Embracing Impermanence

By Josiah Cook | Tacoma Buddhist Temple

As I was growing up, one of the things I tended to struggle with the most was adjusting to change. I always relied on consistency and routines to help get me through my day, and when things went differently than I expected, even if it was in a beneficial manner, I would get upset or feel uncomfortable. My inability to handle change also extended to how I went about my day, for example only using one particular plate to eat dinner with and only sitting in one spot at the dinner table. To this day, I still feel a bit odd if I’m not sitting on the left side of something, whether it's in a car, a plane, or at a table.

My resistance to change wasn’t only regarding small routine changes. I disliked dealing with major adjustments in my life as well. The best example of this is in regards to when my family and I changed houses. To provide a bit of context, I moved to my current property when I was around four years old and our initial plan was to remodel the house. Despite being cozy and welcoming, it was pretty apparent that I would quickly outgrow the space the house provided. Eventually we realized it would be more cost effective to build an entirely new house on the property as opposed to remodeling our old one. This meant it would take much longer to complete the process of building, and unsurprisingly, I got very comfortable living in my old house, despite the fact that I no longer had much space to store all my belongings. I actually got a concussion one year because I hit my head on the low cutoff of my bedroom floor while walking down the stairs one morning before school. Eventually, our new house was finished being built, and I finally had a nice room with a tall enough ceiling where I wouldn’t give myself concussions.

However, despite all the conveniences of now living in a new house, one of my first thoughts was how my bed could no longer face the same direction in my new room because of where the door was.

Instead of being grateful for suddenly being able to live in a place with more than one bathroom and a room that could actually fit a desk and my other belongings, I was immediately thrown off by a couple miniscule things that I would now need to do differently. I had once again taken a major change for the good and allowed my distaste for change to get the better of me.

One of the most prominent messages I heard repeated throughout my years attending Temple was that of impermanence. Even though it was a message that I had heard the reverends and the Dharma school teachers often discuss, the idea of impermanence was something I always resisted. When one of the biggest changes came at the beginning of this year with coronavirus and quarantine, I reached a crossroads. This was my final free summer, as I was heading into my senior year. And unlike the previous one, I was no longer able to go to my job or see my friends. I was very close to spending the next 7 months camped out in my room playing video games with my friends and sleeping 14 hours a day. However, thanks to the teachings of the Dharma and support of family, friends, sangha members and reverends, I decided to embrace the changes caused by Covid and all the challenges that came with it.

Because I was at home most of the time, I began working out and running every day and started eating healthier. Organization and procrastinating have always been things I struggled with in the past, so I finally started to keep a calendar, organize my things, and get work done without waiting until the morning of. Within only a couple months of quarantine, I had used a negative change in my life to positively impact it, and set up beneficial habits that I believe will help me throughout the rest of my life. Without this major negative change, there’s a chance that I never would have found the opportunity to make the positive adjustments in my day to day life that I needed to.

So while some changes may seem terrible, or come when you least expect it, it’s important to understand the inevitability of impermanence and take on those changes with the mindset that you may achieve something good out of it.

Please join me in gassho,

Namo Amida Butsu