Dealing With Change

T: When person begins to contemplate anicca, or they realise, they think, ‘everything is impermanent’, what then is the best investment for that person? What should they do about it? Because a lot of people say ‘well, everything’s impermanent, thus nothing matters’. I can do whatever I want, because it’s all going to end, this life is going to end anyway, so it doesn’t matter. So that’s their response in the face of that anxiety of anicca.

N: Well if they feel anxiety, OK, but a person who is then saying ‘it doesn’t matter what I do’, they probably won’t even be feeling that anxiety. Because if you’re feeling anxiety, dismissal will not free you from anxiety. You can say nothing matters, but you still feel anxiety which is very unpleasant, so what do I do? I can keep saying ‘nothing matters’, but anxiety’s still there, so what do I do? So if a person does genuinely have a sense of anicca through anxiety, and recognition of that non-control, and that things will end, and that will affect me, then yeah, they need to recognise it as something that must be addressed. Something that must be addressed at the root level. Not something that they can just find the answer to and then move on with their lives. Because those lives are anicca, and that’s what they’re understanding.

So in other words, they have to take it seriously, not just try to get rid of the discomfort. ‘Tell me what anicca is, tell me what to do so I can get rid of this discomfort of anxiety, not so I fully understand what anicca is.’ You can temporarily get rid of the discomfort of anxiety, but as I’ve said many times before, anxiety is a symptom of an existential issue, it’s not the problem. So unless you remove the problem, the symptoms will keep coming back up, one way or the other. Things will be reminding you of anicca one way or the other, doesn’t matter how much you try to deal with it.

So the first thing you do then is take the Buddha’s teaching seriously. Take the gradual training seriously. Don’t just try to get rid of the current pain that bothers you, but recognise your liability to pain as already being as issue, even if everything is fine now, and there is no anxiety now, there could be anxiety now, and things could not be fine now. So ‘that would affect me’: thus, recognition of that already affects you. So you realise, this is the level I must practise on. So, take the gradual training seriously then, the precepts, the guarding of the sense doors, reading the Suttas, studying and getting more of an understanding of what the Buddha was teaching. Dealing with anxiety, dealing with the recognition of impermanence, it’s a life long task in the sense of, if you’re very committed you might do it quickly, but your life will then change forever, as somebody who had understood anicca and is free from suffering. If you are not doing it quickly, if you are not so committed, it will take you probably a full lifetime to get closer to it. Either way, if you recognise you have to deal with it, your life cannot remain the same. As in, a life of sensuality, carelessness, and everything else leading up to that point.

So don’t think anxiety is something like, ‘oh, I have a problem with anxiety, something’s wrong with me, let me get rid of that and go back to how things were’. No no, it’s a symptom of an underlying problem that shows you that maybe, this life and existence is not the way you would like to think it is, or that everybody else seems to think it is. Because if it were so, why are you anxious? If sensuality is enough to keep your mind happy, contented, peaceful, calm, why are you not always happy, contended, peaceful, and calm? So maybe that’s not the answer. Maybe the way you’re engaging with the world and the views you have of the world, maybe that’s why I’m anxious. Maybe my anxiety’s a symptom of that. That things, actually, are not aligned.

And anicca’s exactly that, things are unownable, not yours, yet here you are living your life as if you are the master, controller of your body, your senses, your ownership, people and so on. A complete, blatant contradiction. And anxiety every now and then reminds you of that. So do something about it before it’s too late. Which is what I just described: study the Suttas, keep the precepts strictly, gradual training, and you’ll realise that yeah, it’s something that one way or the other needs to affect your life at the very base of your existence. It’s not something you can do in response to this particular state, and then I go back to my values from before. No.

T: One common response is, trying to ‘appreciate everything’. Now that I realise everything’s anicca, everything’s impermanent, I’ll appreciate it, I’ll delight in everything even more.

N: Double down in my acceptance, right. So, if you then find out that you have terminal cancer, and maybe a week to live, would that appreciation keep you calm and unaffected, and fearless in the face of death, not suffering? Would you be able to equally appreciate and accept that, and enjoy your chemo and everything else, and the torture you’d have to go through seeing your family grieve over you while you’re still alive? ‘Appreciate every moment, it’s a blessing.’ No, it’s not. Life has its blessings, but not all of it is a blessing, and that’s the recognition. That’s why the Buddha said, if life were only a life of misery, beings would not be enamoured with it. If life were only a life of blessings and appreciation, beings would not be disgusted with it. So life is both, and you use wisdom to recognise that, yeah, don’t be irrationally averse to everything, there are blessings, there are things you should appreciate. But recognise that it’s all within the nature of things not being in your control, and the nature of things being subject to change in their core. And that is inaccessible to you, you can’t affect that, you can’t prevent that.

So keeping that in mind, then you then put your appreciation in perspective. You don’t use appreciation to deal with anicca, you use anicca to not get careless with your appreciation. And same, you use anicca to not get careless with your non-appreciation or aversion. So you use anicca, wisdom, recognition of the nature of things, to keep yourself in check. But, in order to do that, you need to stop trying to get rid of it, through appreciation or whatever else you might be doing. Because that’s the only reason people would be doing it, to get rid of the discomfort of it. ‘No no no, I accept this actually.’ It’s not up to you. The mountains are coming to crush you—‘yes, I accept that’—what? Who are you to even accept that? You have no say. Whether you accept or not, this is the inevitable outcome. You saying that you appreciate and accept this is just you trying to appease yourself in the face of something you have no control over. And that’s unpleasant. You need to stop trying to get rid of it, recognise it as a symptom, and then do the gradual training.

T: You’re trying to get control again.

N: You’re trying to repossess it, exactly. ‘No no no, I wanted that to happen.’ No you didn’t. Nobody wants that to happen. So yeah, gradual picking up, gradual training, gradual development, gradual composing. When I say ‘gradual’ I don’t mean ‘take it easy’, I just mean that you do need to do it gradually. You need to start on that level of virtue: unblemished, unbroken virtue, so take your behaviour seriously. Then from there, your speech will become more wholesome, then even your thoughts. And then you will be able to actually withstand more of the recognition of anicca and anxiety without having too much of the pressure of ‘I must deal with this’ and then jump into one view or the other, or one action or the other because it’s unbearable to you. The only reason it’s unbearable is because your mind is too weak in relation to it. Your mind is too weak because you haven’t been practising sense restraint, guarding the sense doors, taming the beasts. You haven’t been doing that, so they are still very powerful. So how can you then be in control of them unless you can physically at least be able to overwhelm them, and not let them drag you around?

[…] That composure that will be able to face the anxiety, or any other unpleasantness, will be there. Because you built a basis for it. It’s not then like ‘so how do I face anxiety’. No, you are already facing it by not acting out of it. By not breaking your virtue when you’re anxious, you are already facing anxiety, you are doing it. Even if it doesn’t feel like that. That’s the work. Not when you think you’re doing the work, or not. There were Suttas where the Buddha said ‘what is samādhi?’ Samādhi is basically a monk who practises keeping his mind unmoved by things that want to move it. And you don’t need to seek out things that want to move it in terms of temptations and so on, your senses already want to move it all the time. Even if you’re just alone in a cell without any distractions.

So that’s samādhi. Immovability of the mind begins by immovability of behaviour. Unbroken virtue, the aggregate of virtue you have created, the immovable aggregate of certain non-behaviour. I will not behave toward sensuality, towards actions of ill-will and so on. And it becomes this solid thing. Certain behaviour is not to be done, hasn’t been done, you’re accomplished in that, and that’s your aggregate of virtue, as the Buddha referred to it. In the same sense that this body’s a solid aggregate, well, your virtue becomes this solid aggregate. You don’t spill over, you don’t break through it. And that’s exactly the beginning of samādhi. Sīla, samādhi, pañña. Not, sīla over there, then you run and find samādhi. No, sīla gives the basis for samādhi, and that gives the basis for clear seeing, on that basis.

T: The aggregate of virtue, you build that up, you create it, you make it.

N: And stop eroding it. Stop taking it conditionally, stop thinking it’s sort of a side thing. Your practice comes through the framework of your virtue. No other way.