#impermanence — Public Fediverse posts

John Brehm, 1955-2026

The poet John Brehm passed away on Monday, in Portland, Oregon.

John and I were friends, close friends when he lived just down the block from me, on Berkeley Place, here in Brooklyn. We’d listen to Brad Mehldau and McCoy Tyner at his place, eat lentil soup at a now-defunct Middle Eastern joint on 6th Avenue, and tomcat around town.

His poems from that period are the ones I know best, many of which are collected in his 2004 book, Sea of Faith: “When My Car Broke Down,” “If Feeling Isn’t In It,” and the title poem, “Sea of Faith.” Reading its last lines again reminds me of the John I knew:

                                                                                  ...I wished 
it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith
that you could wade out into,
dive under its blue and magic waters,
hold your breath, swim like a fish
down to the bottom, and then emerge again
able to believe in everything, faithful
and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions,
happy to have them simply answered.

In “The Poems I Have Not Written,” John calls himself “wildly unprolific,” but that is just so much Brehmian self-deprecation. Poetic accomplishment isn’t measured by the bushel anyway. In John’s case, the art is in the intense focus and scrutiny he brings to particular details of a single moment in time (like the twelve raindrops hanging from the window sash in “Morning, East Wallingford”); it’s in the mix of precise observation and dreamy wonder, or the ease with which his verses follow the path of his wandering mind, or the surprise he shares with readers at finding humor even in the darkest moments.

Just This, his latest book, brings together about twenty-five years of John Brehm’s writing, and it’s a pretty good place to get to know his work. The book opens with new poems, including a whole section of haiku. I vaguely remember telling John, indelicately and as if what I had to say on the subject mattered, that haiku didn’t do much for me. He had probably forgotten, or long ago forgiven, my arrogant and oafish remarks when I wrote to him just a few weeks ago about this poem, which now rings, as it were, especially true for me:

just before dawn
my tinnitus takes over
where the crickets leave off

He plays all kinds of variations on the form.

           looking up
from looking something up -- 
                   the whole world still there.

Many of Brehm’s poems are about that interplay of self and world, the real and unrealized possibilities of a passing moment, the fleeting glimpse of some longed-for ecstasy or metamorphosis, a poet becoming fish, or becoming water, as in “Supplication at the River.”

And then I would turn away
and into something other,
as if the way the water moves,
confluence of sources, metaphor 
for everything, but essential and itself,
would be my way of moving.

This is the poetic situation, or at least the situation that shows up again and again in John Brehm’s poetry. Emotions may feel sticky, but everything’s ceaselessly in motion. The mind grasps at flickering images of what is and what could be, puts words to them, gives them form and definition; yet what’s done will easily come undone. The poems are record of the passing moment and some consolation for its passing. And things begin just at the moment when they seem to end.

dandelion seeds waiting

a dandelion seed head suggests the idea of impermanence.

#photography #photo #naturephotography #nature #autumn #fall #flowers #dendelion #dandelion #bnw #blackandwhite #monochrome #mood #zen #impermanence #noself #thichnhathanh #seeds #delicate #texture #fragility #design #cycles

Due to its impermanence, there is nothing in this world truly worth doing, except working to escape.

(According to Buddhism, neither salvation by a deity nor physical death/suicide is an escape from rebirth. Meditation is the only escape.)

#buddhism #impermanence #value #worth #meaning #purpose #substance #essence #salvation #liberation #deity #god #death #rebirth #reincarnation #meditation

The whole 'room' of awareness is an impermanent mental fabrication -- both your perceived self and your perceived environment. Like a dream, it's a packaged self-world which either all appears together or all disappears together.

#buddhism #mind #awareness #consciousness #impermanence #fabrication #construction #hallucination #perception #duality #dream #dreaming

After developing the ability to watch thoughts and feelings from a mental distance, an even greater freedom is to detach from the subjective feeling of a watcher (which is also impermanent). The result is ungrounded experience, where there is knowing but no knower.

#buddhism #earlybuddhism #detachment #thoughts #feelings #freedom #mind #mental #subjectivity #duality #dualism #impermanence #awareness #meditation

Bouddhisme et physique quantique

Depuis les débuts de la mécanique quantique, physiciens et penseurs bouddhistes ont remarqué des résonances frappantes entre les deux disciplines. Niels Bohr avait fait peindre le symbole du yin-yang sur ses armoiries, Erwin Schrödinger s’était plongé dans les Upanishads, le Dalaï-Lama, lui-même dialogue depuis des décennies avec des physiciens dans le cadre de l’institut Mind and Life. Ces convergences méritent d’être examinées avec rigueur, sans tomber dans l’amalgame facile.

Le bouddhisme place au centre de sa doctrine l’impermanence, rien n’existe de façon fixe et stable, tout est flux, devenir, changement constant. La physique quantique décrit un monde similaire au niveau subatomique. Une particule n’a pas de position ou de vitesse définies avant mesure, elle existe sous forme de probabilités, une fonction d’onde qui ne se fixe qu’au moment de l’observation. Cette absence d’état stable et prédéterminé fait écho à l’idée bouddhiste selon laquelle chercher une essence fixe dans les phénomènes est une illusion.

Le concept bouddhiste de production conditionnée illustre qu’aucun phénomène n’existe indépendamment des autres, tout surgit en relation, par un réseau de causes et de conditions. La physique quantique offre une analogie frappant avec l’intrication. Deux particules intriquées restent corrélées, quelle que soit la distance qui les sépare, de sorte que la mesure de l’une affecte instantanément l’état de l’autre. Certains y voient une illustration physique de l’idée qu’aucune entité n’est véritablement séparée du reste de l’univers.

Le terme sanskrit śūnyatā, souvent traduit par « vacuité », ne désigne pas le néant, mais l’absence d’existence propre et indépendante des phénomènes. Les choses n’ont de réalité que relationnelle. En physique quantique, le vide n’est pas non plus un néant absolu. Le vide quantique bouillonne de particules virtuelles qui apparaissent et disparaissent constamment, et le champ quantique reste la structure fondamentale d’où émerge toute matière. Les deux notions rejettent l’idée d’un fond stable et substantiel sous les apparences, sans pour autant être identiques.

Le principe de complémentarité de Bohr, selon lequel une même entité peut se comporter comme onde ou comme particule sans que ces descriptions soient contradictoires, mais complémentaires, rappelle la logique du tétralemme bouddhiste et la philosophie madhyamaka de Nagarjuna, qui refuse les catégories binaires du « est » et du « n’est pas ». Les deux traditions invitent à dépasser une logique strictement binaire pour appréhender une réalité plus fluide et contextuelle, de façon non duelle.

Ces résonances sont intellectuellement stimulantes, mais il importe de distinguer deux niveaux de discours. Le bouddhisme est une tradition philosophique et contemplative, fondée sur l’expérience méditative directe et une visée de cessation de la souffrance. La physique quantique est une théorie mathématique prédictive, validée par l’expérimentation. Les résonances relèvent souvent de l’analogie conceptuelle plutôt que d’une équivalence de fond, et le risque d’instrumentaliser l’un pour légitimer l’autre est réel, dans les deux sens.

Cela dit, la rencontre reste stimulante pour qui cherche à explorer des voies de passage. Elle a nourri des travaux comme ceux du physicien Anton Zeilinger ou du philosophe des sciences B. Alan Wallace, et elle continue d’alimenter une réflexion sur les limites de nos catégories habituelles, substance, séparation, permanence, que ces deux traditions, chacune à sa manière, remettent en question.

Une chanson de Claude Dubois – Au Bout Des Doigts

Les paroles sur https://lyriz.progysm.com/chanson.php?idlien=6519

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ovpy6o0W-Q

Par Daniel Jean dans Voies (x) de passage

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7/
Mono no Aware (物の哀れ): The gentle sadness, deep appreciation, and bittersweet beauty felt when witnessing something destined to fade—like cherry blossoms falling or a long-held chapter coming to a close.

Wabi-Sabi (侘寂): Finding beauty in imperfection, the passage of time, and the weathered patina of age.

#Buddhism
#Japanese
#impermanence
#物の哀れ
#侘寂

6/
無常

In Japanese culture and Buddhist philosophy, Mujō translates to "impermanence," "transience," or "mutability". It is the fundamental truth that nothing in the universe stays unchanged forever. Everything flows, everything shifts, and everything eventually transitions into something else.

While the concept can feel heavy at first glance, it is actually the foundational root of some of the most comforting Japanese aesthetics:

#Buddhism
#Japanese
#impermanence

Builder

For Nelson (May 16, 1944-July 13, 2005)

If I would have my life to live over again,
I would find an old stone wall in disrepair
and I would spend my days seeking the tumbled
down stones hidden in the grass.

By day I would rebuild the wall. At night I
would lie in its lee. I would not be afraid
of the snakes and rodents disturbed from
their dark places in the cracks between the
stones where they sleep.

And when my life came to an end and the wall
was as yet unfinished, I would not moan. I
would lay myself down against the rocks and
let my body fade away into a place of rest in
the cracks between the stones.

March 11, 2005

(Reposted on the anniversary of my dear friend’s passing)

“Ab Tak To Jo Bhi Dost Mile, Bewafa Mile”: Why Wafa Is So Rare Among Us

Claude, comment on the line “ab tak to jo bhi dost mile, bewafa mile” from the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4nSYHL-cQ in the movie Nikaah, the full lyrics here – https://gaana.com/lyrics/dil-ki-yeh-arzoo-thi-6 (I am not saying anyone has been bewafa towards me, and it is more likely that one or two people might actually accuse me of being bewafa towards them or towards life in general, but bewafa people are more common than one would want, so what does that say about us human beings and why we are NOT wafadaar or what prevents us from being wafadaar):

Claude:

What a line to sit with. On its face it’s pure ghazal convention — the aashiq’s résumé of wounds presented to the new beloved — but Hasan Kamal does something subtle in it. Notice that the moment the dilruba arrives, the entire past gets retroactively rewritten: ab tak to jo bhi dost mile, bewafa mile. This is psychologically very sharp. New love doesn’t just illuminate the present; it recolors history. Friends who were perhaps only ordinarily limited, ordinarily busy, ordinarily human, are now reclassified as bewafa because the singer has finally tasted (or anticipates) something that makes everything prior look like counterfeit currency. So part of the answer to your question is hiding in the line itself: bewafai is often a verdict rendered by disappointed expectation rather than a description of betrayal. The accuser’s hopes, not the accused’s promises, are frequently the real contract — and it was a contract only one party signed.

But your deeper question stands: granting that genuine faithlessness is common, why? I’d offer three layers.

The first is almost mechanical: wafa is a promise made by one configuration of desire that attempts to bind all future configurations. But we are not continuous; we are, as you’d put it, a flux of nāma-rūpa wearing a proper name. The man who swore friendship at thirty is only nominally the man at fifty whose circumstances, needs, and attention have all migrated elsewhere. Bewafai is less often malice than impermanence — anitya operating through personality. We promise as if we were permanent, and then anicca collects its tax. The bewafa person rarely experiences himself as betraying anything; he experiences himself as having changed, which feels innocent from the inside and treacherous from the outside.

The second layer is that most human bonds are quietly transactional — need-shaped — and wafa is only tested when it begins to cost something. La Rochefoucauld’s acid observation that gratitude is mostly a lively expectation of future favors applies to friendship too. When the need dissolves, or the cost appears, the bond thins, and we discover that what we called dosti was proximity plus utility plus pleasant feeling. Real wafa requires loving the person rather than the gratification the person supplies — and that’s rare because it requires a degree of self-forgetting most of us can’t sustain. Ghalib, characteristically, put fidelity above even correct religion: wafādārī ba-shart-e-ustuvārī asl-e-īmāñ hai — steadfast faithfulness is the very essence of faith, bury the brahmin in the Kaaba if he died true to his idol-house. He understood that wafa is not about the object; it’s about the integrity of the one who keeps it. Which is exactly why it’s scarce: it’s a discipline of self, not a warmth of feeling.

The third layer touches what you said about yourself — that one or two people might accuse you of bewafai, toward them or toward life. This is the renunciant’s ancient predicament. Fidelity is always fidelity to something, and when a person’s deepest wafa is to truth, or to the Self, it will periodically look like bewafai to persons and to worldly life. Ramana walking out of Madurai at sixteen was, in his mother’s ledger, a spectacular act of bewafai. The world calls it desertion; the tradition calls it vairāgya. The two accounts are not reconcilable at their own level — only at the level where one sees that being wafadaar to the ephemeral at the expense of the real is the deeper betrayal. Though I’d add, honestly, that this framing can also become a convenient shelter, and the accused should occasionally audit whether his fidelity to truth was ever used as an alibi for ordinary avoidance. You’ve invited that kind of scrutiny before, so I’ll leave the question with you rather than answer it for you.

As for the song’s own emotional logic — the fear in lagta hai darr fareb-e-bewafa se kabhi kabhi is the truest moment in it. Having been burnt, the singer doesn’t stop desiring; he desires while flinching. That’s most of humanity’s condition: not bewafa by nature, but so afraid of receiving bewafai that we withhold the very steadfastness we demand, each waiting for the other to be wafadaar first. The scarcity is partly a coordination failure of frightened hearts.