Q: Can you please elaborate more on how to work with impermanence on everything?
A: If you say ‘Oh! I’m going to implement impermanence idea into everything！’ ’That ‘everything’ has to stop. Sorry to say but that has to stop. Because if you try to implement the meaning of impermanence so strong with your idea of the impermanence, then it becomes a problem. I mean the fixed and closed mindset, that is the first big mistake.
Because the moment when your mindset is fixed, you will have the idea such like ‘Okay, somebody is catching cold, that is impermanent. Medicine? No need, it’s impermanent.’ Or if somebody is starving to death, and then you say ‘No need, everything is life and death. Yeah, what for? Everything is impermanent.’ Then the fixed mindset is no longer offering a solution. It can cause more problem than solution.
Therefore if you have this fixed idea, ‘I’m going to repeat the meaning of impermanence, every time, everywhere into every problem. Because my master told me that everything is impermanent and should see everything is impermanent. And that’s the best solution to have a sense of detachment. ’ Absolutely yes. In terms of argument I will not disagree with you. But a way of using that method has to be gently, respectfully, and step by step as much as possible, as a part of our daily life, as a part of our daily practice.
So, I think, the beginning approach of implementing the meaning of impermanence is, try to implement that to yourself, little by little, in a very soft touch. Like you drink a cup of coffee, right? Then after drinking one sip of coffee and then you say, ‘Everything that I experienced in this moment in my taste, in my body, in my feeling of my physical form, all that pleasant moment is already past.’
With love and respect from Kalu Rinpoche
Facebook Live Q&A
26th. Jan. 2020
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