One thing for sure: my teeth are real. It is a
manifestation of the human anatomy. The growth of my teeth is
dependent on my diet. They are also dependent on my oral
hygience and how I use/abuse my teeth. My teeth are permanent
but subject to decay like all human parts. Ultimately, (eons
later) my teeth may completely decay.
is the Buddha tooth relic - a reality or no reality or
ultimate reality?
You still don't understand what is anicca or impermanence.
From 'Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante
Gunaratana':
Impermanence
Anicca is the Pali term for "impermanence" or "change."
It's a word worth learning. It says more than its English
translations. Anicca is not just a word or concept. Anicca
is real. It is experience of what is actually going on in your body
and mind.
Everything is changing constantly.
Yes, yes. You know this. You have heard all this before and you
agree. The chair you are sitting in will one day fall apart and go
to the junkyard. That is impermanence, right? Well, yes, it is. But
only at the most superficial level. Knowledge of change at that
level wil not heal you; it will not free you; it lacks the power
and clarity to carry you to liberation. Unless you gain strong
concentration, you will never see it at the deep and subtle level
that makes you free.
You need to sit in the place where the whole world of your
experience is coming up and passing away so rapidly that there is
just nothing to hang on to. Nothing lasts long enough for you to
mentally glue it together into "something." As soon as you turn
your attention to any occurrrence, it goes "poof"! It vanishes as
soon as pure awareness touches it. It all just comes up and goes
away, leaving no trace. There is no time for such a trace to be
left. As each thing comes up, it pushes the last thing out of the
mind and there is no residue. You come out of this experience with
no solid memory of anything that occurred. There is just the
lingering impression of everything arising and passing away more
rapidly than the mind can hold. This is termed "seeing things as
they really are." You are not verbalizing or conceptualizing. You
are just "seeing." This happens in the awareness of your deeply
concentrated mind.
It all just comes up and goes away as a raging torrent without
the slightest straw to grasp to keep you from drowning. Yet you do
not drown. Because you are not really there. "Me" is just another
"thing" that only exists when you glue your passing experience
together in that artificial way. what does the seeing in this state
is a calm, unruffled, pure watchfulness that does not get
involved and does not exist as a thing. It just
watches.
When you see things this way, you lose interest in trying to
hold on to things. you see that it is futile and harmful and cannot
lead you to any truth or happiness. You lose interest in the
attachment that you have to all those very, very crucially
important things you worry about in your life - those things you
just have to "get" in order to be happy; those worries you just
have to sidestep to avoid unhappiness. It cannot be done. They are
not really there to grasp or avoid. And you are not really there to
do the grasping or avoiding. it is all just ceaseless change in
action.
Grasping in this state is like trying to balance a tiny, tiny
mustard seed on the tip of a moving needle. It is nearly impossible
and why should you bother? Yet the desire is still present to grasp
on to something pleasing and joyful and to run away from something
disagreeable. You cannot do it and you see the futility. You
realize that, "This is the nature of my life. My body, my
consciousness, all my ideas and memories and attitudes and wants
and needs - they are all like this - fleeting, ephemeral and
fruitless. Even 'I' am like this.
Why is Seeing Impermanence So Important?
Impermanence is the slipperiest idea you have ever encountered
and the most basic. It goes against everything you know about
existnece. The mind resists it both subtly and grossly. It slides
into the mind easily and then slides right out again just as
easily, without any impact. And it must have that impact. it is the
basic idea you need to make you free.
You see things changing. You see it deeply down to the most
incredibly fast, moment-by-moment level. Then you see it more
broadly. You perceive it in everything you see and everything you
ever could see. When you see anicca in all your experiences, your
mind gets tired of this incessant change. This is the suffering,
the dukkha, you experience in impermanence. This is the truth that
the Buddha uncovered and expounded to us saying, "Whatever is
impermanent, it is suffering."
Seeing suffering in all the aggregates of your experience, you
become disenchanted. Being disenchanted you become dispassionate.
passion is the gluing nature of your mind. Passion is the glue that
holds the self and the world together as apparent units of being.
When this gluing power is removed, there arises relinquishment,
which leads to cessation of your suffering.
(to be continued)