Everything is Impermanent
(but some things keep coming back)

One of the most basic truths in Buddhism is that "all is impermanent." Whatever it is, good or bad, it will pass away sooner or later. The idea is that we shouldn’t get attached to things we like, and the other side of it is that the things we don’t like won’t be around forever. It’s a simple bit of wisdom, but one we often forget. Or resist.

I’m up again this morning at 5 A.M., awakening from a dream about some people I worked with forty years ago. Our sales manager was going out of town, and asked another employee to mow his lawn while he was gone. The other man said he couldn’t, for some reason, so I volunteered. The problem was, I’d forgotten to ask him his address. I started to look him up in the telephone book, but realized I couldn’t remember his last name. Well, I thought, I’ll call the company and ask them. Somehow, that didn’t work, either, and I woke up with the feeling that I was losing my memory. To prove it, I began thinking of all the people I knew in those days, and name after name came up blank. Even a couple of women I’d had romantic adventures with were suddenly anonymous in my mental data banks. It was not only my memory I was losing, it was large chunks of my life.

I know that when one gets into that mind state that the best thing is to quit trying. The effort to remember often just solidifies the block. For example, now that I’ve been away from the situation long enough to dress, start my computer and begin composing this journal entry, the name of at least one of those women comes to me without effort (Thank God! What if she should phone me, and say, "This is Sally. Don’t you remember me? ME?"

I’m still left with a bit of sadness, though, aware that much of my life is fading. I don’t usually dwell on the past; my present life is more fulfilling than any other period. Those days were good and bad, as "the old days" always were. I was not half the person I am today. I wouldn’t trade for anything, and I wouldn’t want to go back and relive any of it (well, maybe there were a couple of moments, probably not with Sally, but . . .)

The thing that bothers me the most is the possibility that I might not be able to remember, or calculate, or perform my usual tricks with my mind. I’m not afraid of Alzheimer’s—I’ve heard that if you have that, you don’t know that you don’t know. So if you worry about losing your mind, you don’t have that. Whatever. Still, I depend upon my mental abilities all the time. I enjoy figuring out things, whether they have to do with model aerodynamics or photography or philosophy. And sometimes forgetting things can be rather fun. Several times watching movies on television, I have enjoyed a drama only to discover toward the end that I’d seen it before. I don’t mind seeing a good film more than once, because I always get something new from it. And that’s also especially true with music. The thousandth time through Shostakovich’s Fifth is as satisfying as the second. (The first time I hear a complex piece is often as awkward as the first conversation with an attractive woman—I try too hard.)

However, now that I’m here, in this familiar chair looking at my words on this familiar monitor, watching my thoughts come together as they nearly always do, the sadness is gone. Only the memory of it lingers a bit, and that’s fading already. There’s a lot that I don’t want to remember—not just the bad times, but the routine things, the boring hours, and the exasperating people I’ve had to deal with.

One purpose of the Buddhist admonition to remember that "all is impermanent" is so that we pay more attention to the present moment. Most of us are so preoccupied with regrets over the past and fears or desires for the future that we aren’t really alive to what is, this moment. And this moment is the only reality.

If I’m not alive to what is present, then am I really alive at all? So I woke up with an unpleasant feeling of having lost something. The feeling has passed, and in this moment—I am hungry. I can smell an onion bagel heating in the toaster, and fresh-brewed coffee. I guess I’m alive.

Donald Skiff, October 21, 2002

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