Last night, while reading Getting to Sam?dhi via Formal Mediation Sessions, specifically the following line and a few prior leading up to it:
“In fact, most of the things that we do in a given day are done to just maintain our bodies, our houses, our environment in a presentable condition. Yet, we do not see the suffering associated with all those activities. That is another way to comprehend anicca nature.”
I don’t think I’ve come closer to getting anicca than this. It was a very “oooOOOoooh..!” moment, because exactly this has been a strong point of contention for me for a very long time: all these ‘stupid little things’ I have to keep doing and doing over and over just to maintain life! This contention becomes painfully pronounced during deep depression periods, when I lose the will to wash dishes or brush my teeth on a regular basis; I must have disappointed the dentist today! :( Anyway, when I’ve complained about these basics of survival as a 1st-world human, I tend to get blank stares like they want to slap me for being a whiner; this was just another of another batch of ‘stupid little things’ that tend to make me feel like “the only one in the whole wide world” who notices these things, noting the silliness of going through all the trouble just for the sake of pointlessly heading ’round and ’round with no end and no beginning and in my darkest moments…
And then I read that post and– well well well, I’m NOT the only one! Still quite depressing to consider, though: still feels like there was no beginning and there won’t be and end to any of it, but one day I hope to convince my ignorant brain that it’s wrong and Buddha’s right. Step one is more meditation, but even before that step zero is to keep calm, then go from zero to one. Or perhaps they’re the same? Goes to show how little I know (except academically/intellectually) after all this time. But at least now I have an intensely personal means to try my best at contemplating anicca, like I was trying while waiting at both the dentist’s office and the lobby at the barber. For example, watching the lawn mower going back and forth, back and forth, across the land around the church across the street, thinking about how the fruitlessness of doing so since the grass will grow back anyway (among many related ideas like the lawnmower breaking apart, the suffering of the guy on the lawn mower sweating under a hot sun and his ears being assaulted by the horrid noise of the lawn mower…) and how that, I think, is anicca. I don’t know it, but I think that’s it. One aspect of it, maybe.