3 metaphors from nature for working with impermanence

The importance of impermanenceThings are always becoming otherwise. When we don’t realize this, or forget it, we find trouble. We imagine and hang onto a durability that is nowhere to be found. Start with the Uppadasutta ‘Arising’ [AN 3.136] Buddhist sutta: This aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: all conditional things are impermanent.This is the first of three marks of existence. The other two: things are unsatisfying; nothing has a fixed self. ‘Marks’ here are like landmarks. If you stand in a clearing and see a few landmarks, you might know where you are. These three marks, or landmarks, form the view that is itself the basis for much of the teachings. Impermanence underlies it all. What’s hard for people is hard for organizationsImpermanence is tough for people to make friends with. It’s even harder for the organizations we create. I’m not sure why this is. But it’s something I see again and again, in the ethos of bigger-is-better, in the…