Suppose you’re angry with your partner. They just said something that made you suffer deeply. You’re suffering so much that you have a desire to say something back to make them suffer. You believe that by doing this, you will suffer less. We’re intelligent enough to know that this is childish behavior, but many of us still do it anyway. If you say something that makes the other person suffer, then they’ll try to get relief by saying something back to make you suffer. Both of you are practicing the escalation of anger. Suppose instead you practice the concentration on impermanence. You just close your eyes and breathe in. In the three or four seconds of breathing in, you visualize how your loved one will be three hundred years from now.
What will my loved one be three hundred years from now?
What will I be three hundred years from now?
The concentration on impermanence brings you the insight right away that your loved one is impermanent, that you are impermanent, and that it’s silly to make each other suffer like this in the present moment. The concentration on impermanence will bring the insight of impermanence, allowing you to touch in a very real way the nature of impermanence in yourself and your loved one. When you open your eyes, you’re so happy that they are still alive, the only thing you want to do is open your arms and hug them.
Breathing in, darling, I know you are still alive.
Breathing out, I am so happy.