Everything Changes: Now What?

.

So,

Many years ago,

I remember hearing this story about the late great Zen master Suzuki Roshi,

Where a student raised his hand after a talk and he asked him,

You know,

Master,

I just don't understand.

Can you just please put it in a nutshell for us?

Can you just please reduce Buddhism to one phrase?

And apparently everyone in the meditation hall started laughing about this and Suzuki Roshi was laughing too,

Because it did seem kind of funny,

This idea that the teachings of the entire polycannon could be reduced to just one simple phrase.

So after the laughter had died down a bit,

Suzuki Roshi very quietly said two simple words,

Which were everything changes.

Everything changes.

And this is just one of my very favorite Buddhist phrases.

And it's one of what I often call Buddhist sticky notes,

Which are these great two to five word phrases that are really easy to remember and sort of keep in our pockets so that it's right there whenever we need it.

And this past year,

I've really been keeping this particular phrase very close because the changes in my own life have just felt really overwhelming for so many different reasons.

And of course,

I absolutely know that I'm not alone in this and experiencing overwhelming change this past year.

You know,

Especially during this difficult time of the pandemic,

Many different things in all of our lives have changed.

And the truth is,

We can never truly go back to the way things were.

And if we think about it,

This is actually always true,

Isn't it?

Even though we might not want to believe it sometimes.

And of course,

Sometimes it can feel like things aren't changing fast enough for us.

And at other times like this past year,

Change can just rush into our lives really quickly and might even knock us over for a while.

Or maybe it's not just one big change,

But a whole torrent of changes that sort of roar into our lives like a hurricane and topple almost everything over,

Like the town that we've built for ourselves is suddenly missing whole neighborhoods.

To use another really common metaphor for change,

It can often feel like the rug has suddenly been pulled out from under us.

And emotionally,

We're kind of like a little dust mote that's been living on that rug.

And now we're floating around in the air somewhere.

And we can't really see or predict where we might land next or even when that might be.

And so as you might imagine,

We mostly really want to land back down on that same familiar spot on the rug because it's safe and familiar and we know it.

But so often,

Just when we feel like we're finally going to settle down again,

Or maybe we feel like finally we've landed and we feel safe somehow,

Suddenly that rug gets pulled out again.

And there we are back up in the air without any ground beneath our feet again.

And so a really great question that we might ask ourselves is,

Has this ever really been different?

Honestly,

Throughout our lives,

Have we ever really truly fully landed?

There's something to think about.

According to the Buddhist teachings,

This ongoing sense of not quite ever being able to settle is actually not a problem.

It's simply the reality of living in this world.

In fact,

If we think about it,

The only thing in our lives that is constant is change itself,

Change and of course uncertainty.

Because the truth is none of us can ever fully accurately predict what's next.

The problem is we tend to think that this constant change or impermanence is what is making life difficult for us.

And what's actually making us suffer is our resistance to the reality of this uncertainty.

The teacher Steven Cope tells us this.

He says,

Through practice,

I've come to see that the deepest source of my misery is not wanting things to be the way they are,

Not wanting myself to be the way I am,

Not wanting the world to be the way it is,

Not wanting others to be the way they are.

Whenever I'm suffering,

I find this war with reality to be at the heart of the problem.

So if this kind of war with reality is truly the heart of our difficulties,

Our practice then is to really contemplate what this means.

And this is what I want to explore a little more in this talk.

Several years ago,

One of my very favorite teachers,

Bikkyu Anayo,

Sort of famously summarized the entirety of our practice in just four words,

Which I know many of you who've heard my talks before can probably easily recite this.

In fact,

I use this phrase so often.

I now have a number of t-shirts and coffee mugs and even bumper stickers that students have made for me over the years with this particular phrase on it.

But I love it.

It's just four simple words,

Which are keep calmly knowing change.

Keep calmly knowing change.

And I love it for many reasons,

But one of the main ones is that it's short.

So we can kind of use it as a kind of mantra for ourselves to remind us about how we're being asked to train and to remember that essentially this is how we can discover more joy and more freedom and ease of being in our lives.

By very consciously using our practice,

Again,

To keep calmly knowing change.

In the teachings,

The main way that the Buddha asked us to do this is by using our practice to contemplate and understand and really get to know very intimately what he called the three characteristics of life.

And the first of these is called anicca,

Which is exactly what Suzuki Roshi was pointing to,

The truth that everything is constantly changing or impermanent.

The second of these characteristics is anatta or sometimes called no self,

Which is the truth that we ourselves are also constantly changing,

That there is no solid,

Permanent,

Never changing self or identity that we can point to or grasp onto something that's lasting.

And finally,

The third characteristic of life is that there's dukkha,

Which is often described as a sense of dissatisfaction or suffering,

Just a lack of satisfaction,

Which arises in large part because of our inability to accept those first two characteristics.

My very favorite Buddhist nun,

Pema Chodron,

Talks about the three characteristics this way.

She says,

Our discomfort arises from all our efforts to put ground under our feet,

To realize our dream of constant okayness.

And I just love that because if we're honest,

Isn't that what we all really want,

Constant okayness?

Or maybe how we think somehow life is supposed to be?

You know,

If we truly investigate our underlying beliefs,

We might recognize that we tend to want everything to be mostly constantly okay,

Or maybe permanent,

Everlasting,

Reliable.

Of course,

This includes our view of ourselves and even others.

Another great question that Pema often asks that relates to this is,

What is it like to realize that we can never completely and finally get it all together?

Especially for those of us who are perfectionists,

There tends to be this underlying belief that someday,

If only this or that,

We'll finally reach that sweet spot.

And as a kind of inquiry,

We might even consider how often this belief crops up,

This belief that we can maybe finally get there to that place of perfection,

Which of course we hope will just stay that way.

Just as a simple example,

I've been noticing lately that when I wake up in the morning,

There's this strong wish in me that everything had just stayed as it had been the night before.

Like,

I really want the bed to already be made for me and not have to do it over and over 365 days of the year.

Like,

You know,

It was perfect yesterday,

Perfectly made,

And now it's just a mess again,

And I have to do it all over again.

I also really want all the dishes to be washed and put away and for the trash to be empty.

And honestly,

What would be really great was that my body had already been washed and dressed and was ready to go.

And oh,

By the way,

Maybe 40 pounds lighter and maybe 20 years younger as well.

So I've also been noticing this spring that I've been having a completely unrealistic desire for all of the plants in my yard to be fully formed already.

I really wish that everything was just in full glorious bloom right now and that it would of course just stay that way for the entire year.

So as you might imagine,

I've also noticed that I've been feeling impatient about the plants as well.

Like I really don't want to wait for them to grow and to bloom.

So much so that I've actually found myself talking to the new seedlings and saying things like,

Come on now,

Let's go.

Like,

You know,

Hurry up already.

And I need to confess that one morning a couple of weeks ago,

I actually found myself trying to pry off the seed casing of a moonflower plant instead of just letting it fall off naturally.

And when I recognized what I was doing,

I actually laughed out loud because I realized that I've been quite literally trying to control mother nature.

So in a very real way,

I have been waging war with the reality of what is.

And so of course,

What I've also been noticing is a real sense of frustration or dukkha dissatisfaction.

And what I've been slowly coming to understand is that because everything has felt so out of control in my life this past year,

I've been sensing a real need to just pin everything down,

To have everything in its place so that it will feel somehow more familiar and safe and be somewhere that I can land.

And throughout this time,

It's been incredibly helpful for me to remember the most important aspect of our practice,

Which is to offer myself compassion,

Haruna.

And to remember that reaching for that sense of constant okayness is simply our human tendency.

As Emma said,

We all tend to want ground under our feet.

So it's okay.

It's completely understandable.

And again,

I've also needed to remember that as the teachings show us,

Whenever we try to control that which is inherently impermanent and uncertain,

It only tends to cause us more suffering.

So one of the main ways that we're asked to practice is to really start to notice how many things in our lives that we're trying to control and how this desire for control affects us.

So we might start by noticing what people,

Places,

Things,

Situations,

Or even beliefs that we tend to mostly want to stay the same.

So for instance,

We might consider if one of these things changed somehow,

I might feel a sense of being out of control.

I'll repeat that.

If one of these things changed somehow,

I might feel a sense of being out of control.

As you might imagine,

This mostly includes those things we like or love.

So for example,

We all tend to want our loved ones not to change so much.

We really don't want them to age or get sick or leave us.

And I also suspect that most of us might also want our jobs and our homes and our different communities to stay mostly the same.

We might also notice that we tend to get nervous about change when it comes to whatever feels safe and comfortable to us.

All of those things that feel familiar to us.

And I would like to remember that the word familiar is related to the words family,

Friendly,

Which points to this idea that when we think we know something,

It becomes much less frightening.

And so again,

This often includes our loved ones,

Our homes,

Jobs,

Communities.

We think we know these things.

This is also true of our sense of self or maybe even an old negative belief about ourselves.

It's familiar.

This might even be an old acquaintance or friend,

Job situation that maybe isn't right for us anymore.

But we tend to hang on or continue to an old identity or an old belief,

Even a person,

Because it feels safer to us.

It's that better the devil you know than the devil you don't kind of thinking.

What we tend to not like is new,

Different,

Strange,

Right?

New is a stranger and we tend to not like uncertainty,

Even if this means seeing ourselves as new.

Except again,

The reality is that we ourselves are truly never the same and nor is anyone else or anything in this world ever,

Even though very often it just feels this way.

And the teachings,

The metaphor that's most often used for life itself is that of a river,

Because even though it's actually a successive series of different moments joined together,

It can so often give the impression of one continuous flow.

So the idea is that even though it might look the same sometimes,

The river of yesterday is never the same as the river of today.

And the river of this moment is never going to be the same as the river of the next moment.

And as much as we might try,

Again,

The truth is that none of us can stop this flow.

It's simply what we live in and it's also who we truly are.

We ourselves are a flow of experience.

We are each a form of anicca.

We are impermanence itself.

About 28 years ago now when I first met my husband,

Brent,

He owned a business where he made custom made windows.

And when we moved into the little farm cottage where we live today,

He showed me how our sort of old ancient front window is literally melting.

Like there are visible waves in the glass like a river and it's visibly thinner on the top and thicker at the bottom.

And so every day now when I look outside this window,

I think about this and it reminds me that everything in this universe is a part of that flow,

Including ourselves.

And in our practice,

We can notice this constant flow by noticing,

For instance,

That in every moment various thoughts are arising and passing in each of us constantly.

We might notice that even our emotional states keep changing from minute to minute,

Right?

One moment we're happy,

Another moment we're sad,

One moment we're super concentrated,

Another we're distracted and forgetful.

All in accordance with certain conditions which themselves are also constantly changing.

You might even reflect on how many times your emotions changed just today,

Right?

Think about that.

How many times did this change just today?

You might even think back to whatever happened in your life yesterday,

Right?

What happened to that?

Is it still somehow here somewhere?

Can you actually hold it?

Or is it a kind of dream now,

A memory in the mind?

And what about tomorrow,

Right?

We may have plans,

But do any of our moments really turn out exactly as we planned ever?

Again,

It's really all a dream,

Isn't it?

You might have considered this question,

Which is how much time do I spend judging how well I'm doing in regard to how I imagine my life is supposed to look while ignoring how I actually feel in this moment,

Which is the only one I'm actually living.

The Tibetan master,

Doko Kanchirampushe once said,

In meditation,

We can see through the illusion of past,

Present and future.

Our experience becomes the continuity of nowness.

The past is only an unreliable memory held in the present.

The future is only a projection of our present conceptions.

The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it.

So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

Why bother attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

So even though we are actually always on unsolid ground,

Right in the center of change,

And can never really know exactly how the next moment and the next are going to play out,

Our tendency is to want everything to just stop flowing.

And when it doesn't,

We also then tend to want to hold on or cling to the edge of this river,

Or maybe more often,

We want the river to flow exactly how and where we want it.

But according to the Buddhist teachings,

The way to stop the suffering that this causes is by doing the exact opposite of these things.

So instead of clinging and holding on or desperately trying to control the flow,

We let go.

We surrender into the flow of it.

As the poet John O'Donohue writes,

I would love to live like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

This is how we're asked to train and practice.

And again,

This kind of surrender to impermanence is the whole of the Buddhist training.

We train ourselves to study and really get to know impermanence and to be constantly aware of this flow so that we can remain calm in the midst of change.

And so that we become wiser about how we respond rather than constantly reacting or struggling or fighting against change.

The philosopher Piero Ferrucci tells us,

We give up and by some benevolent paradox,

That very attitude releases the solution.

Some form of understanding often follows self surrender.

It's a process we see in artistic creation,

In prayer,

In scientific reflection,

In meditation.

So again,

In essence,

What the Buddha is offering us is a kind of paradox,

Which is this idea that if we can actually take a long,

Deep look at impermanence,

If we can actually invite it and become friendly with it,

Not in an intellectual way,

But a very experiential one,

It does not lead to suffering at all,

But in fact,

To great joy.

As all of the great teachers tell us,

Surrendering to impermanence is like the master key to open any door that we wish.

It's so important in fact that the Buddha's last dying words were said to have been,

All conditioned things are impermanent,

Strive on with diligence.

His last words,

All conditioned things are impermanent,

Strive on with diligence.

The Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says we should learn to say long live impermanence,

Since thanks to impermanence,

We can change suffering into joy.

This surrender is sometimes called the Mahasukha or the great happiness.

And again,

As all the great masters tell us,

The only sweet spot ever really is right now.

It's this moment,

The one we're actually living.

Many years ago,

I remember hearing a story about the Dalai Lama,

Who was being interviewed by a reporter about his life.

And the reporter asked him venerable sir,

What do you think was the very best moment of your life?

And the Dalai Lama thought about this for a moment.

And he said with a smile,

I think now,

I think now.

As we continue to practice in this way more and more,

What happens is that we begin to trust that we can simply rest in the present moment and in the unknowing itself.

We can float there,

If you will,

In that unknowing.

To quote one of my very favorite poets,

The late Mary Oliver,

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

Truly I know our part is not knowing,

But looking and touching and loving.

You might even start to notice that the more we can learn to let go,

The more we can move through life without thinking,

Quote,

This or he or she or I should or should have been different.

So for instance,

When something happens that shakes up our world in a way,

We can suffer for so many more years than necessary by clinging to one simple belief,

Which is it shouldn't have happened.

It shouldn't have happened.

But instead of clinging on so tightly,

We might try simply grieving fully whenever grief arises for as long as it arises,

Flowing fully with all the stages of grief and acknowledging that this is how it is now,

Or this is what happened.

In the Zen tradition,

There's another wonderful phrase that I love,

Which is very simple.

It's this is it.

This is it.

Which is always and forever followed by the question,

Now what?

Now what?

What is the wisest,

Most compassionate response to this person,

Situation,

Or even myself?

Now what?

And if we think about it,

If this is it is actually change itself,

We might instead try saying everything changes.

Now what?

Everything changes.

Now what?

Because truly,

A response to change is the only thing that we ever have control over,

How we respond.

Now what?

And as the training shows us,

The more we can practice fully acknowledging and bowing to this is it,

And awakening to our lives as it is,

What happens is that we start to begin to feel everything more fully.

We discover the joy of experiencing all of it,

All of this is it,

All of the change,

And we start to be better able to ride the waves of what are often called the 10,

000 joys and the 10,

000 sorrows of life,

And actually meet or greet these just as they are and not how we want them to be.

And gradually through our practice,

As we learn to stop fighting so much or trying to control so much of it,

We find ourselves becoming more and more grateful for life itself because we know so much more how precious and fleeting it is.

Everything and everyone around us,

All of our experiences,

All of our sights and smells and tastes and loved ones and even all of those tiny buds that are growing or the cicadas,

We can watch each of them in the moment and just simply be amazed at the process.

And the more that we can practice in this way,

Gradually life itself becomes so much more special and precious because we are more awake to the truth of impermanence.

We start to fully recognize that nothing will be here forever.

And of course,

This includes ourselves.

Along with this,

We might also remember that every day truly everything is completely new,

Including ourselves and everyone we know,

Everything.

And as a kind of ongoing practice,

Then each morning when we wake up,

We might ask ourselves,

How can I see myself as new today?

How might I see myself as new today?

Or how could I see my life as new?

Or even how could I see my beliefs as new?

How could I see my beliefs as new?

And before I finish and offer a meditation on impermanence,

I'd like to invite you to listen to how Pema Chodron describes what happens when we finally let go and allow ourselves to rest in impermanence itself.

She says,

When you have this kind of genuine connection with yourself in the world,

You may begin to encounter weightfulness.

You suddenly feel as if you're in a vast,

Wide open space with unlimited breathing room.

It's as if you've stepped out of a small,

Dark,

Stuffy tent and found yourself standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

This is the place of just being.

It's not an otherworldly,

Ethereal place.

You haven't transcended the ordinary details of your life.

Quite the opposite.

You've finally contacted them 100% and they've become a doorway to what is called sacred world.

Sacred not in the sense of religious or holy,

But in the sense of precious,

Rare,

Feeling fundamentally genuine and good.

So to end,

As you're ready and it's available to you,

I'd like to offer a meditation on impermanence and noticing impermanence.

So if you're seated in your chair somewhere,

You might want to start to settle the body,

Noticing the breath.

If you're traveling or walking,

You might start to sense your sit bones or your feet if you're walking,

Sensing the body and the breath as well.

You might begin by just taking a nice deep breath in,

Filling the body,

And slow exhale,

Letting go,

Letting everything kind of settle a little.

Couple of rounds of these on your own,

Just to begin to get in touch with your breath,

Noticing the inhale and the exhale.

Then each exhale,

You might begin to relax the body and settle even more.

You might imagine the skin all around the body softening.

You might begin with the top of the head,

Letting your awareness flow down the face,

Softening the eyes and the cheeks and the jaw,

Still breathing.

You might notice the neck and shoulders,

Allowing the shoulders to drop,

Nothing to hold up.

You might notice the tummy area,

See if it can soften here a bit,

The tummy.

Sometimes it can be helpful to place a hand on the tummy.

You might also sense your sit bones if you're seated.

You sense your connection to the earth.

If you're walking,

You might sense the bottom of your feet,

Also noticing your connection to the earth.

In some way,

Allowing the earth to hold you so that you can relax even more and feel supported and connected to the earth,

Letting go.

Not even sense the very center of your palms.

Allow them to soften and open a bit in a gesture of letting go and receiving.

Then you might start to let go of control of your breath a bit and see if you can allow the body to simply receive the inhale and let go on the exhale.

It's okay if there's some control at first.

It's natural.

It's fine.

You might see if you can gradually start to let go and just watch the body as it breathes.

Right here,

You can notice the breath itself is constantly changing.

In every moment,

Receiving a new moment and letting go.

Each breath in,

Receiving.

Each breath out,

Letting go.

Just spend a minute or so just noticing this flow of the breath,

Noticing how the body expands and contracts with the breath.

You might now start to become aware of sound around you.

Again noticing how the body receives sound and then it passes and that you really have no control about what is received and when this stops.

Just noticing the flow of sound.

Still aware of breathing.

You might now begin to notice body sensations.

Notice the body and notice that it too is constantly changing,

Moving alive.

Notice areas of warmth,

Coolness,

Tingling,

Maybe achiness,

Tiredness,

Tightness,

Relaxed areas.

Continue this changes as you're aware of the body.

You might now become aware of your thoughts.

Without attaching to your thoughts,

You might just notice how they arise and pass just like clouds through the sky.

Constantly changing.

No need to push the thoughts away,

Follow them.

Just maybe you can notice the thoughts as they arise and pass,

Returning back to the body and the breath this moment.

You might even see if you can sense any changing emotions,

The flow of emotion and maybe the physical sensation of emotion in the body,

Where it lives and how that might shift and change.

And finally,

I'd like to invite you to see if you can simply rest in awareness itself.

Would it be possible for you to just simply be aware of all of these changes that are flowing through and keep calmly knowing change.

And finally,

With the eyes still closed,

I'd like to invite you to listen to this poem from one of my favorite poets,

Mark Nepo,

Who tells us,

I've been watching stars rely on the darkness they resist and fish struggle with and against the current and hawks glide faster when their wings don't move.

Still I keep retelling what happens till it comes out the way I want.

We try so hard to be the main character when it is our point of view that keeps us from the truth.

The sun has its story that no curtain can stop.

It's true.

The only way beyond the self is through it.

The only way to listen to what can never be said is to quiet our need to steer the plot.

When jarred by life,

We might unravel the story we tell ourselves and discover the story we are in,

The one that keeps telling us.

Namaste and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference.

Dana is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Dana,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.