Expert: Joe McSorley - 2/15/2006

Question
If everything is impermanent than isnt the idea of impermanent actually permanent which therefore is contradictory.

Answer
Hi Brandie,
  
 Well, if I am going to answer you in typical philosophical language used by Eastern religion I would say that it is permanently impermanent, a contradiction that is a living paradox but I think you would not accept this answer.  If you are not used to the type of language I am about to use you will find this letter almost impossible to read.  These are not easy concepts to discuss and I apoligize in advance it I sound obtuse or thick.

Permanence is not a thing, but a concept.  To say that something is permanent means that it is static and unchanging, immovable and eternal. Physics tells us that all things are in flux, constant change and in motion, at least at the molecular level.  Anything you observe is not static and unchanging, in fact, it is ever changing, just by the motion of the electrons in the molecules and its gradual molecular decay,  no matter how slow that is.  So when you observe something you see it as static and unchanging but it really is not that way.  You might think that a mountain, the sun and the stars are permanent, but they are not, nothing is and nothing is still or static.  Ultimately the terms permanent and impermanent are just concepts and have no real substance.  What Buddhist thought is trying to get across here is that all things are ever changing, coming into existence and going out of existence and not permanent or impermanent, but a continuous state of change.  So the jargon ‘ permanently impermanent' while contradictory is also correct.  
   If you want to take this to its core think of this; the universe supposedly came from nothing and then is manifested in the big bang as something.  How does something come from nothing? Even if you accept the concept that there was some original softball sized mass that was so compact that it contained all the material of the present universe it begs the question, where was that mass?  It is postulated that this mass is surrounded by infinite nothing.  Logically speaking it can't be surrounded by nothing because if it's surrounded then it is surrounded by something.  It's mind twisting but it is a dilemma that physics faces.  Here's another way to think about it; what is beyond the universe?  Nothing?  How can there be nothing beyond because that would make it space which is something.  So there is a paradox between something and nothing here.  You cannot have one without the other, they define each other.
  In Buddhism this is the dilemma of dualistic thought, that you can only know something as opposed to something else.  Examples would be dark vs. light, permanent vs. impermanence and being vs. non-being, you can only know them in contra-distinction to each other.  Ultimately it means you can never know anything just to itself because it is defined by something it is not.  Buddhism realizes this is the dilemma of the human mind and seeks to overcome it.  Out of this the paradoxical language arises of it being while not being, permanent impermanence, etc.
   I hope this wasn't too mind numbing.  Take care,
                                      Joe