Constantly Changing Self And Dependant example essay topic

There are three characteristics of existence. This is an important part of the teaching of Buddha. The teaching of the three characteristics is part of what we might call the doctrinal contents of wisdom. In other words, when we talk about the knowledge and the understanding that is implied by wisdom, we have this teaching in mind. The three characteristics of existence that we have in mind are the characteristics of impermanence (Anitya), suffering (Dukkha) and not-self (Anatma). These three characteristics are always present in or are connected with existence, and they tell us about the nature of existence.

They help us to know what to do with existence. What we learn to develop as a result of understanding the three characteristics is renunciation. Once we understand that existence is universally characterized by impermanence, suffering and not-self, we eliminate our attachment to existence. Once we eliminate our attachment to existence, we gain the threshold of Nirvana. This is the purpose that understanding the three characteristics serves. It removes attachment by removing delusions, the misunderstanding that existence is permanent, is pleasant and has something to do with the self.

This is why understanding the three characteristics is part of the contents of wisdom. The first of the three characteristics of existence is the characteristic of impermanence (Anitya). If we look at our own personality, we will find that our bodies are impermanent. They are subject to constant change. We grow thin. We grow old and grey, our teeth fall out, and our hair falls out.

Similarly, our mental states are impermanent. At one moment we are happy, and at another moment we are sad. As infants, we hardly understand anything. As adults, in the prime of life we understand a great deal more. And again in old age we lose the power of our mental faculties and become like infants.

Our minds are also characterized by impermanence. This is true also of the things that we see around us. Everything we see around us is impermanent. Not one thing will last forever - not the office blocks, nor the temples, nor the rivers and islands, nor the mountain chains, nor the oceans.

We know for a fact that all these natural phenomena, even those that appear to be the most durable, even the solar system itself will one day decline and become extinct. This process of constant change of all things - personal and impersonal, internal and external, goes on constantly even without our noticing it and it affects us intimately in our daily life. Our relations with other individuals are subject to the characteristic of impermanence and change. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. Enemies even become relatives.

Relatives become enemies. If we look closely at our life, we can see how all our relationships with other people are marked by impermanence. Our possessions are also impermanent. Those things that we dearly love - our homes, our automobiles, our clothes, all these are impermanent. All of them will decay and eventually be destroyed. So in every aspect of our life, whether it is personal or material, or whether with regard to our relationships with others, or whether it be our possessions, impermanence is a fact, verified by direct immediate observation.

Understanding impermanence is important to our daily life. How often do friendships deteriorate and end because one of the persons involved has failed to take account of the fact that his friend's attitudes, interests and so forth have changed? How often do marriages fail because one, or both, of the parties fails to take account of the fact that his or her partner has changed? It is because we lock ourselves into fixed, artificial unchanging ideas of the character and personality of our friends and relatives that we fail to develop our relationships with them positively and because of this failure we often fail to understand one another. Similarly, in one's career or public life, one cannot hope to succeed if one does not keep abreast of changing situations like, for instance, new trends in one's profession or discipline. So whether it is in regard to our personal life or in regard to our public life, understanding impermanence is necessary if we are to be effective and creative in the way that we handle our personal or professional affairs.

Finally, understanding impermanence is an aid to the understanding of the ultimate nature of things. Seeing that all things are perishable, and change every moment, we also begin to see that things have no substantial existence of their own. That in our persons and in the things around us, there is nothing like a self. So in this sense, impermanence is directly related to the second of the three characteristics, the characteristic of not-self.

Understanding impermanence is a key to understanding not-self or impersonality, or insubstantiality (Anatma). As we live, we take on both positive and negative habits and we cling to ideas which we associate with 'our permanent selves'. But our permanent self is a myth, and once we learn that, we can look beyond the need to have life stay the same. While the Buddha saw life continuing after death, he described it more as the lighting of one candle by another, the flame originates at the first flame, but the second is a consequence of the first, and not a unique reproduction of it. Essentially, however, he saw us as a collection of body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. While he saw no separate self or ego, he did emphasize the interdependence of all life as well as dependence on what had gone before.

The concept of no eternal self was also radical in the era in which the Buddha lived. Hinduism, the main religion of India at that time, generally accepted the idea of the eternal self. The body is destroyed but the self lives on. And that was an unchanging identity which was locked in by fate to a particular way of life and determined which caste system you belonged to. The Buddha rejected this Hindu concept and taught instead the interconnectedness of life.

Each self has no fixed reality, but is a constantly changing self and dependant on changing conditions. So each person has a physical body which is dependant on food and warmth, and develops in response to those inputs and to the ageing process. Our feelings change with our mood and our time in life, and as a direct result of perceptions which comes from what we see and hear around us. We make decisions based on our feelings and perceptions and these constitute our mental formations.

From these four, body, feelings, perceptions, and mental formations comes consciousness which is dependant on the other four. And the sum of these is what we refer to as self, so therefore, according to the Buddha, there is no fixed definable self. You are still there, with a personality and feelings, and with tremendous possibility for change, and not locked in to some rigid fate, because your nature is built on change. In fact, the Buddha took a middle way on the definition of self. He saw the self as dependant on everything that had gone before, and constantly changing in response to an interconnecting and changing reality. While we are not permanent and fixed entities, we are certainly part on the on-going reality.

Once this is understood, once interconnectedness becomes part of the way of seeing the world, then suffering arises from the personal concept of an independent self. Anatma is the view that there is no enduring self. All phenomena are conditioned-have a begging and end-so there is nothing to which they can attach. Suffering arises from the illusion that impermanent conditioned states are permanent and can be possessed by a self. Moreover, there is no self or soul, which carries on after death. Instead we are merely a collection of groups of grasping which are in a continual state of flux.

Rebirth is possible only because our desires and volition drive us. Every living being, every living thing in this universe is subject to impermanency. The destruction of the whole universe is very certain. The body will be dissolved and no amount of sacrifice will save it.

Looking to life we notice how it is changing, continually moving between contrasts. We notice rise and fall, success and failure, loss and gain, we meet honor and contempt, praise and blame, and we feel how our hearts respond to all that, with happiness and sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and satisfaction, fear and hope.