Impermanence and Acceptance

I owned a beautiful (at least to me) ceramic cup. It had been given to me as a gift by one of my parents' friends when I was thirteen years old. For thirty-six years I treated the cup as special. I never washed it in the dishwasher. It never saw the inside of a microwave. And it was only used occasionally. I never grew tired of the cup because it fit my hand perfectly and it also had been made specifically for me - and if you think about it, there aren't too many things that a person owns that are actually created with that specific individual in mind.

So, yesterday when I picked up the cup and the handle broke into three pieces, I felt a real sense of loss. But I only felt it for a few minutes. As I stood in my kitchen thinking about the loss of this very personal item, I also thought about impermanence. Nothing will last for ever. From the greatest masterpieces and monuments on earth, to our planet itself. All will be gone at some point in the future. The trick is to appreciate what we have while we have it, but not to be overcome with emotion that arises from loss. Because ultimately, everything will be lost.

I thought about the monks who would come to the Spencer Museum at KU every couple of years. In the central hall they would create a beautiful and unique mandala over the course of weeks - sitting and carefully placing each grain of colored sand in a specific spot. And, once the piece was created, it would be uncreated - taken apart. Beauty is fleeting. The mandalas were perfect examples of the monks' vision and acceptance of impermanence.

So, from the destruction of my favorite cup, I was able to relearn a valuable lesson. The only real certainty is that change will happen. As we move through our lives, some things will grow while others diminish, some will be created and others destroyed, some will be born and some will die. The only thing that is a permanent feature in our lives is impermanence. And that realization may be the best aspect of being given the cup that was specifically made for me thirty-six years ago.