I’ve been having some thoughts about impermanence and dukkha lately.
The usual formula is that things are impermanent, and thus a source of dukkha. But is that really so? Perhaps, on the other hand, things being impermanent is what makes them worthwhile and pleasing.
Why should one seek refuge in permanence, anyway? Anything permanent and unchanging would not be a refuge, but a source of irrelevance, boredom, an imprisonment that is impossible to escape. A constant and immutable torment.
Perhaps, the fact that things are dependably impermanent is what makes anything tolerable or gratifying.
Therefore, why should impermanence be a source of dukkha?
If you think a sutta has a relevant rhetoric, feel free to share, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Yes, exactly. What makes an impermanent thing a source of dukkha is the desire for it to be other than it is: impermanent. Moreover, this desire or wish for it to be other than it is conditioned by ignorance thinking it possible for something to be other than it is when it isn’t.
Giving up the desire for things to be other than they are leads to peace.
These appear to be subjective and relative value statements.
If you want to claim impermanence is not fundamentally dukkha, then there should never be any dukkha associated with it.
But of course, there is.
The impermanence of beautiful blossoms in springtime also includes the impermanence of a child dying from leukemia. Just one example from zillions we could cite from daily impermanent life.
We have to include the whole picture and breadth of impermanence, I’d say.
In terms of quoting suttas, I’m sure you’re aware of literally hundreds in which the Buddha rhetorically asks, “And if it’s impermanent is it dukkha?”
“Yes.”
Impermanence means no reliable freedom from pain, loss, death and dukkha. As in DN15.
The corollary would be that if you want to claim impermanence is fundamentally dukkha, then there should always be dukkha associated with it, right?
That is, if someone experiences something impermanent with no further arising of dukkha, then this would be enough to know that impermanence is not fundamentally dukkha?
I hypothesize that it is possible to experience an impermanent thing without that experience conditioning any future arising of dukkha. If one had such an experience it would be enough to confirm that a conditioned thing is not fundamentally dukkha.
Ah, but here you appear to be stating the same logical fallacy that you correctly called out above?! The fallacy being conflating an existential qualifier with a universal qualifier. Finding that one experience of impermanence conditions dukkha is not enough to claim that all experiences of impermanence condition dukkha. That is still something that need be checked!
Agreed! But that means looking at all the experiences of impermanence and seeing if it is true that they all condition the arising of dukkha. That is what a universal qualifier is about
I have been thinking about a bit similar things. I understand that according to dhamma, existence leads to birth, which leads to aging and death. But isn’t it also because of those existence and birth that it is possible to experience love, compassion, gratitude, sympathetic joy, kindness and friendliness? And even if those were subject to rising and ceasing (=impermanent), why wouldn’t these still be worth staying in the cycle of rebirth?
When I was young, my favourite art sculpture was Pieta by Michelangelo. To me it depicts deep and immense suffering, but also the significance of compassion, love, and caring, and together these would seem to make life truly beautiful as you say. And thus, it is hard for me to understand the buddhist motivation for extinguishment.
Some possibilities for what Sariputta might have meant:
Because all experience is impermanent he inferred that with the end of all experience due to a final death nothing further is experienced and this is “blissful.” This would imply that Sariputta had not had any experience devoid of conditioning the further arising of dukkha. This would effectively mean Sariputta never confirmed the hypothesis I stated above.
Because Sariputta had confirmed my hypothesis above directly knowing an experience in his very life that was both impermanent and yet did not condition any further arising of dukkha he declared the extinguishment of passion for things to be other than they are to be “blissful.”
I know we don’t agree on this Jasudho and that is fine as long as we both strive to keep open minds. I continue to so strive my dhamma friend.
Striving to stay in the cycle of rebirth necessarily evinces a passion for continued existence. Passion and desire for continued existence conditions the arising of future dukkha. Passion and desire for continued existence is a burden that ought to be put down.
I’ll go over the rest of the thread a bit later, bur for now:
I know that this is the suggestion. What I’m wondering is why is something dukkha if it’s impermanent? Because my investigation comes from the same place of your post’s opening:
Which, isn’t it the case for sukha/dukkha? Is there an objective criteria for why something is dukkha due to it’s impermanence, other than Buddha stating it so?
The only argument from the suttas that I’m aware of comes from Dhammadina (which was approved by Buddha later in the sutta), stating that the diminishing of a sukha feeling is dukkha. But I’m not sure I find this convincing on its own.
@Dogen You stole my thread idea
Seriously - I was just about to open a similar thread on beauty and now I’m not sure if they don’t overlap too much. Will have to read into this thread and see…
On the one hand, I’ll take the Buddha’s word for it. Saddha.
At the same time, as I mentioned in a prior post, can we agree that impermanence means there’s no reliable sukha? If so, then fundamentally it’s not liberation and hence is dukkha.
Clearly, in our experiences, there are pleasant ones. But they’re not stable or reliable and in the end, all conditional experiences in bhava/jāti, per DO, include pain, loss, death and rebirth – and around we go…
Since final nibbāna, I think we agree, is free of all conditional experiences and since all conditional experiences are anicca, we can both infer and directly experience/know that fundamentally anicca is dukkha.
Otherwise, final nibbāna could theoretically be endlessly abiding in conditions without craving and ignorance.
I think you phrased the question nicely. I think what matters here if we talk about viparinama-dukkha is that we - from a cognitive perspective - know that everything changes and nothing lasts forever. But when we look deeper, it’s harder to accept it emotionally. We might have invested heavily in something (moneywise or in terms of time spent to have a good relationship with someone or in the maintenance of an object). I think one of the key factors is that impermanence means danger from an evolutionary perspective. If nothing lasts one cannot derive a sense of security for one’s life.
I’m going to keep arguing for the point for the discussion. Nice thread, nice chatter.
If something lasts forever, then there’s no notion of security applicable. You better enjoy what is permanent, because it’s going to be that, unchanging, inescapable, unyielding enemy. Thus wouldn’t dukkha be only applicable to something so tyranically immovable?
There no reason to escape anything impermanent - it will yield by itself soon enough. What reason is there to seek security in an impermanent world? No burden, no suffering, no pain lasts forever, thus nothing poses a real threat.
It depends on how we define reliability. Reliable behaves as you expect - and if all sukha is impermanent, then to that extent it’s reliable. But I think you mean as a source of inexhaustible, unchanging everlasting fountain of sukha.
Then I would ask why is that a desirable thing to seek out, in the first place? Desiring to exit Samsara because there’s no inexhaustible supply of sukha from a single source, it sounds, well, interesting! No single thing insofar as can be defined, can forever supply sukha; that being so, everything can always supply sukha anyway. This coffee ends while this flower flourishes. Why seek it in the permanence of, say, this cup of coffee, instead of the diversity and uncountable experience of life itself?
One’s life is also an example of impermanence. Is it possible to find beauty in this impermanence as well? Were it not would that permanent life be a refuge? Would it ensure permanent relevance? Non-boredom? Freedom? A constant and immutable delight? Perhaps, the fact that one’s life isn’t permanent makes it tolerable and gratifying? Of course, here I’m mirroring the questions of Dogen in the OP
One angle might be that if something is constant it can’t impinge on the (first) five senses. You need a variable stimuli (impermanence) to agitate the senses. See below.
In meditation there is withdrawal from those five senses (they calm down), and we find that this is blissful and the agitation is by comparison a torment.
Right. Which nothing impermanent can be, by definition.
But I’m not.
It’s the cessation of “things” that’s the ending of dukkha. Not the seeking out or attaining of a new “something”, however ineffable.
While alive it’s the cessation of the defilements, which is accompanied by the cessation of what we may call mental dukkha and the happiness of knowing there will be no rebirth.
DN16:
"Craving for continued existence has been cut off; the conduit to rebirth is ended; now there’ll be no more future lives.”
After the final death, the senses and aggregates cease without remainder, (I think we agree on this). Everything and anything conditional and impermanent is gone.
So, no further dukkha or possibility of dukkha. →
Sounds like something that might confirm the hypothesis I stated earlier? An experience of something impermanent that does not condition the future arising of dukkha?
Of course, if this experience of an impermanent meditative absorption is accompanied by a desire for it to be permanent - aka something it isn’t - then all bets are off!
This is wrong. “Things” are impermanent so they are already liable to cease.
What I think you intend is the cessation of one thing - the experiencer. You believe that the “final death” is of a substantial being - aka the experiencer - and with that the experiencer is no longer encumbered by the experience of “things.”
Will have to read into this thread and see… 
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