Chapter 13 Chapter 1 Artificiality and Impermanence-7

When Siddhartha speaks of "everything that fits together," he doesn't mean just concrete, cognizable phenomena like DVDs, your dog, the Eiffel Tower, eggs and sperm.Heart, time, memory and God are also combined.And the composition of each combination depends on more combinations of different levels.Likewise, when Siddhartha taught impermanence, he also went beyond the usual idea of ​​"ending," like the notion that death happens only once and it's over.Death has never stopped from the moment of birth, from the moment of creation.Every change is a form of death, so every birth involves the death of something else.

Take boiled eggs as an example.If there is no constant change, the egg will not be hard-boiled; this result of a well-boiled egg requires some basic causes and conditions.Obviously, you need an egg, a pot of water, and some heating element.There are also some non-essential causes and conditions, such as the kitchen, the lights, the timer, and the hand that puts the eggs in the pot.Another important condition is that there are no disturbances such as electrical outages or goats running in and knocking over the pot.Furthermore, every condition, such as a hen, requires another set of conditions to be fulfilled.It takes another hen to lay an egg for it to hatch, and somewhere safe and food for it to grow.Difficult food must also have a suitable place to grow, and it must be able to eat it.We can analyze non-essential and necessary conditions down to the level of atoms, and in the process of this analysis, various forms, shapes, functions and labels will continue to increase.

When countless causes and conditions are combined together, and there are no obstacles and interferences, the result is inevitable.Many people make the mistake of thinking it's predestined or luck, but in fact we have the ability to influence conditions, at least initially.There is a point, however, where even if we beg the egg not to be cooked, it will. Just like an egg, all phenomena are composed of countless components, so it is variable.Almost all of these myriad ingredients are out of our control, so they can disappoint our expectations.The least promising presidential candidate might win the election and lead the country to prosperity and abundance.The candidate you're campaigning for might win and then ruin the country's economy and society, making your life miserable.You may think that the politics of the liberal left is enlightened, but it may be the cause of fascism and skinheads.This unpredictability pervades all substances, feelings, imaginations, traditions, love, trust, distrust, skepticism, and even the relationship between guru and disciple and between man and God.

All these phenomena are impermanent.Take skepticism as an example.There was a Canadian who used to be a typical skeptic.He especially likes to find opportunities to quote Buddhist scriptures, teaching people to analyze what the Buddha said, instead of accepting them all.Only a few years later, he is now a devout student of a well-known psychic.The extreme skeptic would now sit in front of his singing guru, bursting into tears, dedicating himself to something completely inexplicable.Belief, skepticism, and all surrounding circumstances are impermanent. Whether you take pride in your religion, or in your non-religion, faith plays an important role in your life.Even "unbelief" requires faith, a completely blind faith in one's own logic and reason based on capricious emotions.So it should come as no surprise that you no longer believe in the things you used to believe deeply.The "illogical nature" of belief is very evident.In fact, it is the most harmonious and interdependent phenomenon.Faith can simply be induced by the right gaze at the right place at the right time.It is also possible that your beliefs depend only on the harmony of appearances.Let's say you hate women, and you happen to meet someone who promotes hatred of women.You feel strong about that person, you agree with him, and you have confidence in him.Sometimes even something as small as a mutual love of eels can boost your devotion.Or a person, a country, or a society are also components of the so-called sum of belief.

People in many Buddhist countries, such as Bhutan, Korea, Japan, Thailand, etc., blindly follow Buddhist teachings; but on the other hand, because of insufficient information or too many distractions, many Young people start to feel disillusioned with Buddhism, making the phenomenon of belief unsustainable, and eventually they run off to follow their own ideas.