The Lotus Still Blooms

by Joan Gattuso

  I encourage you to purchase mala beads at a special store that sells holy objects, or go to my church’s website, unitygreatercleveland.com. Click on bookstore, and you can order them there. Once you have your own mala beads, which work far better at keeping count than fingers, use them at least once daily. With a short mantra or affirmation, it takes about four minutes for 108 repetitions. These four short minutes to center yourself in the morning can make all the difference in your day and ultimately for the world. Four minutes to center yourself and pray. Aren’t you worth four minutes?

  As I added these notes to my computer manuscript, I just glanced at the manuscript page number—108—the number of prayer beads on a mala—108—the sacred Buddhist number. I love this kind of cosmic confirmation. May we all get it. May we all be happy.

  To me it is much easier to envision a state where there are no

  obstacles created by concepts than to see all things as suffering.

  I hope scholars and practitioners will begin to accept the

  teaching that all things are marked by impermanence,

  non-self and nirvana and not make too great

  an effort to prove everything is suffering.

  —THICH NHAT HANH

  THE THREE DHARMA SEALS

  ALL TEACHINGS of the Buddha can be brought back to the Three Dharma Seals at their foundation.

  Impermanence is referred to as one of the Three Dharma Seals (core of the teachings). The other two are non-self and nirvana. All Buddhist teachings contain these Three Seals. Impermanence is the first Seal, and for many (including myself) the most difficult. The humanness of us wants what we enjoy and find pleasurable to go on forever. We even resist letting go of pleasant dreams.

  IMPERMANENCE

  I tend to go to sleep early and rise early. One night, after I had gone to bed early, the telephone rang at 9 P.M. I roused myself into consciousness and answered it. It was my dear younger cousin Grady, who with his adorable family was vacationing in our ancestral coastal fishing village where I was staying and writing for the month. We all had had lunch together that day, and we spent the afternoon seeing the sights of this picturesque village. As we said good-bye, we made plans to have dinner the next evening.

  As I spoke to Grady, I could hear his wife, Kim, wailing in the background. My heart froze for a moment. Then Grady said they had just received a phone call telling them of Kim’s two-year-old nephew’s sudden death. He had drowned in the backyard pond. She had just hosted a joint birthday for their son, who turned three, and the two-year-old nephew. Now the unspeakable had happened. I hurriedly dressed and drove over to be with them. We held one another, as raw emotion erupted at Kim’s and Grady’s loss.

  There is nothing quite like the loss of a loved one through death to bring home the truth of impermanence and to shock our minds out of our everyday perception of reality. The death of a tiny child seems so pointless. There is no explanation, and yet if any of this teaching is true, then we must accept the destiny of each soul, no matter how seemingly tragic or untimely.

  All phenomena will one day cease to exist. The process of change is a moment-by-moment experience. It is consistently going on. All things have the nature of cessation implanted in them from their inception. This is a very important teaching to ponder. From within the birth is the death.

  The infant grows into the toddler, and babyhood is gone. The toddler grows into the kindergartner, and innocence begins to wane. The school child grows into the teenager, and childhood with its wide-eyed wonder is gone. The teen becomes the young adult—now bearing an ever increasing myriad of responsibilities—and the years add up, perhaps the girth expands, hopes bloom and die, and the years roll by until the reflection in the mirror very often becomes startling. Nothing lasts forever: a gorgeous rose, a dream, a controversy, political pundits, feelings, concepts, family structure, the love of your life, children, you.

  Life is impermanent. The teaching is that if we can deeply understand and accept this and release our attachments to the idea of permanence, we will suffer less (the Second Noble Truth). Nothing in this world will last, including this world. But in this moment we have enough material to work with without worrying about the disappearance of the world at some far-off, distant time.

  The lenses of impermanence help us view reality more accurately. I am reminded of the stories of the baby Buddha’s (Siddhartha’s) early life within the confines of his father Suddhodana’s palace walls.

  Young Siddhartha only saw flower buds or blossoms, because each night while he slept, his father’s servants would pluck any flower that had reached its peak. This way the child would never see a dead flower, or even an old flower or an aging animal or person. His father endeavored to shield Siddhartha from the harshness of this earthly existence. But, alas, this fantasy world could not be maintained forever.

  As Suddhodana aged and Siddhartha became a young man, the son set out on a great adventure to see the kingdom beyond the palace walls. On his grand ride he spotted a sick man, then an old man, then a dead man—none of which he had seen before, or had any awareness of their existence and the stages of life. He was puzzled and confused at what he was witnessing. He asked his companion and male servant Govinda what it was that he was seeing. In this way the future enlightened one was introduced to sickness, aging and death. He was introduced to the human condition of suffering and to impermanence.

  Thich Nhat Hanh shares some very wise words in The Heart of the Buddha: “It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” Further clarification on this important point comes from Sogyal Rinpoche. I heard him say, “Life is not suffering, rather it is samsara [the endless cycles of birth, life and death within this world] that causes us to suffer.”

  I invite the reader to explore in her/his own life how the teaching applies. How recently have you suffered as a result of desiring a situation that was changing to remain the same? Releasing our attachments to people, places and things is one of life’s more difficult undertakings.

  When my mother suffered two debilitating strokes and could no longer navigate the steps of the two-story home my late father had built, we moved her to a condo we owned across the street from where we lived. The task was left to me to go through the home where my father’s spirit still filled the rooms and select which items would go to the condo and which would be sold or given away. Waves of sadness rose and swept over me as I looked at and made difficult choices concerning each piece of “stuff ” of their lives. Impermanence.

  Two years later her health deteriorated more to the point where we had to move her out of our condo and into a nursing home. Then we sold the condo, and I had to repeat the process of ridding it of her material possessions. The same sadness recurred, so I sat down and began to consciously breathe deeply, releasing the rising sensation of sorrow. After several minutes the energy was released, and I returned to the task at hand. Impermanence.

  People ask me how I can deal with impermanence when it rises in my life or the life of a loved one. The best answer I have is to say, “Prayer and meditation.” When something overwhelmingly sorrowful occurs in your life, train yourself to immediately turn to prayer. As soon as possible, find a place to go and sit and breathe. Release your sorrow to God, to the Holy Spirit, to Buddha, to your Higher Power along with your feelings, mind chatter and sensations. Do this until you feel the shift. Then remind yourself that what is happening is but a part of the ever-changing flow of life. Train your mind to seek refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

  One of our closest friends was recently and suddenly left by her husband of eight years. I had officiated at their elegant and lavish wedding out of state. They share an intense and demanding professional life, literally traveling the globe to lecture on their specialties. She is world acclaimed, and, although he is well respected, he doesn’t receive the accolades she does. I often wondered if there was any hidden professi
onal jealousy. On the morning he awakened her from a deep sleep and handed her a letter saying he was leaving immediately, I wondered again about his real reasons.

  She was devastated. This was not a teenage breakup. They are both middle-aged, accomplished intellectuals. This brilliant woman was reduced to an almost mortally wounded ten-year-old. It took her back to when she was ten and her father died, and it brought forth all the pain and loss that caused.

  Both of them are dear to my husband and me. They are close friends. When I went to comfort her a few days later, it felt to me like she was grieving over a death. Her pain was so intense she could not function. She canceled all of her many appointments and stayed at home and cried. I felt deeply for her, but I knew there was no way I could take away her pain. When we were together, I suggested she seek refuge in the Three Jewels. She needed refuge. I suggested she choose one and go to it.

  We spoke that day on impermanence. She kept saying, “But our marriage was ‘till death do us part.’” Of course that isn’t always the case. However, such an unskillful departure by her husband seemed like an unexpected death.

  She had overcome much loss in her life, and she had to do so again. Although she didn’t like the idea at all and wasn’t ready to embrace it, I urged her to pray and meditate on impermanence so healing could eventually occur. Such situations cause much suffering and call for the Eight-fold Path to be engaged.

  Life is not always what we think we ordered or expected to show up. Sometimes the rug is pulled out from under us, and we are lost and baffled. The death of a toddler, a husband walking out, a career collapsing—on and on the beat of impermanence goes.

  An associate recently called asking for support with a very perplexing situation in her church. It seems that a congregant who for years had been a trusted ally and a dear friend had without apparent reason or provocationbecome a completely different person. She was hostile, highly critical, totally nonsupportive, volatile and exhibiting out-and-out aggressiveness. After decades in ministry, my friend and I have learned to see the humor in the most bizarre situations. And, believe me, they do show up. We joked about how unfortunate it was that we did not believe in evil entities (i.e., the devil) taking over a person, because it was such an easy answer to an outrageous situation.

  For whatever the woman’s reasons at that time, the relationship and her minister changed. What appeared to be a mutually supportive, loving relationship unraveled and was no more. Impermanence at work!

  Our executive director’s thirty-six-year-old athletic husband became racked with a raging, untreatable cancer. He dwindled to 114 pounds and died, leaving her a widow with three young daughters. Impermanence.

  A physician’s stable and secure position in the medical community was threatened by several frivolous malpractice lawsuits, all of which were eventually dropped. Even so, his insurance then tripled from its already astronomically high premiums. He had no choice but to sell his share of his twenty-plus-year practice and relocate across the country. Impermanence.

  This physician loved his practice, had the respect of his fellow doctors and served his patients conscientiously. He had a network of friends, was active in his community and served actively in his church. In less than a year it came to a halt. It was over. Impermanence.

  We don’t have to go looking for impermanence. It is waiting to greet us everywhere we turn. I am writing this in a small seaside community where my maternal family comes from and where I lived as a child. All the family that remains here is one first cousin. She is my only living first cousin. When I’m back in my original hometown, occasionally my mind will float back to earlier times, happy times with both my parents and a pair of aunts and several uncles, my maternal grandparents and my cousin Bobby. All that are left are my elderly mother, my two brothers, my cousin Sabrina and Bobby’s son Grady.

  Impermanence touches every family. Sometimes we may have several years or even a decade or more with no deaths occurring close to us. But no matter how much we pretend in our society that sickness, old age and death can be kept at bay, they cannot. Impermanence shadows each one of us. The teaching is that, if we accept this, we will suffer less when it makes a stop at our door.

  We can find the blessing in impermanence if, when we are healthy and strong, we can learn to value our good fortune rather than squander it. Impermanence can cause us to be very appreciative of all of our blessings, be they family, children, church, position, prosperity, good health for ourselves or family or friends, peace, plenty, spiritual connectedness and insight.

  Even our deepest and most holy states of being are still impermanent. We can achieve great states of mind and being and live for a while in a state of clear light. But something rattling always occurs. Life makes its outrageous demands on our time and attention, and our elevated state of being collapses into the mundane. Impermanence.

  Impermanence and an understanding of it can cause us to value our beloved, our parents, our children, our family and our friends even more. My husband, David, daily engages in the Buddhist practice of meditating on his own death, a practice I have yet to begin. He says that meditating on his impermanence assists him living in and appreciating more fully the present moment.

  He finds this meditation to be most beneficial among his spiritual practices. Once several years ago I heard His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak of this practice and his having done it for many years. In his engaging, whimsical way he said, “I have been taught that this will be beneficial at the moment of death, but since at the moment of death I won’t be able to tell you if this is so, I’ll just have to see!” Then he laughed heartily.

  Practicing clinging, grasping and attachment is the antithesis of embracing the Dharma Seal of Impermanence. We cling to what was, and we cause ourselves to suffer. We grasp at what we once had, and we cause ourselves to suffer. We attach ourselves to mistaken concepts and attitudes, to unskilled behaviors, to unconscious people, and we cause ourselves to suffer.

  Through these three ego activities we endeavor to keep life like it was. We endeavor to keep the river from flowing, but we cannot stop the flow of life no matter how much we protect or fight our own battle against it. When we awaken to the fact of impermanence, we can then begin to live a more mindful existence, which in turn results in a more loving and joyous life.

  A renowned Buddhist teacher, who himself was a teacher of the Dalai Lama and who spent twenty-two years of his life in retreat, said near the close of his life: “When you look deeply, you realize there is nothing that is permanent and constant, nothing, not even the tiniest hair on your body. And this is not a theory but something you can actually come to know and realize and see, even with your very own eyes.”

  Meditating on impermanence is not something most of us relish doing. We have become very adept at pretending that, if we do not look deeply, we can keep the masquerade going forever, but . . . we cannot. Everything we treasure will one day be visited by the three fellows of sickness, aging, death. This applies to a body as well as to an automobile or your home or the Grand Canyon.

  If you have been laying up your treasures in the material world, valuing your “stuff” as though those things have meaning, the day of awakening will come. And if you aren’t mindful now and don’t endeavor to know a deeper truth, that day can be quite painful.

  A dear and beautiful friend of mine, had been, as long as I had known her, Velcroed to her possessions. She believed her “stuff” gave her a sense of self, status and position. Time went by, her accumulations grew, and her husband’s accumulations grew. Among her husband’s accumulations was a girlfriend living in their second home. My friend was slammed in the face with some very unpleasant facts. Filing for divorce was extremely difficult, for she did love her husband. But she had been in total denial about his extended “business” absences. She did not live in an “equal division” property state and had not been married for twenty years, which would have put her in a better financial position.

  To shorten thi
s grim story, she did not fare well in the divorce settlement, in part because she was too traumatized and frightened to stand up to her estranged husband and his powerful attorneys. Her life as she had known it was over. Her husband was gone. Her home had to be sold. Her possessions, besides being divided up, also had to be sold because she was so cash poor. What she had been and what she had possessed was no more.

  For the first few months she was inconsolable and considered suicide. Why? Because she had no inner resources. She built her sense of self on outer resources and was quite clueless about any inner world. With the help of family, friends and therapy, she slowly began to crawl out of the black abyss to which she had descended. She did have a good heart, albeit a wounded one. Life forced her to look at her attachments and her clinging and grasping. She was taught a very harsh lesson on impermanence that she is still learning. She thought all her stuff gave her life meaning. Now she is seeking meaning from within through finally finding a spiritual practice, seeking a spiritual community and continuing in therapy.

  The teachings on meaninglessness, which I first encountered in A Course in Miracles, were a perfect introduction for me to have to grasp impermanence. To learn that nothing has an inherent sense of meaning than to come to understand that with practice it was a tiny leap for my conditioned mind to make into understanding impermanence and emptiness.

  The Seed of Impermanence does not mean that we do not treasure life. Rather, a true understanding of impermanence allows us the experience of being truly alive and all that accompanies that feeling. It brings us to a state of mind where we can value every person, each moment, because we know however wonderful, boring or challenging it is, it is fleeting. Don’t make the soul mistake of not valuing those you love while they are with you. Love them now. Be kind to them now. Be generous with them now. Treasure them now.