. . . i m p e r m a n a n c e .

Adrian Wagner  

 

Ever since man gained the mental capacity to recognize, and subsequently contemplate his own existence, he has struggled to place this existence within a larger context then the very impermanent span of time that exists between birth and death.  It is mans' recognition of self and thus his fear of an end to self, that drives this struggle.  Our evolutionary artifacts push us to reproduce, but our mental capacity searches to give more meaning to our otherwise ordinary lives.  It is this search that forms the spiritual medium of our existence.

Cultures spanning time and the globe all share an element among them, an element that defines a spiritual medium within the context of which the culture must exist.  Most often, this medium is personified by one or more Gods, the alpha of alpha's, whose origin need not be questioned.  If God needs no origin, then God is above and beyond impermanence, mortality, and change.  The concept of God thus creates the basis relative to which all things impermanent can be defined, and thus given meaning.

The very concept of meaning implies permanence...   If one day I tell you that the meaning of the word 'hatred' is: "an emotion characterized by anger, resentment, or disgust," and the next day tell you that the meaning of the word has changed to be "pot belly pig," you will likely discredit one or both meanings on the basis that meaning, in order to be true, must be unchanging, and therefore permanent.  To give life meaning, we must also search to place it in the context of something permanent.  We gain immortality, and thus meaning, through the medium of spiritual permanence.  It is this concept of permanence that is the foundation of religions across the globe.

Christianity presents the eternal spheres of heaven and hell.  It defines a God, and it is in His realm that Heaven, a place of permanent bliss exists.  The meaning of life is thus to earn entrance into Heaven by doing good deeds, as defined within the religion.  A consequence is therefore placed upon the actions and choices made during life on earth, an impermanent state, which have an effect on the permanent state of the afterlife.  It is through this consequence that life gains its meaning.

Similarly, the Muslim faith is based on a God, whose omnipotent power and knowledge of all things past and future becomes the basis of one's destiny, come the day of judgement.  "... those who believe and do good deeds, We will admit them to gardens (Paradise) in which rivers flow, lasting in them forever... [i] "  The impermanence of human life thus gains meaning through a spiritual entrance into a permanent world.

The Shona and Ndebele of Southern Africa believe in the existence of spirits.  According to one Zimbabwean priest, "after you die, your spirit will live forever.  There is a world for the spirits, and a world for the flesh. [ii] "  The Shona believe that spirits can return to the earth by channeling through a spirit medium, a human who can gain contact with the spirit world.  Thus, spiritual permanence takes form not only through an existence within another world, but also in the form of influence in the present world.  The Shona and Ndebele have thus connected the two spheres of life and the eternal.

The human drive to define a world, entity, or being that is based in the permanent, stems from the recognition of the impermanence of the physical world.  In time, our bodies will return to the earth; in time, the earth will return to the sun.  The sun itself may one day become a part of another now distant star.  Our telescopes have witnessed entire galaxies colliding, merging, and changing shape.  We have recorded the remnants of the cosmic soup out of which we were born, at a time when there was not yet even matter.

Our world is subject to impermanence.  Our very universe arose out of the inherent instability of a perfect vacuum.  According to scientific theory, Everything exists because the absence of anything is in itself, not stable.

Science recognizes the impermanence of the physical world.  The universe follows its physical progression over time, flowing through the medium of change in such a way that no one thing remains constant.  Objects evolve, combine, deteriorate, and effect one another.  While it is true that at any given time they may be defined and thus distinguished from one another, ultimately these differentiations blur until the definitions loose truth.  The Milky Way, the galactic home to our solar system and thus our planet, may one day loose its very form and combine with another galactic system.  At that moment in time, billions of years from now, the earth will no longer be a part of the Milky Way.  Will it still be the Milky Way, or will it take on the name of the system with which it merged.  Or will such a name and the meaning that it once carried with it, loose all relevance, if the context out of which it was once defined is lost.

It seems that a galaxy by any other name however, is still a galaxy.  The word representing the properties of a 'galaxy' must somehow be defined relative to concepts both permanent and universal.  It is only then that such a definition can gain meaning.

From the scientific perspective, the word galaxy is defined to be a collection of matter that is bound to itself as according to universal gravitational law.  Galaxies also are defined by their size.  Size, however is a relative term, though it can be made concrete by using such a universal constant as the speed of light.  A light year is defined as the distance that light travels in one year.  To define a galaxy as being of a certain number of light years is no good, as a year is the amount of time it takes the earth to revolve once around the sun.  This is clearly not universal.  However, a second can be defined as the time it takes the electromagnetic field of a cesium atom to oscillate 6.323264e17 times.  This surely seems to be a more universal constant.  Thus, a light year can be universally defined as the distance light travels in the time it takes the electromagnetic field of a cesium atom to oscillate 4.34245e22 times.  A galaxy can thus be defined as a grouping of matter held by its own gravitational interaction that is between 100 billion and 900 billion light years across.

Science gains meaning through the search to discover laws and constants that are universal, and therefore permanent.  Its very methodology is based on the premise that if any given scientific law does not explain the cause-effect relationship of every situation to which it pertains, it is not law. 

Like Christian, Muslim, and Shona religions, science is based on the idea of permanence.  It is a search to find the most fundamental and unyielding laws of the universe.  If these laws pertain to all that we know to exist, and hold true through all imaginable passage of time, then they become virtually infinite.  They are thus beyond the impermanent.  Science, however, is not God.  From the scientific view, it is the mysteries of the universe that are God.  Science is the book of God that man has written.

It is this very property of science that places it in conflict with other religions.  Christianity, like science, seeks to explain the origins of life on earth, the creation of the universe, and the laws that govern it.  It does so through the medium of myth.  Science seeks to answer the same questions as the myths do, yet it does so through reason and observation. 

If science is the discovery and understanding of permanence, the personal quest to uncover such permanence can give life meaning.  Yet, it would therefore seem as though only those who were 'scientists' could be species of meaning.

Science has penetrated the lives of all members of our planet in profound ways.  We have begun to live our very lives through a scientific and technological interface, such that science has become, in itself, our reality.  We question this reality little, as the very nature of science guarantees that it is based in truth.  As a result, scientists have gained almost mythic stature, similar to that of priests within a church.  They speak the law, and thus the truth.  Their words of reasoning are not those of their own free will, but of a divine scientific truth. 

Science is similar to the religions mentioned above, but its has the fundamental difference that it does not place life itself in a permanent context.  It does little to quench our fears of death.  It is the search for permanent laws, yet it is also the recognition of impermanence.  Does this keep it from being a religion?

The Buddhist religion is founded upon the recognition of impermanence.  The Buddhist sees 'reality' as being an illusion composed by the mind, an illusion that does not agree with the physical world.  At the core of this illusion is the concept of self.  Because we define self, and thus try to define objects relative to self, we base our understanding of the world on a physical reality which is not permanent.  We gain emotional attachment to things which are not permanent.  We gain attachment to our selves.  If the very nature of time, change, and thus reality is impermanence, it is this dependence upon things impermanent that leads to suffering. Modern biologists point out that 98 per cent of the 10e28 atoms of a typical human body are replaced annually from the atoms of the surroundings—the earth, the trees, the animals, in fact all living and non-living entities.  It thus becomes evident that one cannot talk of individual entities localized in space and time, just as one can not speak of self.  Therefor the mental construct of self, which seems to imply a physical permanence, leads to suffering, as this permanence is not withheld in physical reality.

A human beings, we place emotional attachment on things impermanent and thus we risk loss.  The Buddhist religion thus seeks to see beyond this endless cycle of coming into being, and then loss, and replace it with the recognition of the underlying realities that exists.

This understructure of the universe is the Buddhist Dharma.  Dharma literally mean the natural law.  Thus, like science, Buddhism seeks to explain the underlying structure that form our reality.  The Dharma leads to recognition of things impermanent, and thus to one ability to escape from this impermanence.  It carves a universal path which to follow, just as science seeks to uncover the universal laws that create the paths to which all things follow.