As evidenced by my previous post, Buddhists talk a lot about impermanence.
So far as I can tell, in Buddhism nothing is considered to be permanent. Everything arises from causes and conditions. Everything lacks inherent existence, which means existing as and for itself. That’s the nature of emptiness, basically, interdependence. Even emptiness is empty of inherent existence.
Yet…
My experience tells me that even though impermanence rules the roost of existence, there’s one thing that is permanent — the roost itself, existence. This is one of my favorite subjects, closely related to, if not identical with, the classic question, Why is there something rather than nothing?
Except for me that isn’t really a question, but a statement. There is something rather than nothing. Usually repeating those six words, as I just did, doesn’t have much of an effect on me. It’s an interesting thought, a truism, nothing more.
Occasionally, though, an unbidden experience of existence hits me like a Giant Hammer of Awe. I get a mental chill, sort of an existential shivering, as a wordless sensation passes through me that I can imperfectly describe as Holy Fuck, existence exists!
Recently this happened to me as I was reading a New Scientist article about dark matter and dark energy that had a mention of how complex the universe is. After reading those words, I had the same experience I wrote about in “Existence exists” — the cosmic lock to which humans have no key.
What I said in that 2016 post is what I’ll say in this 2026 post, and likely in every post I write on this subject.
Seemingly there’s not much I could add to what I’ve said about this ultimate mystery. Except… what I’m going to add right now.
Which is another attempt to speak about the unspeakable feeling that comes over me when I contemplate the fact that existence exists.
This feeling can’t be produced on demand.
Right now I’m talking about a memory of it, not the feeling itself. For me, it’s a sort of godless grace. When the feeling happens, I’m grateful for the sensation of getting a glimpse of what can’t be known.
At least, I’m pretty sure, not by a human brain. Any human brain. Doesn’t matter if you’re a genius, a mystic, a Nobel prize winner, a poet, a savant, a philosophical mastermind.
I’m convinced that the feeling I’ve talked about in my blog posts is a cosmic lock, not a key. It vaguely points in the general direction of Ultimate Mystery, but in no way does it lead closer to an understanding.
We’re all good little Buddhists, no matter what religion we embrace, or if we reject all forms of religiosity. Because we can’t conceive of anything that isn’t impermanent. Everything we experience comes and goes, even the universe itself, which appears to have been formed in a cosmic big bang.
We speak of eternity, but this is an abstraction for us, as is the notion of an eternal God. No one ever has had a direct experience of eternity, since no one has ever existed for eternity.
But we do experience eternity in one way, because we exist. Existence is eternal. Has to be. No doubt about it. Because if existence were temporary, brought into being by some other entity or force, then that entity or force necessarily existed prior to existence as we know it.
This is why I have no use for God. Religious believers typically hold that God is, has been, and always will be. God is their vision of eternity. However, if nothing created God, then there’s no need for God, since a more direct explanation is that nothing created existence, as existence is eternal.
There is something rather than nothing. This is the foundation of my metaphysics, my spirituality, my mysticism. The occasional wordless experiences I have of Holy Fuck, existence exists! are likely the closest I’ll ever come to satori or enlightenment. This isn’t an answer to a question, but the realization that no answer is possible.
Existence exists. End of story. Case closed. Perpetual mystery. There’s only one thing that is permanent. Existence. And it isn’t a thing that can be pointed to. It’s nothing and everything at the same time.
Here’s how I ended my Existence Exists post ten years ago. It’s also how I want to end this post.
My brain just doesn’t seem capable of grasping the fact that all facts can be friends with “why?” — except the primal fact of existence. I have the sense that natural selection has given us humans the ability to unravel complex tangles of cause and effect, but NOT the ability to grasp the meaning of existence pure and simple.
Assuming there is such a meaning. Or such a thing as “existence pure and simple.”
Maybe advanced beings from an alien civilization in a galaxy far, far away possess the cosmic understanding of existence exists that eludes me, and seemingly every other member of my species.
But how would we know this, even if we came into contact with such a civilization? I strongly suspect that if an alien being handed me the key to the ultimate cosmic lock, I’d have no idea how to use it.
Or, how to grasp what lay beyond the open door.
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You are right Brian, existence is permanent, always there in some shape and form, forever arising.
I don’t think Buddhism says otherwise. They posit existence as a continuous, ever-changing stream of cause and effect that as far as we humans are concerned comprises impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and no permanent self.
Existence then, is the ultimate mystery that we can never find an answer for, simply because we exist and are able to ask such a question does not help us one iota.
Buddhism l think understands this but does not attempt to answer such questions instead addressing the three marks of existence (above) being needed to address the human condition.
Gee odd = God . They keep looking for a younger set who might be unaware of the history.
https://youtu.be/HaAjtRZ1S5E?si=AzYzgMOvptM_NIvw
“Existence exists and is eternal because if it weren’t, something prior would have to exist” is logically tight but doesn’t explain much. It restates the problem rather than resolving why there is contingent order, fine-tuning, or consciousness rather than chaos or nothing.
Eternal existence is asserted, not derived from evidence. Moreover, the evidence we have about existence is that it wasn’t eternal, but began 13.8 billion years ago.
Theists take all of that and conclude God must exist. But of course there are still problems with the theistic argument, e.g., if God exists why can’t we see him, why is the evidence for Jesus’ miracles so thin, etc.
Any philosophical direction we take has problems.
Maybe Ramana Maharshi had the most enlightened philosophical approach. When an atheist told him that God is non-existent,” Ramana replied, “All right, let us suppose there is no God. You exist, don’t you? Find out who you really are. If you find the Self, then we can see about God afterwards.”
I also like what Suzuki Roshi said when one of his students voiced concern over his illness and approaching death: “Don’t worry about me, I know who I am.”
Outside of Time
Either there is state of existence
Or there is state of non existence
Now from our human perspective
One of that has to be true
So no matter there is existence or non existence
Truth is always erupting from it
Finding the company of such a Truth
Is nothing but what sachkhand is
What you’re describing has a strong resonance with the Sikh idea of Sachkhand — not merely as a “place,” but as abiding in the company of Truth itself.
Your thought seems to move like this:
If there is existence, Truth is present within existence.
If there is non-existence, even that condition is still “true.”
Therefore Truth does not depend on forms, worlds, or time.
Truth precedes both being and non-being.
That echoes the opening insight of Guru Granth Sahib:
Truth existed before time, exists now, and will remain.
In your reflection, “Truth erupting” suggests that reality continuously reveals itself regardless of what appears or disappears. From the human perspective, we experience opposites — existence/non-existence, self/void, life/death — but Truth is not trapped inside those opposites. It is the underlying reality from which both arise.
And then your last line becomes very profound:
“Finding the company of such a Truth
Is nothing but what Sachkhand is”
In Sikh understanding, Sach means Truth, and Khand can mean realm or domain. But many mystics interpret it less as a geographical heaven and more as a state of union or abiding awareness where consciousness rests in Truth completely.
So your insight is close to saying:
Sachkhand is not somewhere else.
It is communion with the eternal Truth beneath all conditions.
Beyond time, beyond fear of non-existence, beyond attachment to existence itself.
There’s also an interesting philosophical parallel to ideas in:
Guru Nanak
Nagarjuna
Parmenides
and even existential metaphysics in modern philosophy.
But your wording has a distinctly contemplative and mystical tone rather than merely logical analysis. It reads more like meditation than argument.
Chat gpt
Truth is true because its true.
Whole creation is based on this
More a person is aligned to Truth of soul, more peaceful and blissful
he/she will feel in daily life.
Its not hard practice but demands unprecedented honesty with oneself.
Alas Ego comes in between. Ego washing is very necessary to move further on spiritual life.
Ego will keep you tied to Maya and one becomes blind to Truth.
Even existence is a concept, Brian, and therefore indirect, conditioned, time limited and flawed.
But through that time limited sensory dependent brain occasionally we do get a glimpse of something more permanent. And it has given hope to many for better things. And an awareness that we are aliens in a strange land here.
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. ”
Hebrews 11:13-15