The Sandcastle at Mission Beach
My daughter and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon building a sandcastle at Mission Beach in San Diego. Towers, a moat, a bridge made from a popsicle stick. She was five and convinced it was the greatest structure ever created. When the tide started coming in, she ran to me in tears: “The water’s going to get it!”
I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to build a wall. But instead, something in me decided to be honest. “Yeah,” I said. “It is. That’s what happens to sandcastles.”
She watched the water take it apart, tower by tower, and then, with the resilience that five-year-olds have in abundance, she said, “Okay. Can we build another one?”
That moment has stayed with me because it captures, perfectly, the Buddhist concept of impermanence and its surprisingly useful relationship with manifestation. Everything passes. And that’s not the obstacle to getting what you want. It’s the key to getting it.
What Impermanence Actually Means
In Buddhist philosophy, impermanence (anicca in Pali) is not a belief. It’s an observation. Everything that arises will pass away. Your emotions. Your thoughts. Your body. Your circumstances. Your relationships. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is fixed.
This is usually taught as a cause of suffering: we attach to things that are impermanent, and when they change (which they always do), we suffer.
But there’s another side to impermanence that gets less attention: if nothing is permanent, then your current circumstances are also impermanent. The job you hate will end. The financial hardship will shift. The relationship that’s struggling will change, in one direction or another.
“This, too, shall pass. Both the good and the bad, the pleasant and the painful, are impermanent. When you truly understand this, you stop clinging to the one and fearing the other.”
Attributed to Buddhist oral tradition, variations in multiple sources
For manifestation practitioners, this is profoundly important. Because one of the biggest obstacles to manifesting a new reality is the belief that your current reality is permanent. That “this is just how things are.” That change is impossible or at least unlikely.
Impermanence says: no. Change is not just possible. It’s inevitable. Your current state is already in the process of dissolving. The question isn’t whether it will change. The question is what it will change into.
Where Buddhism and Neville Unexpectedly Agree
At first glance, Buddhism and Neville’s teaching seem contradictory. Buddhism emphasizes non-attachment and the cessation of desire. Neville teaches you to deliberately generate desire and assume its fulfillment. How can both be right?
I think the contradiction is shallower than it appears.
Buddhism doesn’t teach the elimination of all desire. It teaches the elimination of grasping, the desperate clinging to outcomes that produces suffering. The difference between desire and grasping is crucial. You can want something without being destroyed by the wanting.
Neville teaches something similar. His concept of the “sabbath” (resting in the wish fulfilled) is, functionally, non-attachment to the outcome. You’ve done the inner work. You’ve assumed the state. Now you let go and trust. The grasping, the anxious checking, the desperate need for the manifestation to show up, is actually the obstacle in Neville’s system too.
Both traditions agree: hold your vision lightly. Do the work. Then release.
How Impermanence Cures the Manifestation Death Grip
The “death grip” is my term for what happens when you become so attached to a specific manifestation that the attachment itself prevents it from materializing. You want the thing so badly that you can’t stop thinking about not having it. Every moment of waiting is painful. Every day without results feels like failure.
Impermanence dissolves the death grip by reminding you of two things:
First: your current lack is impermanent. You won’t be in this state forever. Things are already changing, right now, in ways you can’t see. The feeling of “stuck” is an illusion created by observing a process from too close a distance. Zoom out, and everything is in motion.
Second: even when the manifestation arrives, it too will be impermanent. This sounds discouraging, but it’s actually freeing. When you realize that the thing you’re manifesting won’t be a permanent, unchanging possession, you stop needing it to save you. You want it, enjoy it when it comes, and hold it lightly, knowing that everything flows.
“All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.”
The Dhammapada, verse 277 (translated by Eknath Easwaran)
Practical Impermanence for Manifesters
Here’s how I’ve integrated the concept of impermanence into my manifestation practice.
When I’m stuck in a negative state: I remind myself, “This feeling is impermanent. It arose, and it will pass. I don’t need to believe it’s permanent just because it’s present.” This creates space to shift states without first having to “overcome” the negative one. You don’t overcome a wave. You let it pass.
When I’m anxious about timing: I remind myself, “My current circumstances are already dissolving. Change is happening beneath the surface, in ways I can’t perceive. The manifestation is not late. It’s arising in its own time.” This relaxes the grasping that delays manifestation.
When I receive a manifestation: I enjoy it fully while holding a quiet awareness that this too will change. Not morbidly. Gratefully. The way you enjoy a sunset, knowing it won’t last, and finding it more beautiful because of that.
When a manifestation seems to “fail”: I remember that outcomes are impermanent too. What looks like failure today may look like redirection tomorrow. The thing I didn’t get may have been protecting me from something I couldn’t see. Impermanence works in all directions.
The Exercise: The Impermanence Meditation for Manifesters
This practice combines Buddhist mindfulness with manifestation principles.
Step 1: Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Bring to mind your current situation, the thing you’re trying to change through manifestation. The job, the relationship, the financial state, whatever it is.
Step 2: Feel the solidity of that situation. Notice how real it seems. How permanent. How fixed. Let yourself fully experience the weight of “this is how things are.”
Step 3: Now begin to dissolve the solidity. Remind yourself: “This situation is impermanent. It is already changing. It has been changing since before I noticed it. Nothing about it is fixed.” Feel the “solid” reality begin to loosen, like ice beginning to thaw.
Step 4: In the space that opens up as the old reality loosens, place the feeling of your desired state. Not forcing it in. Letting it fill the space naturally, the way water fills a container. The old state is dissolving. The new state is forming.
Step 5: Rest in this fluid, changing quality of reality. Everything is in motion. Your current state is leaving. Your desired state is arriving. You don’t need to push or pull. Just allow the natural flow of impermanence to carry you from one state to another.
Sit with this for five to ten minutes. The feeling is one of gentle surrender combined with quiet confidence. You’re not fighting reality. You’re cooperating with its natural tendency to change.
Building Another Sandcastle
My daughter’s response to the dissolving sandcastle was exactly right. She didn’t mourn it. She didn’t try to save it. She accepted its passing and immediately asked: “Can we build another one?”
That’s the attitude impermanence invites. Not grief over what passes. Not grasping at what comes. But the confidence to keep building, knowing that the creative process itself is the point.
You will manifest things. They will change. You will manifest new things. They will change too. The cycle isn’t a problem. It’s the nature of reality. And understanding that nature, really feeling it in your bones, doesn’t diminish your desires. It frees them from the weight of needing to last forever.
Build the sandcastle. Love the sandcastle. Watch the tide come in. And then, with the pure, unencumbered joy of someone who understands that creation is its own reward, build another one.
