[Buddha-l] Impermanence

[Jayarava]

-- On Mon, 27/10/08, Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:

> As far as I know, the buddha-l archives are the only known
> exception to the rule that everything is impermanent. 

Actually I no longer think that everything is impermanent and perhaps this is just the example to make the case. The problem here is with the "things" in everything. Just what are these things? As I've been harping on lately I think when we use "things" we really mean "saṅkhārā" or "dhammā" - and by calling these "things" we have strayed into an ontological minefield. They have no definite ontological status, they are not "things" - which is why, I believe, Nagarjuna could confidently say that existence and non-existence are terms that do not apply. I must actually read Nagarjuna at some point to see if he actually says this, but I always think it sounds like something he'd say.

The general consensus on there being an archive is quite suggestive of an independently existing archive, but there is no way to confirm this without resorting to the senses, and mentally processing the results - all we do is generate yet more sense experience and mental events. We never quite get to the thing itself, so even if there is a thing, we'd never know for sure.

Experiences (as in cognised objects of the senses and mind, mental-events perhaps) are what is impermanent, and I think this is what the Buddha was trying to say.

In this case the archive is regrettably (for me) permanent (allowing for hard disk crashes, and backup failures, and Armageddon I suppose) but our relationship to it, our experience of it, changes from moment to moment - or perhaps we should say that it will change as probably we don't think of it at all most of the time.

> I have no idea how to delete something from the archives. 

OK, So let's just drop the subject and move on. And I'll undertake to refrain from insulting apostrophes.

Love
Jayarava