When Everything is Temporary
Teaching about Buddhism should be classified as a bad omen. It’s not often, as a teacher, I can talk philosophy, religion; it’s even rarer when the students are into it. And man, they dig it with Buddhism. Whenever I teach Buddhism something happens that creates chaos, that tests every inch of my calm, zen, and detachment, that makes me suffer.
Life is Suffering
This is the first of the Four Noble Truths, and always a fun way to start any class.
“Yes, hello, welcome to class. Life is suffering, take a seat.”
Life is suffering. Why do we suffer? Because we desire, because we create attachments, because we wish to hold to impermanent things. We find a moment that we would call perfect and we will and we strain to keep it in stasis. The moment flees through our fingers; we suffer.
It’s always easy to teach about these ideas, show examples, relate it to our own lives. It’s easy to show that if we were able to keep from creating these kinds of attachments we would not suffer. It is easy to say all of those things.
It’s much harder to live those ideas. Humans create attachment. It’s what we do. It is hard to avoid.
For important purposes here’s a clip from Community:
Like all humans, I am guilty of this. More than I’d like any of my students to know.
When Everything is Temporary
I have moved 13 times since I was 18. There is something inherently temporary about apartments. It is a home for just a year at a time: never really yours, like a way-station, a rest stop from one place to the next. I have spent the last three years in one apartment, it is the longest I’ve lived in one place since high school.
We moved into the apartment January of 2020. Yeah, two months before the lockdown. Shortly after moving in, our dog passed away, and then I left my job. Right, and then the world shut down. Everything felt tumultuous, temporary, fleeting. My wife was still working, a social worker in a retirement home, so I stayed home, alone.
I was intent on making that apartment a home. I wanted permanence.
Our landlords, who had lived below us, left for wider spaces, leaving us an empty chicken coop.
So we got chickens.
For the first time in our apartment renting years, we had a backyard.
So I began to garden.
I can’t say I really knew what I was doing, but I knew if you put enough seeds in enough soil eventually things would grow. I grew a lot of sunflowers.
I learned to refurbish wood furniture, and I remodeled my desk that had been splintering, fading, and falling apart. I’m still very proud of this, and would go on to buy up cheap end tables on Facebook marketplace just to refurbish them.
During this time my wife and I went through two failed pregnancies.
My life had become defined by the impermanent things I grasped onto, by the suffering I endured from wishing.
No matter how much I tried, I could not make that apartment permanent. I could not will anything to happen the way I envisioned.
We have been spending the last few days, and next couple, moving out of this apartment. We decided long ago that we would live in that apartment until we could move into a house. We wanted the American Dream.
We’re not moving into a house, not ours at least, just yet. And like countless others we are now dealing with the horror that is the housing market.
This Housing Market is Causing me Much Suffering
Really that can just be the rest of this whole post.
We entered this house hunt with so much hope, expectation, and desire — all the things any Buddhist would tell us would lead us only to suffering. And it has.
To summarize: There is a massive shortage of houses and a huge supply of people who want to buy the homes. This drives up the prices of the houses. Things have cooled a bit since it peaked in 2021, but now with the rising of interest rates it about evens out. Overall, not a good time to buy a house. Such is life.
This has led to outright bidding wars for houses that just 10 years ago would’ve gone well under asking price. Suffice it to say, we do not compete well.
A Buddhist might look at our predicament and tell us, “What will be will be, everything in its own time.” And I try to say those same things, I try to believe that I’ll be ok with each rejection, however it is hard to go into a house without imagining my entire future inside. I can picture the kids’ rooms, a unique painting in each reflecting the interests and personality of each child, the “study” where I will host my books, my desk, a reading chair, a lamp, artwork on the walls, a large backyard with rows of sunflowers and peach trees, the finished basement that will be the club room, the play room, the theater, where my kids will inevitably someday host clandestine parties while we are away.
Try as I might, I cannot disconnect.
When the rejection comes in, as it has multiple times now, it is crushing. It shouldn’t be, but I have already imagined my death bed — the scene: surrounded by my loving wife (let’s face it, I’ll die long before her), my children, grandchildren, dogs, sitting with me, counting my final breaths, as I reflect on this home I have made. I am content, satisfied with a life well lived.
The Case for Tumult
I learned far too late that the job I was hired for would be temporary. I was informed in February that my job was only a three year position, why three years? So the district wouldn’t have to worry about a pesky thing like tenure.
Have I grown attached to my school, to my students, my colleagues? Yes. Has this caused me suffering? Yes.
It’s hard to not feel in turmoil after news like this. A line kept repeating in my head over and over: I was never meant to be permanent. I was never meant to be permanent.
Now, on top of house hunting, I am also looking for a new job, but this has given me a new opportunity, expanding my career search. My dream was always to work in writing, in some capacity, but particularly publishing. This tumult has given me the excuse and opportunity to switch careers to follow my passion for writing. This is an opportunity I would not have if my current job wasn’t temporary, such as it is.
I had a therapist a few years ago, while dealing with the pain of our failed pregnancies, who would tell me of a different way to frame depression. He said when we are depressed it is our bodies way of telling us we need a “deep rest”. Cheesy play on words aside, what he meant by this is sometimes when we get trapped in our own heads, and feel our bodies shutting down it is a sign that we need to give ourselves a break, maybe reevaluate what we are currently doing, and make adjustments. I look at the impending ending of my apparently temporary job, and I know my mind, my body needs a deep rest, needs a change.
Why I Love Sunflowers
It is hard to accept the passing of the things we grow attached to. The most accessible way of explaining this to my students is to talk about our dogs. We love our dogs. Our dogs are a part of our family, but they will live but a fraction of our own lives. And when they die, we are crushed. So how would a Buddhist advise against this type of attachment?
They might say, “Love the dog, but know it is temporary, do not dwell on brief moments, but enjoy each moment as it comes. Be mindful.”
Mindfulness is a big part of Buddhism. It is not to keep yourself from love, or joy, but to enjoy each thing as it comes, but accepting the impermanence and allow it to return to the world. Being mindful with the ones we love, being present and allowing ourselves to cherish each moment as it comes, this would free us from the suffering of attachment. It’s easier said than done.
Sunflowers are like this. They are brief, but there is a period of their lives where they are magnificent, their petals a vibrant yellow, or red, bees gyrating along the center, the giant stalks flowing in the breeze. During this time I would often try to be in my yard just to be around them. We had a hammock and I would lay in it, reading, listening to the wind chimes, watching the bees dance from flower to flower. Sometimes I’d open the coop and the chickens would prance around the yard, squawking, digging through the dirt, eating grass, seeds fallen from the flowers, sometimes they’d peck at my bare feet. I could accept the impermanence of these flowers. I understood the seasons.
It is hard to compartmentalize the suffering of attachment, of dashed expectations, polluted dreams. It is hard to let go, and I don’t have a solution for any of this. But sometimes the sunflowers bloom, and all you can do is sit by and read a good book.