Nothing Is Permanent

The other night, my wife spent hours giving herself a “permanent.” You’ll soon see why I put the word in quotes. When she was done, she showed me her hair and I told her it looked good. She was very pleased with herself and went to bed. But, as her hair was still a little damp, she decided to blow-dry it a little. When she was done blow-drying, she looked at herself in the mirror and discovered to her horror that her beautiful “permanent” was now a mass of frizzy hair.

The next day, as my younger daughter and I were commiserating with her about her mistake and loss, my daughter said something profound: “Nothing is permanent.” She meant it as a pun, but that’s something Gautama Buddha probably said and that we all need to be reminded of. So, it’s silly to call a hair setting a “permanent,” whether it only lasts for months from regular use or a few minutes due to mistakes like shampooing or blow-drying immediately after. We also call jobs “permanent,” even though most don’t last more than a few years. I’ve been in my job for over nine years, and only a handful of coworkers are still with me. Yet it’s the longest “permanent” position I’ve ever had.

Most couples get married because they crave the security of a “permanent” committed relationship, but the divorce rate is around 60%. I think part of the reason for this high rate is that people don’t accept change in others. They want the relationship to be static instead of ecstatic. The husband wants the wife to stay a housewife even after the children are grown and resists her becoming a businesswoman. Perhaps, it’s the other way around. A husband wants to quit his job and start a home business, but the housewife can’t live with him 24/7. Thus, couples grow apart instead of together because they fear the other changing.

Our fortunes change like the weather. One day, we receive an unexpected windfall and the next day, our house and possessions are destroyed by flood or tornado. Our bodies and minds grow old and deteriorate with injuries and disease. Our brand-new car gets scratched and eventually becomes worn out after a few hundred thousand miles. Even the sun will one day become a supernova and die. Thus, the saying, “As sure as the sun will rise…” isn’t a guarantee of permanence.

So, instead of trying to find stability in an impermanent world, we should embrace change. This is the way of nature. When you take daily walks in nature, you can’t help notice how nature changes from day to day and from season to season. As human beings, we are part of nature and also change. We should no more look upon old age with sadness than we look upon the splendor of autumn. As the poet Shelley said so eloquently, “O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” Thus, the only permanence is the eternal cycle of death and resurrection. We are permanently growing from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood to old age to death to infancy, etc. As 1 Corinthians 13 verse 11 says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." In the same way, when you become an enlightened, divine being, you put away human things, one of which is the illusion of permanence, and embrace your immortal, perpetually youthful Being, which, like a mountain, still stands throughout the endless seasons and winds of change. But unlike a mountain, it never wears down.