My cell phone died. I dropped it on the street and when I picked it up I couldn’t get it to start again. It was an older model, had served me well for a few years. I knew it would be a pain to replace (have you ever been to a Verizon store?), it would take time to reload it with all my apps, with the cute icons and live wallpapers that made the thing ‘mine’, but it was alright, I knew it was time.

I got my new phone…spent the money, spent the time…1 day later, the phone stops working and I was so annoyed. I tried all the usual techniques, I surgically removed the battery, restarted, reboot. But nothing, dead. I think to myself..hows this possible?

A Little Background: Around the same time as this I was having stomach problems. One afternoon I went to the bathroom and out came a ton of blood. Between that and the pain I was having, my Dr. thought it was best to get a colonoscopy and rule-out stomach cancer or inflammatory conditions. I was so scared, scared of the procedure and even more scared of the cancer or serious disease. Plus, how is it possible, someone so young (early 30s), getting cancer or other crazy broken diseases?

As I was looking down at the dead phone, I realized, it was exactly like me. It is like my body, a tool, a device I need to get by in this world. I imagine that it’s something I own, I control, but in reality it can control me. It breaks and I need to run and replace it, find a way to fix it. When my body breaks there are surgeries, pills or a new birth to replace it. I invest so much time and energy in the phone, I make it mine with icons and ornaments, I imagine, like I do about my body, that it reflects “me”, my personality, my unique specialness.

Of course, I’m not a fool, I know phones break and people die. When it happens at the right time — when I dictate it is acceptable, when it aligns with my perception of how the world is supposed to work, when it retains my perception of control — it’s sad but OK. But this new phone, my stomach issues, it was evidence that duration is not certain, not under my control.

It’s easy to see once or twice or 10 times that control is limited, things are uncertain, but my mind is so used to its habits of thought; the same wrong concept will hide in slightly different permutations, different twists. So this story here showed me a new fact to consider, a different misunderstanding of impermanence that I needed to correct — I had to see impermanence  is something that exists ‘out there’ and does not abide by my terms, my expectations of when cessation, brokenness, death, is acceptable and when it is not.

In the end I was able to exchange the phone for a new one, manufacturer’s defect. I had the colonoscopy and turns out I had hemorrhoids and IBS, no warranty on the body so I just have to live with the broken parts.