At the edge of a quiet forest monastery, where the earth still held the warmth of the day and the wind moved through bamboo like a whispered teaching, a young monk named Sāra approached his teacher at dusk.
The evening bell had just faded into silence, its last vibration dissolving into the wide sky. Sāra bowed low, his forehead touching the wooden floor.
“Master,” he said, his voice carrying both urgency and weariness, “my mind is unsettled. At times, joy rises in me so vividly that I wish it would never end. Then, without warning, sorrow follows, heavy and suffocating. And between these two, there are long stretches where I feel nothing at all—only a dull, drifting emptiness. I do not understand what is happening within me. I cannot find peace.”
The elder monk, Venerable Tissa, did not answer immediately. He sat quietly, as if listening not to Sāra’s words, but to the space between them.
At last, he gestured gently. “Come. Sit with me.”
They walked together to a small wooden platform overlooking a pond. The water was still, holding the last light of the sky like a fragile mirror. Crickets had begun their evening chant, and somewhere in the distance, a night bird called.
“Tell me, Sāra,” the elder began softly, “what do you see in the water?”
“I see the sky, Master—the clouds, the fading light.”
“And is it truly the sky?”
Sāra hesitated. “No… it only appears so.”
At that moment, a breeze passed over the pond. The reflected sky shattered into ripples, the clouds breaking into fragments.
“Look closely,” Tissa said. “When the wind comes, the sky seems to break. When the water is still, the sky appears whole again. Yet the real sky above has not been broken, nor restored. It has not suffered from the movement of the water.”
Sāra watched in silence, his brow slightly furrowed.
“In the same way,” Tissa continued, “what you call your feelings—pleasant, painful, and neutral—are like these reflections. They arise dependent on conditions: contact with sights, sounds, memories, the body, and the habits of the mind. They are compounded, woven together from countless causes. Because they are built, they must also fall apart.”
The elder reached down and picked up a small pebble. He dropped it into the pond.
Ripples spread outward, distorting everything.
“Did you command the ripples to appear?” he asked.
“No, Master.”
“Can you command them to stop immediately?”
Sāra shook his head.
“Feelings are the same. When a pleasant feeling arises, you say, ‘This is good. Let it stay.’ You grasp at it, like trying to hold the reflection of the moon in your hands. But the tighter you grasp, the more it slips away.”
Sāra lowered his gaze.
“And when pain arises,” Tissa went on, “you resist it. You say, ‘This should not be here.’ You push against it, struggle with it, and in doing so, you deepen its roots.”
The elder’s voice softened further.
“And when neither pleasure nor pain is strong, you fall into forgetfulness. You drift, unaware, as though nothing is happening. Yet even that quiet dullness is a feeling—subtle, conditioned, and impermanent.”
The sky above them darkened, deepening into shades of indigo. One by one, the first stars appeared.
“Master,” Sāra said slowly, “are all these feelings truly so unstable?”
Tissa nodded. “They are impermanent, dependently arisen, liable to fading away, to cessation. Pleasant feeling changes. Painful feeling changes. Even neutral feeling, so easily overlooked, is quietly shifting moment by moment.”
He paused, then added, “Consider the morning dew. At dawn, it glistens like jewels on the grass. By midday, it is gone. Or think of a bell—when struck, it sings clearly, but the sound does not remain. It fades into silence. Feelings are like this.”
Sāra closed his eyes, letting the words settle.
“Then how should I meet them?” he asked. “If I cannot hold on to the pleasant, and cannot escape the painful, what is the way?”
The elder turned toward him, his gaze steady and kind.
“You must learn to know them as they are,” he said. “Not as ‘mine,’ not as ‘self,’ but simply as experiences arising and passing.”
He continued:
“When pleasure arises, know it clearly: ‘This is pleasant feeling.’ Do not cling. See its arising, its changing, its fading.”
“When pain arises, know it clearly: ‘This is painful feeling.’ Do not resist. Observe its movement, its texture, its eventual dissolution.”
“And when neither stands out—when there is a quiet, neutral tone—know that too: ‘This is neutral feeling.’ Do not drift into ignorance. Stay present.”
Sāra listened deeply, as though hearing something both new and strangely familiar.
“Master,” he said, “it sounds simple… but in the moment, it feels difficult.”
Tissa smiled gently. “It is simple, but not easy. The mind has long been trained to grasp and reject. To see clearly requires patience, like watching a seed grow into a tree.”
The night deepened. The moon rose, casting a pale silver path across the pond. The air cooled, and the scent of earth and leaves became more vivid.
“Stay here tonight,” Tissa said. “Watch the mind as you would watch this water. Do not interfere. Do not chase. Do not turn away.”
Sāra bowed.
Left alone, he sat by the pond. At first, his thoughts came quickly—a memory of laughter with fellow monks earlier that day. A warmth spread through his chest.
“Pleasant feeling,” he whispered inwardly.
He noticed how the warmth lingered, then subtly shifted, then faded, like a flame losing fuel.
Soon after, a worry arose—an image of failure, of not progressing in his practice. His chest tightened.
“Painful feeling,” he noted.
Instead of pushing it away, he stayed with it. He felt its edges, its heaviness, its pulsing nature. To his surprise, it did not remain solid. It changed, softened, and eventually dissolved into something quieter.
Then came a long stretch where nothing seemed particularly strong. The night sounds blended together. His body felt neither comfortable nor uncomfortable.
“Neutral feeling,” he observed.
At first, his mind wanted to wander, to seek something more stimulating. But he gently returned, again and again, to simple knowing.
Hours passed.
The moon climbed higher. The pond shimmered.
Again and again, feelings arose—subtle pleasures, faint discomforts, quiet neutrality. Each one appeared, lingered briefly, and passed.
For the first time, Sāra began to see not just the content of his experience, but its nature.
Everything was moving.
Everything was changing.
Nothing stayed.
And yet, something within him was beginning to feel unmoved—not as a fixed thing, but as a clear, open knowing that did not grasp at what appeared within it.
Just before dawn, as the first light touched the horizon, a deep stillness settled over him. Not the dull stillness of before, but a vivid, wakeful calm.
In that moment, a gentle understanding arose:
Feelings were like waves.
But he did not have to be the wave.
He could know the wave.
When the elder returned in the early morning, he found Sāra still seated, eyes open, quietly present.
“Well, Sāra,” Tissa asked, “what have you seen?”
Sāra bowed, his voice steady.
“Master, I have seen that what I once chased and feared are only passing reflections. Pleasant feeling does not stay. Painful feeling does not stay. Even neutrality does not stay. They arise and vanish like ripples on water.”
He paused, then added softly,
“And I have begun to see that peace is not found by controlling them… but by understanding them.”
The elder nodded.
“Good,” he said. “This is the beginning of wisdom—not the end of feeling, but freedom within it.”
The wind moved once more through the bamboo, but now Sāra heard it differently—not as something to hold or escape, but as a fleeting song, complete in its arising and its passing.
And above it all, vast and untouched, the sky remained.
Link: https://wisdomtea.org/2026/04/23/the-lesson-of-impermanence/
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