Wrestling With Impermanence

Living with impermanence is one of my greatest challenges. I accept the idea that all forms that are born must die. Seeds must break for plants to grow and plants must decay for new plants to sprout. The circle of life is a palatable image that depicts continuation through change. It offers a certain level of peace and connection.

What boggles my mind and rattles my bones is the direct, sensory experience of impermanence. It started a number of years ago when formless silence became the backdrop and essence of every thought, word, gesture and environment. What I had encountered as solid and separate, I now experienced as transparent and unified. The world that had been firm ground supporting isolated objects and beings became a vast fluid space. Objects and beings flowed within it like waves within an ocean. This ocean had no substance, yet the waves of form rising and falling within it were actually more vivid than they had been in the old solid ground world.

Within this fluid cosmos, impermanence became the tangible experience of transparency within formlessness. Impermanence was no longer the process of a seed, becoming a tree, producing fruit that became a seed. It became all things dissolving into transparent formlessness as soon as they appeared. My thoughts, words and actions became the equivalent of writing on water. They certainly had their effects, but they disappeared into formlessness as soon they were born.

Strangely, my mind was and is unable to understand or fully accept this impossible paradox. It clings to its notions that there is cause and effect, that individual lives have an understandable meaning and purpose. My mind knows the spiritual explanations for the type of impermanence I have described, but it doesn't buy them. It still looks for ways to resolve the puzzle of formless forms.

Living this contradiction has turned my work from goal oriented tasks to being the conduit through which life makes offerings to itself through me. This is not my choice. It's just what is happening and it feels better to acknowledge it and willingly participate.

Still, my mind clings, like a dog to its bone, to a shred of hope that it can figure this thing out. On good days, it seems like an organic process that will eventually burn through this resistance. On other days, my body-mind rage against the formless-forms it finds itself inhabiting. It battles a futile war to establish solid ground in infinite formlessness. On yet other days, my body-mind knows that formlessness will eventually bleach transparency through its bones and thoughts and another unimaginable reality will dawn. Impermanence will have its way beyond what the body-mind thinks.

Trust

Every building is built on trust. Sure, there is plenty of fear sprinkled through the creation of any project, but without trust the whole structure would collapse. The roof must trust the support of walls, the walls has to trust the firmness of the foundation and the foundation needs to trust the stability of the abiding Earth. Gutters and downspouts trust that water flows according to certain laws. Window glass trusts that sunlight reflects in predictable ways. 

Lack of wise trust can make a work of architecture collapse before it is built. If a client, architect and builder don't trust each another or they act in untrustworthy ways, shifting thoughts and emotions can cause the whole project to fall apart. Problems arise when one or another of the team grasps his or her preferences too tightly. The resistance blocks the flow of skill and knowledge into problem solving and creative expression. At times like these, I recall a poem written 1,400 years and see how it might breathe some sanity into the situation:

THE MIND OF ABSOLUTE TRUST

by Sen-ts'an

6th Century

The great way isn't difficult

for those who are unattached to their preferences.

Let go of longing and aversion,

and everything will be perfectly clear.

When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction,

heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want to realize the truth,

don't be for or against.

The struggle between good and evil

is the primal disease of the mind.

Not grasping the deeper meaning

you just trouble your mind's serenity.

As vast as infinite space,

it is perfect and lacks nothing.

But because you select and reject,

you can't perceive its true nature.

Don't get entangled in the world;

don't lose yourself in emptiness.

Be at peace with the oneness of things,

and all errors will disappear by themselves.

If you don't live the Tao,

you fall into assertion or denial.

Asserting the world is real,

you are blind to the selflessness of all things.

The more you think about these matters,

the farther you are from the truth.

Step aside from all thinking,

and there is nowhere you can't go.

Returning to the root,

you find the meaning;

chasing appearances,

you lose their source.

At the moment of profound insight,

you transcend both appearance and emptiness.

Don't keep searching for the truth,

just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao,

all selfishness disappears.

With not even a trace of self-doubt,

you can trust the universe completely.

All at once you are free,

with nothing left to hold on to.

All is empty, brilliant,

perfect in its own being.

In the world of things as they are,

there is no self, no non-self.

If you want to describe its essence,

the best you can say is "Not-two."

In this "Not-two" nothing is separate,

and nothing in the world is excluded.

The enlightened of all times and places

have entered into this truth.

In it there is no gain or loss;

one instant is a thousand years.

There is no here, no there;

infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast

when objective boundaries have vanished;

the vast is as small as the tiny

when you don't have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being;

non-being is not different from being.

Until you understand this truth,

you won't see anything clearly.

One is all;

all are one.

When you realize this,

what reason for holiness or wisdom?

The mind of absolute trust 

is beyond all thought, all striving,

is perfectly at peace, for in it

there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell in, The Enlightened Heart.

Angels in the Architecture

Architecture embodies the human journey. Like the eddies and swirls of water cascading down a ravine reveal the shapes of the boulders the water flows across, the design elements of buildings reveal the terrain of human needs and dreams. Throughout history, architecture has been enriched with paintings and sculptures depicting the mystery of dwelling in this world. Only in last 200 years have architects designed structures that looked more like the tools used to craft buildings than the people that inhabited them. The adoration of the machine as a tool for creating better homes and cities replaced the appreciation of the human form as a renewing link between nature, imagination and architecture.

The painting above, Law Versus the Mob by John Stewart Curry, is located in the Department of Justice Building outside the Law Library. It shows a man fleeing a hate-filled mob. When the Attorney General of the United States, U.S. Attorneys, and Judges walk these halls, the architecture frames this stark reminder of their role in society.

Sacred architecture in most parts of the world is adorned with art that tells the whole story of the soul's journey. It's not all celestial light and humming chants. At the central portal into Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, for example, a pointed arch frames the full spectrum of experience. On the left are a host of saints with pious faces. On the right, devils frolic through horrific mischief. In the center of this wild scene sits Christ, Buddha-like, raising his hand in a fear not, be cool gesture. Hindu and Buddhist temples throughout Asia display these same sort of scenes.

What I've experienced with this is that sacred space is all encompassing space. It excludes nothing and embracing everything. All the impulses of life and invited in. Not for a Kumbayah sing along, but to stir the ocean of silence into powerful, revitalizing energy. The full spectrum of life from perfect peace to dynamic creation, destruction and renewal rises and falls within the measureless expanses of sacred space.

By looking for ways to include the design of the human body in our dwelling places, we may be able to imagine vital ways to connect the designs of our buildings to nature. I'm not suggesting we go backwards and cover our buildings with statues. Instead we can look into and feel the ways our consciousness is expressed through the gestures and expressions of our human form. We can look for ways to create places that extend those currents into the rooms we inhabit and find a sustainable coexistence between our minds, bodies and the garden of the world.

Thanks for the comments on previous posts. Keep sharing them and telling us what you're experiencing and doing.