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The Hindu's text The Bhagavad-Gita tells us the following: "Death is certain for anyone born, and birth is certain for the dead; since this cycle is inevitable, you have no cause to grieve!" The Heart Sutra tells us: "No coming, no going." These initially are only claims. I can say that grass is purple if I like. My mouth can say or do anything, it has no bone. So these two teachings require some investigation. So we can look to science for a few answers on life and death. Take any object you wish. Can you destroy it? Say we pour gasoline all over a couch and throw a flame on it-BOOM!-that couch will burn up. It will turn into ash. OK so we do not have a couch anymore, but we do have this ash. This couch simply manifested itself into ash. It changed forms. The ash was once a couch, the couch was once this ash. Not complicated. So science has already proven to us human beings that no thing can be annihilated. That all things simply change forms. What does this tell us about life and death? A lot of people believe in souls, spirits, an essence they have. So how can this "thing" be destroyed? Are you clear on that? This same teaching about the couch demonstrates another point central to all of Buddhism. Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Also derived from The Heart Sutra. Maybe this couch to some people when purchased looked permanent. "This couch is very sturdy, I will give it to my children in my will!" This couch is this form, but when I burn this couch, it is no longer permanent. Actually it never was. Permanence is an incorrect word, it should not be in the English language. Nothing is like that. So we say again, this couch originally was this form, but when I burned it this form turned to ash. This couch is empty, it doesn't really exist. It cannot always be a couch, and it actually never was a "couch." It was a combination of fabric, wood, and cotton for stuffing-many things had come together to form this "couch." When I say this couch never existed, what I mean is that it depended on outside circumstances to bring it about. If we speak of existence in an impermanent and interdependent fashion-I will have no problems using it. But, if we speak of existence in terms of some independent thing, that will always be this thing-always to exist as a "couch"-I cannot subscribe to this point of view. So we sit in a couch, lay down on a couch, eat popcorn on a couch. But one day, either through erosion, a fire, bad maintenance, this couch will no longer exist as a couch. So in couch form this couch is just that-a form. But when a fire comes along, this couch's emptiness is exposed. It becomes ash. You can no longer eat popcorn it it. It was impermanent-never having solely existed as a couch-this couch is empty- form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Do you understand impermanence? Who are you again? Are you the same as, or different from, the person you were at the age of 5? Someone once said, "You can never step into the same river twice." That point is very true. The current has changed, fish are moving around in this river. But same and different cannot capture the essence of impermanence. we need to leave same and different out of it and just look. Have you ever found one thing in this universe that IS permanent? One day the sun will burn out, the landscape will be consumed in water. So maybe in appearance The United States seems permanent, that it will be around for a very long time. Yet one day it's conditions will change, and "it" will not longer be here. It will be under the ocean somewhere maybe, or simply rubble. Impermanence means change. Everything is always changing, changing, changing! That is birth and death. Have you atained that point? Thich Nhat Hanh tells people not,"Happy Birthday." Do you know what he wishes them? "Happy Continuation Day." Nothing cannot come from something and something cannot come from nothing. Nothing and something are like that.