The Eight Vicissitudes (inevitably changeable conditions aka Worldly winds )

 

The Eight Vicissitudes (inevitably changeable conditions aka Worldly winds )

The Centered Path, Part 7 of the Buddhist Basics. (Lokavipatti sutta)

Thus I heard.

Things change, my friend.  This is a very important thing to not only understand but be constantly conscious of.  This is a lesson toward equanimity.  If you take any of these aspects discussed and meditate on them like this:  “This arises, it is not constant, stressful and subject to changing”  you can begin to understand impermanence and not getting too attached to situations. .   

When something happens, good or bad (totally an interpretation at the time we are experiencing it) we should still try and see it as our contemplation… “this arises…”  We should really experience each sensation and learn from them.  That is not just Buddhist, but human.  When you meditate, your mind does not remain consumed with the aspect, you will not welcome or rebel against what happens as it is temporary and you now understand this.  Of course, you are happy when happy things happen, and sad when sad things happen but your understanding of “this has arisen, this is inconstant, stressful and subject to change” will help you to begin to feel what you feel NOW, not in some unpredictable future or from the memory muddied past, but as it is now.  

For each of these we can easily think of a multitude of examples, from physical, financial, nutritional, emotional, social, and more.  They can help us realize our attachments and aversions and how that can cause us even more suffering. 

Pleasure and Pain

Gain and Loss

Praise and Blame

Fame and Disrepute

These eight can occur at any time, knowing this, the wise person being mindful contemplates and ponders these as changing.  Work hard to not only understand them for yourself, but don’t participate in promoting them in others either.  

The Buddhist teachings advise…

Wander alone like the rhinoceros, who is tough and powerful and hard to change direction,

Be like the lion who does not shudder at the sounds of others

Be like a caravan and move on quietly even though the dogs bark.

Know that the world is muddy and gruesome, many are the lotus flowers that bloom from that and are never dirtied.  

“Desirable things do not charm me, undesirable things I don't resist.  They happen…

My thoughts of welcome and rebellion scatter, gone to the end and do not exist.  Knowing this pure and sorrowless state of being, I am able to think wisely, both sorrow and pride are gone, beyond coming to the further shore...left behind”