Ed Gabrielsen

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Camden, Maine

I have been meaning to record a video teisho on this subject. It has been on my mind to record a video for our Dharma Study group for some time. But time keeps slipping away, and I am not getting to the video. So I will write this instead.

My friend, Richard, sent this message at New Year’s:

He writes, “Transience certainly becomes of the moment as we age. When I was young, transience was a brilliant cosmic idea. It has become a grounded reality which now sends me frequent reminders. Life cycle stuff. Happy New Year! Dec 31, 2025.”

Richard is now in his eighties. He lives in Santa Fe where he retired after a lifetime of teaching and writing.

I remember Lama Sonam had a way of saying this. He would say, “Impermanence is a nice idea, until it happens to YOU.” He had a way of emphasizing that YOU.

It’s so true. We tend to think of impermanence as something that happens to other people. It’s a nice idea. Everything changes. There is nothing to hang onto. Yeah, I get it.

But the actual experience of impermanence is something completely different. It can be so shocking. One morning, we wake up and everything is different. And we wonder what happened.

To really get it. To really have a direct experience of impermanence means to see that it is happening all the time. Each microsecond the phenomenal world is moving and changing. The entire thing is flowing. And to try to write about this is like trying to hold a handful of water.

The Buddha described this with a famous teaching called the three marks of existence. These are the three characteristics of all phenomena. To me, this teaching brings be right back. It brings me into alignment. Because it is simply the truth. And the Buddha summarized it so perfectly. The three characteristics are:

annica, dukkha, annatta

Annica. I have also seen this spelled “anicca.” At this point, I wish I had studied Sanskrit and Pali. But I didn’t. So I don’t really know the reason for the different spellings. It doesn’t matter. Except that I still hold onto some twinges of regret about my lack of education. Anyway, annica, anicca.

Anicca means impermanence. The first characteristic of all phenomena is impermanence.

Dukkha is the second. Dukkha means “unsatisfactory” or dissatisfaction, or some derivitive of this. Not satisfactory. There is nothing ultimately satisfying in phenomena. So things eventually lead to suffering. Nothing is completely satisfying.

And then, third is Anatta. Anatta means “no self.” All phenomena are without an inherent self. This basically means that nothing is fixed and final. There is no “entity.” No solid self. No thing that is able to stand by itself. Anatta is, I think, a little more difficult to grok than the other two. But it is there. In contemplating anicca and dukkha, one can arrive at the experience of anatta. And this can be quite liberating.

All three of these characteristics work together. There are connected. Each one leads to the other two. They are a seamless web.

But there is another side of this. What is that other side?

We find a clue in Bodhidharma’s “Bloodstream Sermon.” I will write more about that later.

But for now, let’s stay on impermanence.

I suppose impermanence comes as such a shock because, at least, for one reason, we tend to think that we will always have one more day. And when the shock happens, there can be a lot of regret. It’s like Joni Mitchell’s song, “The Arrangement.”

“You could have been more, than a name on the door, on the thirty-third floor in the air. More than a credit card, swimming pool in the backyard.”

Regret can be such a source of suffering.

Our age creeps up on us. And suddenly, one day, we wake up and realize: Hey! I am not getting this time back! Oh my God! What happened!

And so, imermanence hits us like a ton of bricks. This wake up call is both horrible and wonderful, because it could potentially lead to a new birth. A completly new birth into a completely new life. If we are open and willing to go through the fire.

Sarwa mangalam.