Awareness of impermanence heightens appreciation of the present

A key Buddhist teaching is a list of five reflections that the Buddha said everyone should contemplate daily. The reflections are:

1. I am subject to old age.
2. I am subject to sickness
3. I am subject to death.
4. I will be separated from all that is dear to me.
5 I am responsible for my own actions and destiny.

Basically it’s saying: life is short, make the most of it, take responsibility for yourself.

And I just came across a nice piece of research showing that your attitude to time affects your ability to fully appreciate the present moment.

This is from an article in Science Daily, last year:

Psychologist Jaime L. Kurtz from Pomona College investigated how our behavior and attitude towards an activity change when there is a limited amount of time remaining to engage in it. A group of college seniors participated in this study, which occurred 6 weeks prior to graduation. Every day for two weeks, the students were to write about their college experiences, including the activities they participated in. The experiment was designed so that some of the students were to think about graduation as a far-off event and some students were told to think about graduation as occurring very soon.

The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that the students’ behavior was influenced by how the graduation deadline was framed (that is, whether graduation was occurring shortly or in the future).

It turns out that the students who thought of graduation as occurring very soon reported participating in more college-related activities compared to the students who thought of graduation as a far-off event. Kurtz surmises that when faced with the imminent end of college, students were more motivated to take advantage of the time they had left in school and participate in as many events as possible—the students realized it would be their last chance to engage in college-related activities.

Kurtz notes that although it may seem counterintuitive, these findings support the idea that “thinking about an experience’s future ending can enhance one’s present experience of it”. In addition, Kurtz suggests that “focusing on the fact the experiences like these are fleeting enhances enjoyment by creating a ‘now or never’ type of motivation”.

Fascinating stuff. I’m kind of bummed that I only just stumbled across this research, since I could have quoted it in my forthcoming book, Living as a River, which is about embracing impermanence. A point I make in that book is that although we may put a lot of effort into banishing thoughts of death and impermanence, assuming that such thoughts would be depressing, an awareness of impermanence can actually be life-enhancing. People, for example, who were asked to imagine the death of their significant other, found that their relationships improved.

Another Buddhist teaching is a list of cognitive distortions known as viparyasas — literally “topsy-turvies.” These cognitive distortions lead us to believe, for example, that the things that will make us happy will actually make us unhappy, and vice versa. Thinking that reflecting on impermanence will make us unhappy is a perfect example of a viparyasa.

One Response to “Awareness of impermanence heightens appreciation of the present”

1. Debbie Smith says:

   June 16, 2010 at 2:29 pm

   Having been unlucky enough to attend rather a few funerals in the last couple of years, and hear of so many tragic stories about people, I feel life instinctively teaches you to appreciate the life you have been given, the people you get to share with it, and to appreciate the hope of a happy future.
   Whether through the teachings of others, or through life’s own experiences, I feel the message is the same: Appreciate life!
   Important to note of course, is that for some people, dwelling on the pessimistic side of things is an illness and really DOES make them unhappy, no doubt about it.

   Reply