Impermanence and Impatience

[lovingpenfull]

I first want to commend LRod and D. for founding this site. It seems well organized and is sure to be more open and free than was Litkicks. I am just now getting around to visiting, and I hope to contribute on a regular basis at some point. I'll next include a note pursuant to my situation and location, and then get on with a bit of what I want to say here. I am currently in Cambodia, having come from Thailand on a visa run where I've been teaching English for a few months now; I'll stay a month or so before going back to Thailand to resume teaching.


It seems to be the norm in South East Asia to strike before the iron is hot. For instance, the people here are keen to cut off the flower at the end of a remus of bananas before the stock has time to develop, sacrificing bundles of nourishing fruit for a bitter, sticky bit of vegetable matter that is hardly edible. They take papaya while it is still green from the tree, which they use in a crunchy, spicey salad; tasteless otherwise if it weren't for the flavorings added. Cucumbers in place of papaya would work just as well. Why do they choose to deny themselves the hearty fruit? Again, settling for less in exchange for an immediate return, they cut the corn off the stock when it is a baby, reducing a vegetale that usually takes minutes to eat to a single mouthful. Roads, buildings, automobiles are constructed poorly today despite their use into tomorrow for the little bit of money that can be saved now. The little extra required to do something right is foregone in the interest of the immediate, substandard gain. Why?

We in the West are familiar with the Buddhist precepts: everything is impermanent, one should not cling to the ever-changing, nothing is authentic, etc. This attitude of impermanence is surely in part rooted in the religious scheme adopted so many centruies ago from the Indian subcontinent, but it also is probably so relevant today due to the temaltuous recent history of the region. An insecurity about life makes it indeed a bit comfortable to simply blame the nature of the universe for the chaotic state of one's life and country.

It is interesting that some societies live only for the future, like the Chinese. Some build their morals and values around what was, they may try to recreate a golden age gone, like some Islamic societies. Others still have mind enough only for the present, with little or no thought of the future, such as the people of South East Asia. Don't disturb the present peace, and all is well. Even though the train is bearing down upon your train track picnic, don't bother the basket. The most popular songs, weither in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma or Vietnam, are about lost love. About the decay of once glorious circumstance, evidence to the fact that nothing lasts.

Before I came to South East Asia I was, like many, simpathetic with the teachings of Siddhartha. They made up a doctrine to which all others in my mind where compaired. It was an interesting and deep alternative to the Western philosophies I'd encountered up to the point of discovering Buddhism. But upon arriving here and experiencing first hand how such ancient Nhilism shapes a society, I have taken a more critical view of it. Surely it is valuable and valid, but it has lost an immunity in my mind since I've begun to experience it in practice.

This isn't at all very new. We all know about these ideas of trancience and how they provide a spirtualism of freedom but cripple any possibilties of advance or ambition in the real world. How they in a way can liberate one to behave in vile manner. This is known. What I want to explore further is how to filter this world view and how to apply the tastey bits back into our philosophy diet. What do you think? When is it inappropriate in life to be appathetic and Buddhist, and when is appropriate or disireable? One thing is becoming clear to me, the pure live-for-the-moment approach is not always the best, unless concurrently in the throws of Enlightenment.