Buddha was a philosopher, a spiritual leader and is credited as the founder of Buddhism.
Often referred to as the "Enlightened One", Buddha’s teachings are followed to this
day by millions of people around the world. He was born as Siddhartha Gautama in 566 BC
into an aristocratic family in Lumbini, Nepal and when he was twenty-nine years old, he
left the comforts of his home to seek the meaning of the suffering he saw around him,
to search for a life beyond life and death.
After six years of self-mortification, he realised that the search for divinity lies
not in worldly things but in the mind. Thus, abandoning self-mortification, he gave himself
to meditation and reached a state of enlightenment. For the next 45 years of his life, he went
around teaching others the path to attain this state of enlightenment. The teachings
of Buddha revolve around Duhkha, which means suffering, and the end of Duhkha, which is
regarded as the state of Nirvana. The philosophy’s most essential teaching includes the Three
Marks of Existence, which are as follows: Annica which means that life is in a constant
flux Duhkha which means that life is painful and
causes suffering, and Anatta which means that the self is always
changing According to Buddha, our thoughts and experiences are subject to these three
marks of our existence. It is a way of understanding ourselves and the world around us and in this
video we will be talking about the first mark of existence - Annica to better understand
the ever-changing, impermanent nature of life and how we can deal with the changes that
come with that.
Once, a woman named Kisa Gotami approached Buddha carrying her dead son. The heartbroken
mother was looking for every possible way to bring him back. As a result, she came to
Buddha hoping he could bring him back to life using medicine. Seeing the boy was already
dead, Buddha used this opportunity to teach an important life lesson. Firstly, Buddha
asked Gotami to bring him some mustard seeds from a house that hasn’t witnessed the loss
of a loved one. Gotami went door to door looking for the seeds, and slowly, she realised that
no such house exists.
Still hoping that Buddha could revive her son, Gotami brought the seeds to Buddha. When
questioned by Buddha if she bought the seeds from a house where no son or daughter, father
or mother had passed away, Gotami sat weeping and realised her selfish nature as grief started
to wash over her. More importantly, she realised that death is common to all and at last, she
realised the reality of impermanence and buried her son in a nearby forest.
Anicca in Buddhism means impermanence. The word "Annica" consists of two words ", a",
meaning non-, and "nicca", meaning permanent. Everything is subject to change as it is in
continuous transformation. Since being is becoming, decay is inherent in all component
things, and existence remains forever in a flux, or a continuous becoming, like a flowing
river.
The water flowing through a river may appear constant and unchanging to the naked eye,
but in reality we never see the same atoms and molecules, and so it cannot be the same
water. The same is true of time through life. It is a progressive moment, a successive series
of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow.
The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment
is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. Life changes continuously:
Once you are born, you grow, develop, become an adult until at some point you will die.
In the interim your relationships will change, your ideas and opinions will certainly change,
and so will you. Everyone grows older and everything changes.
Buddha explains how there are five processes over which human beings have no control:
Growing old Falling sick
Death and destruction, Decay of perishable things, and;
The passing away of that which is liable to pass.
No one can escape these five aspects of impermanence until one achieves Nirvana, the highest form
of enlightenment achieved through right attitude and awareness. In the normal course of our
existence, we may not be able to escape from impermanence, but we can learn to cope with
it. So with that in mind, here are 4 ways we can try to not only embrace life changes,
but also be happy and grow with them, from the philosophy of The Buddha
01. Acknowledge the change Buddha says “All conditioned things are impermanent' — when
one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering”.
Most of us desperately prevent change from happening because we fear the unknown. But
since change is inevitable, we need to develop the mindset that allows us to let things happen
when they unfold instead of approaching change from a place of denial and resistance. A trip
to the beach is the perfect allegory for the changes that we experience in our daily lives
and how we tend to resist them; when we go to a beach, we build a sandcastle, we get
caught up in making a beautiful and perfect castle, but after a while, a tide is bound
to come and destroy the whole thing whether we like it or not.
We need to cultivate the awareness that change can happen quickly and at any time. We can
cultivate this awareness through meditation. You can use meditation as a way to directly
and personally consider the environment around you and its impermanent nature. At the end
of every day, you can meditate by focusing on stabilising your breath, breathing in and
out slowly and deliberately, letting go of all feelings and experiences, and becoming
conscious of your body and mind. Once you are comfortable, it is now time to understand
the fluidity of change, and the impermanence of our mind, our body, the outer world, people
and relationships.
A good way to start is by thinking about yourself, how you have evolved over time and the challenges
you have encountered or are currently facing. You can also start by thinking of your close
ones like your family and how they have changed over the time. How your relationship with
your spouse, parents and children have evolved over time.
Then think of your friends, how they have evolved, the hardships they may have faced
or are currently facing. Think of people in your city and around the world and all the
different hardships and happiness they may be facing at any given moment.
At any moment in time there will be a death occurring in someone’s family, while at
the precise same moment, some other family elsewhere on the planet must have welcomed
a new life into this world.
If someone must have lost their job or must have lost most of their fortune, someone else
must have won some kind of lottery or must have gotten a promotion or pay rise at work.
If someone is calling off their wedding, or is getting a divorce, someone else is getting
married or experiencing their first love.
For every terminal diagnosis, someone else must have had a miraculous recovery.
For every argument or fight with a friend, someone out there, right at that moment will
be making a new friend or creating a new, lifelong memory with an existing friend.
When you meditate on all of these scenarios, you will soon realise how life can change,
and any of these fortunate or unfortunate events can happen to you too. If nothing unfortunate
happened to you today, be thankful for that and see how you can be there for people around
you who were less lucky. If you are going through an unfortunate phase, know that you
cannot be the only one going through whatever it is, and this too will change.
Acknowledge that you and everything around you is constantly evolving and you are no
exception. Start by practicing this for 5 minutes, every evening. If you find meditation
difficult, you can also practice this exercise while on a walk, under the beauty of nature.
Sessions such as this will help us answer philosophical questions, providing us with
truly transformative insights, helping us to understand and embrace the impermanent
nature of our lives.
2. Practice non-attachment In the words of Buddha “The root of suffering
is attachment”
Non-attachment is a very important part of understanding the philosophy of Buddhism.
We often misunderstand non attachment, specifically, referring to loved ones like a spouse, or
children, or parents. The type of non-attachment that’s being talked about in Buddhist thought
has less to do with what you own, or with what you hold on to, versus how that holds
onto you.
We hold on to things in an effort to find happiness and comfort. We don’t just cling
to things that give us joy, we also cling to some things because we’re afraid to let
go of them. Because of this we suffer, and the others suffer because we’re holding
onto things that are past their time. In Buddhism there is a parable where on the banks of a
river the Buddha asks his monks if somebody were to build a raft and they were to cross
the river with it, would it be wise or unwise to continue their journey with the raft once
they reach the other side? Letting go of the raft, whatever the raft may be, is a lesson
of letting go of things that are past their time, and is a simple explanation of non-attachment.
This can apply to relationships, friends,
and experiences. In terms of relationships, Loving in a non-attached way is loving in
a way that the person that you love feels free. So it’s not that there isn’t love,
or that you don’t want to be with someone, it’s that you don’t allow that person,
or that thing to own you. That’s what Buddah means by attachment in this instance. So letting
go of attachment is the secret to really enjoying life, and to loving others. It’s a way of
freedom. Think about that with your own relationships, like for example with your children. If you
love your children in a way that they feel free to be who they want to be, that’s genuine
non-attachment. You’re allowing someone to be completely authentic and free as they
are.
This rule applies to other things too. Let's take achieving your goals for example. The
goals or milestones are typically not the problem; The problem is that when we allow
those things to own us, it becomes unhealthy. It’s completely appropriate to have goals,
to have milestones, that you set in your career, or in various other phases of your life. There’s
nothing wrong with that. The problems start when we become trapped because those things
own us.
Having goals can be fine as long as you understand that goals are impermanent. You work towards
them, you either accomplish them and move on, or something changes and it doesn’t
work out. That’s where the wisdom of adaptability comes into play. The moment life presents
something new, you can adapt to it and create a new goal, because that original goal didn’t
own you. You used it as a tool for yourself, not a burden that makes life more difficult.
When we realize we don't have any control over life, we understand detachment and accept
its impermanent nature. Additionally, we are also open to change, willing to take risks
and lead healthier lives by making the right choices.
3. Embrace change Buddha considers that “​​Change is never
painful, only resistance to change is painful”
Most of the time, when any change happens, the outcome will not turn out the way you
want. By refusing to accept this change, we actually make it worse because we’re fighting
against it, against the flow of life. But by embracing the situation, you deal with
it far more effectively.
For example, suppose your partner gets a promotion at work and they might need to work 10 hours
a day plus weekends. Because of this they have to travel more often and won’t have
the same time as they have right now to spend with you or the family. Rather than sitting
at home, feeling anxious over being left alone, arguing with your partner and going against
the flow of life, you need to understand and respect their choice, free yourself from this
attachment and make them feel free as well, and find a solution of your own by embracing
this situation.
You can indulge in your hobbies or pick up something you have always wanted to learn.
You can also find local activities to do alone or with friends. Trying to keep everything
fixed means we’re not really changing and therefore we’re not really growing. Life
is all about constantly growing in many different ways.
4. Learn from the experience In our final quote from Buddha for this video,
he says “Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of
some kind. The goal is to find it”.
When we accept change, and learn from it, change is no longer our enemy. It becomes
our teacher. At its core, change pushes you to become a better person. Whenever you undergo
something in your personal or professional development, while it may not seem like it
at the time, these events offer lessons that help shape your future. They make you more
flexible, innovative and more aware.
Change is only as scary as you make it seem. Maybe you're about to enter a new role like starting
a new business and are fearful of failing. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone fails
at some point in their lives, so when - not if - failure happens to you, let it be an
opportunity to learn and grow. Try to work through each day without concern of failure
or rejection. For thousands of years, people have worked to advance life in every way.
Such progress is only possible when we aren't afraid of what lies ahead. Not only do you
grow as a person and make progress when you embrace change, but going with the flow and
embracing that change is vital to achieving true inner peace.
If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to check out our full philosophies for life
playlist and for more videos to help you find success and happiness using ancient philosophical
wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much for watching.