Why Is Life Uncertain?

Buddha's key tenet was about impermanence. Even if one is not a Buddhist, mere intelligence would tell us that life is uncertain, fleeting and impermanent. As Buddha said,’ it’s about the one breath you have now.’?

Buddha’s five followers noticed his radiance as he opened his eyes after he experienced nirvana, the state of void. They asked him to share what made him radiant. Buddha shared with them the 4 noble truths, which are the core tenets of Buddhism.

• Life is impermanent. Sadness follows happiness?
• Sadness results from desired wants, expectations, and attachments
• Nirvana, extinguishing attachments frees us from sadness
• Attachments can be extinguished by the 8-fold path

Impermanence?

Life is impermanent, uncertain and ever changing. It’s as Buddha had said, a breath long. Sadness or sorrow or disappointment or frustration follows happiness or joy or high dopamine state, surely as night follows day, and death follows life.?

In the epic Mahabharata, the Pandava prince Yudhishtra responds when asked by Yama, the deity of death, ‘what is that you find most ironic in your experience?’, ‘it is people believing they will live forever, though they experience someone dying around them every day.’

Nature is random, ever changing, neutral and beyond human control. It’s chaos with an order of its own, beyond human ken. When we wish to bring order and control into this random chaos, within the limits of what we know to be order, we are courting disaster.

Change is a constant. Yet, we wish for change only when it suits us. Bosses want subordinates to change, since they are perfect. Men want women to change, because of no earthly reason. Parents want children to change, though they are the ones who made all the mistakes. Life is a comedy, but for the fact outcomes are often tragic.?

Wants?

Change, when desired by us, is always a want, rarely a need. When the neighbour air-conditions their house, ours gets unbearably warm. Wants are borrowed, in envy and greed. Unfortunately, greed has no limits. Ramana Maharishi said, ’this earth can fulfil the needs of many billions, but not the greed on even one.’?

Wants start as desires, seemingly reasonable. In our world where ambition is cherished, foolishly mistaken for purposeful meaning, everyone is in need of a want. Once the want is fulfilled, it reappears magnified. This time around, it’s accompanied by fear; fear of losing what we already have acquired through want. This vicious expanding spiral of greed and fear follows every breath we inhale.?

Disengagement

The only way we can break through the vicious spiral of greed and fear, with attachment to what we want, fear to lose, retain and obsess, is to be content with our basic needs of comfort, and disengaged from attachment to what others around us have and experience, and even beyond what they may have and experience.?

We want to live forever, even if everyone around dies . We are afraid to die. Like a machine is overhauled, we get ourselves overhauled and transplanted, regardless of how old we are. The older we are, the more desperate we are to be young.?

Shankara says poignantly in Bhaja Govindam,

Limbs are limp , head is hairless

Face is weak, mouth toothless

Old body needs a stick to move

Yet desires are too strong to remove

In the next post, let’s look at the 4th Noble Truth, in which Buddha tells us how to disengage in order live life without suffering.?

Please do write in, resonant or dissonant. Let’s have a conversation.?

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Ram is co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com. Ram's focus is integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably. Visit Coacharya.