Change. It is the one true constant of this life. The material world we call home is bound by the law of impermanence. All things in this life must eventually, in due time, come to an end. Individual human lives end in physical death, plants and animals die, and even the mightiest structures we have created will one day be gone. Impermanence (change), represents the greatest misunderstanding in life, and this misunderstanding therefore leads to the constant suffering we feel in this life. When we are attached to people, possessions, lifestyles, and our own personalities, suffering is inevitable. Suffering takes on many forms. It is often described in Buddhism as unsettldness or a sense of unbalance. Suffering can be a range of emotions, and states of mind from anger, to frustration, to sadness or loss, to jealousy, and pride.
In life when things go wrong or we're wronged, we tend to seek the source of who or what has wronged us. When we do find out who or what we feel was responsible, we often times become angry, frustrated, and sad. Some seek revenge, others wish for misery and pain for those responsible. We expend so much effort into this process on a regular basis, and yet we never will find the true person or persons responsible. The true culprit of our misery and suffering is us. We as individuals are responsible for the anger and sadness we feel. We as individuals are responsible for the deep suffering and unease we feel when wronged.
A fundamental truth in life is emptiness. Emptiness is the concept that nothing in this material world we occupy, has or ever had inherent qualities. To demonstrate inherent emptiness, lets take a chair. If i were to show u a chair and ask you what you were looking at most would respond a chair. Yet what makes this object a chair? Is there such a thing as inherent chairness? To better answer this question lets look at what makes a chair a chair. A chair as defined by the dictionary, as a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person. Fair enough, i believe most people would readily agree with this definition.
Yet lets look at the question even deeper. If i were to take the chair and dismantle it and place all the pieces on the floor, and then ask what is on the floor, most people would answer pieces of a chair. But what makes a plastic wheel, or a soft cushion inherently "chairy?" If i had never dismantled the chair, and instead pulled out a plastic wheel and asked you what it is, most would answer a plastic wheel. Yet a moment ago that wheel was part of a chair. Some would shoot back at such a point and say, "it is a plastic wheel, but it could be used in a chair, or a cart, or a number of things." And that's the point, the wheel, or cushion or metal bars, by themselves do not have inherent chair qualities, but combined in the right order, could be made into something that can be interpreted as a chair. What if i took the chair and set a plate of food on it and used it as a table? A table is defined as a piece of furniture consisting of a smooth flat slab fixed on legs, some chairs do match that description, as some chairs do not have a back, so then could a chair be a table and a table be a chair? The answer is yes and yes. If a chair was inherently a chair, then only two possible reasons for it coming into being exist. Either the chair appeared one day completely intact from thin air, and is unable to be either dismantled or destroyed since that would violate its inherent chairness, or the chair does not even exist. Neither of these explanations suffices. The chair is a chair, because we have ascribed certain identifying characteristics unto it. If i were to take the chair to a person who had never seen a chair, they may choose to give the chair a different function based upon their interpretation. A chair lacks inherent qualities, if you break down the chair to its most basic materials (plastic, metal, cloth) all you have is a pile of raw materials. Not a chair. The point of this is to demonstrate the emptiness that exists in life. All events, people, and objects lack any inherent reality. They are mearly interpretations of our learned experience. Our reaction to these things, is based on our interpretations of the world we experience. Therefore what may be seen as a hardship to one individual, may be seen as an opportunity to another. As i have written previously, not even death is inherently a sad or negative event. Having this knowledge we should learn to see people and events for what they really are, empty. Empty of good or bad, right or wrong, empty of any value whatsoever.
The Buddha taught that no event or person will shake the mind of a person who has come to truly embrace and understand emptiness. You cannot anger, or frustrate, or hurt a man who sees no inherent reality. He who achieves this enlightenment passes judgment on no one, and sees no need to categorize or separate experiences and people. This is the state of mind we all must work towards, and it is part of the Truth that is our purpose. A purpose that we cannot deny or refute forever. ALL, whether in this life or however countless lives it may take, will come to know Truth.
