Seasons Change

This morning as I waited for the bus in the shade of a building I did not miss August’s heat. I savored the coolness of the morning air and realized, to my surprise, that it was actually cool enough for me to start wearing my monastic shawl once again. How slowly the seasons advance as our planet relentlessly trudges onward during it’s annual journey around the Sun.

Oh sure, intellectually I understand that this far above the Tropic of Cancer we experience four seasons; and that no matter how hot or how eternal summer may seem, it’s permanence and changelessness are but an illusion. However viscerally, emotionally and in my gut; the changing of the seasons feels like quite a surprise.

Impermanence is not the equivalent of a great metaphysical Rubik’s Cube; it’s fairly simple and straight forward. With the rising and setting of the sun, the days pass. With the waning and waxing of the moon, the months pass. With the coming and going of the seasons the years pass. No, this is not the stuff of rocket science, and yet, on some level, it can surprise us all.

We have never lived a day, we’ve been able to grasp. We have never lived a month, that did not slip through our fingers. We have never lived a year that did not, somehow, pass us by. And yet, intuitively, instinctively don’t each of us tend to grasp? Could that be why Buddha taught the significance of impermanence over and over again? Not as a mere intellectual bauble, but as a dynamic mental-yoga who’s contemplation contained the potential to shatter the chains of confusion and habit that keep us shackled to the tyranny of suffering.

Why is it that although many know how to utter the word “impermanence” few have realized it, not just intellectually but viscerally? What are some of the ways that something could have been lost over the centuries? What are some of the reasons that teachings could get left behind, forgotten, hidden or suppressed? Could it be elitism, pride, fear or confusion? I am so grateful that my kind lamas taught me the value of marrying philosophy with questions and mantras. I am so happy that in the sutras we can see Buddha sharing questions, teachings and mantras. I am so glad that in the fifth session of the beginning series of telephone lessons I get to share the dynamic and magical union of Buddha’s teachings, questions and mantras with my students.

Have you been taught how to bring all of life’s circumstances into Buddha’s path of impermanence and insight that quickly leads to full liberation from the tyranny of suffering? Would you like to?

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