Not everything is impermanent. In Buddhism we sometimes say nirvana, sometimes shunyata, we talk of No-birth and of the Deathless, and sometimes we say the unconditioned. These are all implications. When the passion for impermanent things is no longer in the driving seat, that is nirvana. When the ego no longer insists, that is shunyata. What is not impermanent is not born and does not die. Whatever depends upon impermanent conditions is itself necessarily impermanent.
We live in a world of wonders - pleasure and pain, birth and death, coming and going, riches and poverty, society and taxes, enterprise and leisure, like so much scenery flashing past the window of the train. Yet when we try to catch hold of this it slips away, insubstantial. Possessions are unreliable. The body is unreliable. The mind is unreliable. Conditions change, often with little warning.
From birth we have the intuition of a beyond in which we can have faith, but this inherent faith is assailed on all sides by the seduction of the materialist reduction and the convention of self-serving. Lucky are the few who survive with "but little dust in their eyes". The disease of worldliness infects and establishes itself, manufacturing blockages like so many embolisms in the circulation of the spirit, producing confusion, debilitation, inner stress, grief, anguish and conflict. Our hearts are put under great pressure in this way.
There is a perfusion that can dissolve these clots. It is called nembutsu. When the circulation is full of the thought of Buddha, the one who is already beyond, who enjoys the freedom of the unconditioned, then the karmic traces cease to be obstructions, the passions become celestial flowers, and the body-mind becomes a precious vehicle with a new driver.
When we are full of the feeling of Dharma, the ultimate support that holds and gives witness, taking whatever form necessary, as the Earth Mother, as the Buddha of Light, as Quan Shi Yin, as innumerable bodhisattvas "springing from the earth", speaking the language that the hearer needs, then we are already standing at the gateless gate.
Nirvana is not attained by any combination or contrivance of worldly factors. The conditioned cannot give rise to the unconditioned. Before enlightenment there is only the enlightenment of all the Buddhas. After enlightenment, the same. Yet after a conditioned life there is only death and more conditioning. Nothing done in a worldly manner will produce an unworldly result. What happens here is not a cause of arriving there. We are not awakened by our dreams, but from them. The Greeks called it anamnesia, the Indians, bodhi.
I sit in my hospital bed. The staff come. Sometimes they bring relief, sometimes pain. The body heals, the body fails. It is all the same. A nurse with a smiling face; another with a gruff manner - it is all the same: the same love, the same light, the same awakening; each time simply one instance of eternity to enjoy. Namo Amida Bu.
Replies
Speaking from the heart, I want to say I love the way you express the Dharma and share with us the precious gift of your "vidya-view" on the world and on what's impermanent, giving so much hope and possibilities to find a way to work in a loving way with this life in Samasara, surrounded by the Buddha's and their light. Namo Amida Bu
Speak from your heart as it is and there will be an answer for one's condition. There is nothing wrong with the heart as it is. There has recently come to be a wave of hatred spreading across the world and we may rightly fear where it may lead, but "even though the world be consumed by fire" one will pass through that fire listening to the Dharma. Those whose hearts are full of hatred will bring destruction upon themselves and others, but even they can always turn if they realise their mistake. The apparatus is not faulty - it is how we use it.