Understanding the Nature of Change and Attachment

The world— physically, mentally, and emotionally— is in a constant state of change, nothing is fixed, and nothing is permanent. This idea of impermanence is one that Buddhists look at and asks: what is our relationship to change? What is and where is our clinging and attachment? And how does impermanence and clinging lead to suffering? In my understanding, one task of a Buddhist is to understand this world of impermanence and identify what we as humans cling, hold, and resist the changing nature of life in order to reach a state of insight about suffering. Buddhist use different practices of meditation to reach this state of understanding the true nature of things (buddhanet.net).     

    
As human beings, we are all witnesses to the changing nature of things whether we choose to recognize it or not; our thoughts are constantly changing, the days are constantly changing, the present moment is in an unstoppable cycle of change. However, many human beings, unaware of this inevitable impermanence, use this idea of change as a way of looking at the past or the future, which is simply a projection of something that has passed or the unknown that lies ahead. It seems that almost subconsciously many humans look past the present moment without realizing they are in that moment— their mind is projecting the wishes of the future or the perceptions of the past rather than the moment of right now, the moment of true knowing. In many cases, when we are pleasant or happy in life, we do not want to see anything change. Here, in this pleasure, we refuse change, but on the contrary, when thing are terrible and life seems at its worst, we rely on the fact that this too will change and that this unpleasantness will soon pass like every other unpleasant feeling.