate Centre, and I”d like to talk about the Buddhist view of impermanence.
I. The Significance of Meditating on Impermanence
Impermanence plays an important role in everyone”s daily life. For those who regularly meditate on it, impermanence is not far away at all, instead, impermanence lies in everything that happens around us. Therefore, it is a key for us to understand and meditate on impermanence. It is one of the most essential ideas among all kinds of dharma practices.
The Buddha once said in Mahaparinirvana Sutra, “Just as among the footprints of all the sentient beings, the elephant”s prints are the greatest; thinking of impermanence is the best among all thoughts.” The Buddha also said in other sutras, the merits of making offerings to one hundred enlightened beings such as Sariputra and Maudgalyayana are huge, but still less than that of meditating on impermanence for one moment.
Because the meditation of impermanence is so essential, we Buddhists shouldn”t treat this pith instruction lightly, or even completely ignore it.
In fact, everything around us is a perfect example to demonstrate impermanence. I remember in 1993, H. H. Wish-Fulfilling Gem Jigme Phuntsok came to Hong Kong and gave the great empowerments of Vajrakilaya and the Great Perfection of Manjushri. Now H. H. the guru entered into parinirvana. I also remember, at that time, Lama Chodak was at the Palyul center of Hong Kong, and a couple of days ago when I just arrived in Hong Kong, I was told he entered into parinirvana, too. At that time H. H. Penor Rinpoche was still alive, but now left us. More recently, the great guru in Tibet, H. H. Lama Achuk also entered into parinirvana. So what do all of these tell us
All of these great masters and virtues have experienced impermanence, not to mention our ordinary sentient beings.
I”m sure many of us here tonight will not be alive twenty or thirty years from now, and more certainly, none of us will be in this world after one hundred years. This is the natural law of life. Therefore, keeping impermanence in mind, I wish all of us not to cling to this life. Lama Tsongkhapa said in The Three Principles of the Path, “developing the awareness of the difficulty of obtaining this precious human rebirth and the impermanence of life will turn us away from fantasies about this life; reflecting upon the immaculate relationship between actions and their inevitable consequences and the sufferings of cyclic existence will change our fantasies about future lives.” If we can completely get rid of our attachment to this life, renunciation and Bodhichitta will arise in our mind and make us a real dharma practitioner.
Maybe some of you took refuge many years ago, while others are novice Buddhists and not familiar with the teaching of impermanence. In either case, we should know that, impermanence is the truth and unaltered objective law in this world.
II. The Embodiment of Impermanence
In Buddhism, impermanence is mainly described in four aspects, often called “four edges of impermanence”, which are
Whatever is stored up is bound to run out.
Whatever rises up is bound to fall down.
Whatever come together is bound to fall apart.
Whatever is born is impermanent and is bound to die.
Many Buddhists can repeat these four sentences, but the question is whether you mediate on them o…
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