Impermanence:
Impermanence has two parts to reducing selfishness.
1, realising that having things below God have less value:
A person selfishly wants things, however by becoming aware that possessions and even themselves are not permanent, they realise these things are not so valuable and want them less.
The opposite of wanting to gain thing is fear of loosing things. By a person becoming aware that possessing those items and the themselves are not permanent, they are not so scared of losing them. Also by realising that the pain of loss is not permanent, it comes and goes, they are also not scared of the pain of loss
▪a person’s life on earth is not permanent. This also means that they having their possessions is not permanent. A good way to become aware of this is, to meditate on all the people you know who have died.
▪meditate on the moment now, this ever moving razors edge of time is a powerful way of seeing that earthly things are not permanent.
▪other things to meditate on are best if they are things that are quickly fleeting like breaths and so on.
Possessions
By the ego realising the things it sees as ‘mine’ are impermanent, the ego has less validity.
This is because the ego can be from what it owns.
So by meditating on how things it has as ‘mine’ and ‘my’ are impermanent, the ego’s validity reduces.
‘Mine’ and ‘my’ can be very subtle, even things which a person thinks are selfless, can be done in an ego way. For example, my observation, my meditation, my benevolent thoughts.
So also have to look at how these are all impermanent and recognise when doing it with with ego.
2, Realising that everything is one
Why not realise things are impermanent
This is often because a person does not want to think things are impermanent. They have their friends, society structure, groups and possessions that they know. They do not want to loose them. However eventually they will and this will of course be painful.
People do not like change because to get the new, they have to loose the old.
Lifetime Wisdom 