Category: Impermanence
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Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem…
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All is Impermanent? Impermanence and Self-Reference
I have long been fascinated by forms of philosophical refutation that exploit the overt or covert self-reference of a thesis. To warm up, consider 1. All generalizations are false. Since (1) is a generalization, (1) refers to itself. So if (1) is true, then (1) is false. On the other hand, if (1) is…
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Spiritual Complacency
The world's transiency is sufficiently stable to be soothingly seductive. One dies, no doubt, but one is still here and has been for a long time. One exploits the gap between 'one dies' and 'I die.' A feeling of pseudo-security establishes itself. The hard and intransient truth of transiency is kept at arm's length. Hence…
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Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?
An abbreviated version of the following paper was published under the same title in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy, vol. 9, ed. Stephen Voss (Ankara, Turkey), 2006, pp. 29-33. ………………. According to Buddhist ontology, every (samsaric) being is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of self-nature. Anicca, dukkha, anatta: these are the famous…
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Fake Halloween Tombstones and the Brevity of Life
A neighbor's fake halloween tombstone bore the inscription: Ashes to ashesDust to dustLife is shortSo party we must. But why not: Ashes to ashesDust to dustLife is shortSo work out your salvation with diligence!
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Is Everything Always Continuously Changing in Every Respect?
Over lunch today the Buddhist claim that all is impermanent came up for discussion. Let’s see how plausible this claim of impermanence is when interpreted to mean that everything is always continuously changing in every respect. We need to ask four questions. Does everything change? Do the things that change always change? Do the things…
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Closer to the Grave, Further from Birth
With every passing day we are closer to becoming grave meat and worm fodder. Or dust and ashes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, with every passing day, one more day has been taken up into the ersatz eternity of the Past & Unalterable. The medievals spoke of a modality they dubbed…
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Life’s Fugacity
Here the point is very cleverly made: I turned 52 yesterday. The first decade of my life took 20 years. The second decade took 15 years. The third decade took a decade. The fourth decade took five years. The past dozen years took 12 minutes. At this rate, I'll be dead in less than half…
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Fake Halloween Tombstones and the Brevity of Life
One fake Halloween tombstone bore the inscription: Ashes to ashes Dust to dust Life is short So party we must. But why not: Ashes to ashes Dust to dust Life is short So work out your salvation with diligence! These are two diametrically opposed responses to one and the same admitted fact, the brevity of…
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John Gay’s Epitaph
Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it. John Gay (1685-1732), “My Own Epitaph” from The Oxford Book of Death, ed. D. J. Enright, 1983, p. 322.