Impermanence
Part 4 of 4 in a Sanibel Island series…
I don’t think I can ever get tired of the Sanibel beach vista. It’s always there, but my relationship with it is one of never taking it for granted. Sometimes the water is gray, sometimes green. Sometimes the sky is crystal blue – sapphire – and the clouds are big, puffy, and white. Sometimes the sky is so gray you can barely see where it touches the water on the horizon. There are always gentle waves, and sand, and shells. Always the green beach vegetation, bushes, palms, trees. When I walk along the beach, feet in the warm water, eyes taking in the whole scene, I am filled with a sense of timelessness. Although I know that even this is not forever.
On this day, I walked far along the beach, leaving all people behind, and I encountered massive pieces of driftwood, some still looking like a tree, with roots hanging out, now in repose on the sand, covered with green seaweed. There were dried-up tree stumps still rooted in the sand and shallow water. What’s their story, I wondered. All the weather they’ve seen, nature unbounded. Hurricanes, blistering sun, wind, rain, ocean waves. And people – families, sailors, fishermen, beach walkers. I wonder if they knew the native people from this area. And sea life – fish, dolphins, stingrays, starfish, seaweed, millions of creatures living in small shells. We all come and we go. These driftwood pieces that were once shady trees have metamorphized. Maybe a piece of wood will grace someone’s front hallway until they move and put it in the landfill.
Dust to dust.
How can one not think of impermanence in the face of all this life that seems both constant and ever-changing? I remember asking a Buddhist nun, Venerable Dhammananda, what is impermanent and what is constant. She said all things that are ‘composed of’ are impermanent. Composed of elements, minerals, molecules – like trees, fish, clouds, shells, the ocean – and us. Anything else ‘not composed of’ is constant. What does that leave?
Love, spirit, consciousness, awareness, Buddhanature, God. This is what endures when everything else passes away. Our impermanent bodies are the vessels of these holy qualities while we are here and alive. When the vessel passes away, where do these qualities go? I think they don’t go anywhere because they are already everywhere; they are constant and present in all things and all people across all time and space. What do you think?
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