All form, both gross as in a tree, and subtle as in
thought, depend upon innumerable conditions and are not the fixed entities that
they appear to be. Nothing actually remains the same for an instant. What is
perceived to be an unchanging object is on the contrary, an instantaneous,
indivisible movement of disintegration and formation, even though this
transience is imperceptible. It is in this sense that what is called death is
also life, as the ongoing transformation of all phenomena.
Nothing exists independently, as its own
substance, nature or process, that everything is impermanent. All form and all characteristics are dependent and relational in every
regard.
Death is also falsely viewed as an independent process that results in
the annihilation of life. However, if birth and death were independent
processes, there would be no relationship between them. Birth would never stop
being born and death would always be dying, which is nonsensical. Additionally,
if birth had its own nature and process, it would have given birth to itself,
which requires it to have already existed. And how can something that is dead
produce death? Furthermore, it is contradictory to think of death or
nonexistence as existing. Where could nonexistence reside if it did not
exist?
These contradictions can be avoided by recognizing the interdependence
of all things and consequently, to see that what arises dependently cannot be
inherently created or destroyed. For no phenomenon is ever its own thing to
begin with. Instead, each moment, is an unmarked birth and death in an
interdependent and impermanent flow of continuation.
Therefore, there is not a
separate self with its own cemented mind-body continuity that can be overtaken
by a force called death. Thought, feeling, sensation, perception and a body are
all vastly interrelational and impermanent, never remaining the same for an
instant. The notion that there exists a separate, permanent self above and
beyond a vast web of dependent conditions is a fiction. Death, which is merely
impermanence, has been here all along. It is like the saying that you never
step into the same river twice.
Humans are seen to possess a fundamentally
different nature from the rest of the world, but are instead dependent upon it
with no human essence left over. Without the conditions of air, water, earth,
minerals, plants, the sun, a moon, ad infinitum, neither consciousness nor any
human characteristic could appear, including culture, language, human society,
and its interrelations. Everything is interdependent with no individual core or
substance to be found, just as with fire. The belief in concrete thingness,
mistakes the conceptual image of a thing for a real separate thing, mistakes
the concept of death for death, the label of consciousness to be consciousness,
the image of a me for a separate self.
Using the notion of impermanence, is
not to assume it to be an inherently existent entity or process either.
Impermanence is also empty of its own nature and does not involve an autonomous
operation or autonomous entities that it moves or operates. It is the inability
to posit independent phenomena and processes that is the meaning of
impermanence.
An understanding of impermanence refutes the idea that separate
entities just show up from out of nowhere concretely formed, and then disappear
in a final act called death. Things appear to have a separate location and to
independently come and go, as well as function. However, when these mechanistic
impressions are carefully examined, such appearances, activities, and functions
are recognized as relative, dependent relationships with no nature or being of
their own. Everything is like a reflection in a mirror, like a movie that
appears to contain substantive entities but do not.
