Form as Impermanent

 “You should contemplate form as impermanent. One who contemplates like this has right insight. One who has right insight arouses disenchantment. One who has disenchantment eradicates delight and lust. One who eradicates delight and lust, I say, liberates the mind" (source : Samyukta-agama, sa01.pdf (uni-hamburg.de)

   What does it mean to contemplate "form" as impermanent? What, indeed, is form? When I think about this question from a Western mindset, I reflect on the difference between form and matter--form being what "shapes" matter into a discernable identity. I am sure that most students have at some time or another come across the metaphor of a potter or sculptor: just as the clay is "formless" unless I actively shape it into a pot or other form, so also form is the requirement of identity. 

   Form is in fact the marker of identity. So what does "contemplate form as impermanent" entail? First of all, forms do not have an underlying, enduring substance. They change from one moment to the next. The "essence", if anything, is mind. This is different from what a materialist might think. For example, I see a chair, and I assume that the form it takes is reflective of some underlying substance that endures, even when I don't look at the chair. From a Buddhist perspective, this is not the case: if there is no mind to contemplate or recognize "the chair", then how might the chair be said to have an independent existence? Here, the form itself is impermanent because it appears in mind when the right conditions emerge. 

Agama Sutra also mentions that the insight into no form "arouses disenchantment" which in turn "eradicates delight and lust". I think this means that when a person recognizes that the forms are arising in mind, there is nothing to hold onto or to chase. In fact, the images don't relate to an enduring external reality or "thing", any more than a chair is thought to have an independent existence. This creates a natural sense of disenchantment, but I don't think this translates to the disenchantment of turning away from things. Rather it is a more grounded and realistic idea that appearances constantly change, and there is nothing graspable within those appearances. If I keep thinking about an earlier thought that has passed, I fail to see that it's already gone.