Introduction
The doctrine of Impermanence (anitya in Sanskrit, and anicca in Pali) asserts that all arises and passes. It is a central doctrine of Buddhism. It is important for understanding the Buddhist conception of suffering, and the doctrine of No Self. In fact, the Buddhist doc-trine of Impermanence implies the docdoc-trine of No Self (for if there is no permanence, there can be no permanent self ). As the self is no more than a composite of the ever-changing aggregates, there can be no more permanence to the self than is to be found among the aggregates. Our awareness of ourselves and our awareness of the world is comprised of states that arise and pass from the mind’s attention. Nothing stays stable in the mind’s awareness. To begin, it is important to consider the correct sense of impermanence. Change, as will be elaborated, can be conceived of in different ways, but with the doctrine of Impermanence there is a specific sense in mind.
Arising and Passing
The Buddha’s method in arriving at his understanding of Impermanence, as with No Self, is empiricist. We observe change. The doctrine of No Self, and in particular the Argument from the Aggregates for the doctrine of No Self discussed in the previous chapter, involves careful observation of the aggregates. Gautama, having left behind his ascetic practice, took some food and sat underneath a pipal tree, vowing not to move until he understood the nature of suffering. He undertook a careful observation of himself – looking inwardly in meditation – and observed, similarly to David Hume, that there was no self that stood apart from the aggre-gates. Moreover, he observed that everything he encountered among the contents of his mind was in constant flux. Whatever could be associated with his sense of self was observed to be ever-changing. He realized not only that there is no self that is independent of the aggregates, but there is no self that could be permanent given that the aggregates are ever-changing. The careful observation of the impermanence of the aggregates, in addition to providing the evidentiary basis for the doc-trine of No Self, is the basis for the docdoc-trine of Impermanence.
The aggregates include the contents of our minds that we observe when we look inwardly. All our thoughts, impressions, perceptions, etc., of ourselves and of the world are to be found among these contents. They are observed to arise in the mind’s attention and pass from the mind’s attention unceasingly. When we consider the external world, outside the contents of our minds, we also see impermanence, or at least, we see change (for as noted the intended sense of ‘impermanence’ is specific and is not to be equated with just any manner of change – this will be elaborated soon). But when we look at the external world, we observe not only change but also absence of change. That is, many things are observed not to change, or not to change very much, or not to change at anything near the frequency observed with the aggregates. And often when we notice change it is against a background that is not changing.
Rocks, buildings and mountains, for instance, or stainless steel cutlery and diamonds on rings, are not usually observed to change, at least to
the naked eye. However, there are still changes occurring. For instance, surfaces erode, corrode, or gradually degrade. It is just that these changes are usually too slow to observe as they happen. And there is always change at a microscopic and atomic level: tiny bits fly off or are added to even the strongest and most solid objects; molecules decay and electrons move in their orbits. While these changes may not be observable to the naked eye, at an unobserved level change is ubiquitous. The doctrine of Impermanence, it might seem, is vindicated by modern science.
However, these scientific vindications are not germane for understand-ing the Buddha’s doctrine, for they do not fall under the method used by the Buddha. The Buddha would not have known of change at a micro-scopic level. The Buddha’s method was empiricist, and for this he relied on what he could observe for himself. For instance, the Buddha would not have observed that the mountain cave to which he retreated as an ascetic was undergoing change at a staggering rate at a microscopic or quantum level. He may have observed intermittent or gradual changes, such as rocks tumbling down every now and then, but he would also have observed the mountain not changing for long stretches of time. Consider the rock that tumbles down and sits at the bottom of the mountain: how is it changing?
It may have undergone a change in tumbling down the mountain, but what about after that, when it is sitting unmoved, and undisturbed, at the bottom? No matter how hard Gautama might have stared, it would not likely have changed before his eyes (and certainly not with the regularity of the arising and passing of his mind’s contents). We may say the same about a steel spoon, a diamond, and many things besides. The methods of observation available to the Buddha at the time would convey that change does not occur evenly and universally in the external, physical world. At best, observation can convey that change will eventually come to every-thing, but it also conveys that there may be very long stretches of time without observed changes (and in some cases, as with a diamond, a change may not be observed during one’s lifetime). The naked eye observes in the external world both permanence and impermanence to varying degrees.
With this we come to the focus of the doctrine of Impermanence.
It applies to the aggregates, which are observed to arise and pass from the mind’s awareness. This is not to imply that the aggregates are
non-physical, or that the mind and its contents are immaterial. Rather, it is to speak of the mind and its contents as they are observed introspec-tively, from a first-person point of view. This will be elaborated. A rock sitting at the foot of a mountain may not seem to change while being observed, but a perception of the rock is nonetheless impermanent. The perception is subject to arising and ceasing: it comes into our attention (when we are looking at the rock, for instance), and recedes from our minds (when we turn away perhaps, or when we are no longer recalling it). To say that the perception of the rock is impermanent is to say it will soon be displaced from one’s attention. It is the nature of the mind that thoughts come and go; sensations, perceptions, desires, and other mental contents arise and pass. It is these observations that underlie the doctrine of Impermanence. The Buddha famously, and with good humour, com-pared the impermanence of the aggregates with swinging monkeys: our thoughts and other mental contents move in and out through our mind’s attention as monkeys swinging rapidly along from branch to branch.1
The Buddha did not endeavour to empirically determine what sorts of things exist in the external world; his was not a scientific undertaking of this sort. Instead, he carried out a careful observation of himself, and specifically of what lay within his mind. He looked within – figuratively looked, for it was not with his eyes – and encountered aggregates such as perceptions. Perceptions may be of the outside world (e.g., a perception of the fallen rock), but among the contents of his mind he encounters the perceptions and not the objects perceived (i.e., no actual rocks in his head, so to speak). The perception of the rock he observes in his mind is about something outside of his mind. Our awareness of the world involves sensations and perceptions, such as of streets, cars, buildings, people and much more. Our awareness of ourselves also involves sensa-tions and percepsensa-tions. For instance, feeling a toothache is a sensation and acknowledging it as a toothache involves a perception. I am aware of
1 Nidanasamyutta, Samyutta Nikaya II 94-95, p. 595: “Just as a monkey roaming through a forest grabs hold of one branch, lets that go and grabs another, then lets that go and grabs still another, so too that which is called ‘mind’
and ‘mentality’ and ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night.”
other states about myself that involve reactions to sensations and percep-tions and I observe these also as contents of my mind. These include desires, fears, hopes, dreads, likes, dislikes, or generally speaking, inten-tions and voliinten-tions. These are neither sensainten-tions nor percepinten-tions, and so a separate aggregate is needed to encompass them. This is the aggregate of volitional and intentional activity. And further, I am also aware of being conscious of the contents of my mind. For instance, I am not only aware of perceptions and desires, but also aware that I am aware of perceptions and desires. These items of reflective awareness are grouped under the aggregate of conscious activity. I encounter still more among the con-tents of my mind: I am also aware of bodily states such as pain, hunger, feelings of balance and imbalance, and other bodily states and feelings.
These are grouped under the aggregate of bodily processes.
As discussed in Chapter Four, the aggregate of bodily processes is standardly read to refer to the physical processes themselves. A case was made in that chapter for reading the aggregate to refer to the awareness or experience of bodily processes (in which case this aggregate overlaps with the aggregates of sensations and perceptions). Read in the latter way, the aggregate of bodily processes includes the pain, rather than the gash on my leg that causes the pain; it includes the feeling of hunger rather than the empty stomach that causes the feeling; and it includes the feeling of being imbalanced rather than the complex internal and external physiological workings that may be causing the feeling. Read this way, the aggregate of bodily processes is just like the other aggregates in that it refers to the different things I may encounter among the contents of my mind (and not the actual, physical processes themselves). The reason for raising this point here is that it bears on the impermanence of this aggregate. If the aggre-gate of bodily processes referred to the actual bodily states and processes, and not to the mind’s awareness of these states and processes, then this aggregate would differ from the others in its impermanence.
To explain, the awareness of specific bodily states and processes arises and passes within the mind’s attention with a frequency on par with the other aggregates (e.g., I can come to feel hungry, think of something else for a moment and lose sight of my hunger, and then quickly become
aware of my hunger again). But physical states and processes are not given to the same frequency or even kind of change. Changes my body undergoes, such as aging and decay, may be very gradual and are quite unlike the quick succession of contents in the mind. Also, the arising and passing of aggregates from the mind’s attention is very different in kind from the changes a body undergoes over time. Generally speaking, changes a body undergoes would not be well characterized as involving arising and ceasing. My foot, for instance, undergoes gradual changes over time (e.g., as toenails grow), but it sounds odd, to say the least, to describe this as an arising and passing of the foot. My foot may change, but this change does not, I should hope, involve a passing or ending of my foot (and while we might describe the growing toenail as an arising, and the cut toenail as a passing, this too is out of place). These bodily changes are not aptly described as arisings and passings. However, it is not at all inappropriate to say that thoughts, perceptions, including those of my foot, arise and pass from my mind’s attention. In short, thoughts and perceptions about my foot, as with thoughts and perceptions about any other part of my body or its states and processes, arise and pass. But the bodily parts, states and processes themselves are not given to this same kind of impermanence. Reading the doctrine of Impermanence univocally, as involving change in the sense of arising and passing, can affect how we understand the aggregate of bodily processes.
The aim of the systemization of aggregates is ultimately of a practi-cal bearing: the aggregates include all that the Buddha could associate with his sense of self. They include all he was aware of or encountered within his mind, and yet the Buddha noticed an inward attachment to a permanent self that he could not place among the different things he encountered. He concluded that attachment to a permanent self is unjus-tified. More than this, the careful and regular attention to the aggregates, and their arising and passing, is an important part of undoing attachment to a permanent self.
Let us again consider the fallen rock, sitting still at the bottom of the mountain. It may seem unchanging to my eyes. Every time I turn to look at it I may judge it to be unmoved. I may stare at it, resolutely, and observe
no changes. Of course, I may look at it from different angles and so the rock may look different as I move around, but I can easily discern that these different perceptions do not indicate that the rock itself is changing.
Indeed, if I always look at the rock from the same place and angle, under the same lighting conditions, then my perceptions of the rock may not change (along with the rock itself not changing). But the stability of these appearances and perceptions does nothing to contravene the doctrine of Impermanence. The doctrine does not deny that I might have similar perceptions over time, but rather denies that any perception I have stays in my mind. And once again, while we do know that the rock is undergo-ing changes at a microscopic level, the Buddha, relyundergo-ing on the methods of observation available to him, would not have known this. The effort to justify the Buddha’s findings scientifically is misplaced. Whether the rock can be known to change microscopically or not neither supports nor contravenes the doctrine of Impermanence. Impermanence is a doctrine focussed on the mind and its contents. This is not metaphysical idealism for the doctrine does not assert or presume that only the mind and its contents are real. To the contrary, encounters with the external world are held to cause sensations and perceptions (which in turn lead to desires and fears and other reactions within the aggregate of intentional and voli-tional activity). It is just that the doctrine’s focus is not the nature of this external world (including the nature of the physical organism). That is the province of natural science. The Buddha’s concern is human suffer-ing as understood to occur in the mind. The doctrine of Impermanence asserts that the contents of the mind arise and pass from our awareness unceasingly. The Buddha was endeavouring to carefully observe his own mind, and thereby discern the roots of the suffering he felt therein, and Impermanence is a doctrine about these observations.
To sum up so far, the doctrine of Impermanence concerns the imper-manence of the aggregates. It asserts that the elements of these aggregate groupings – the particular contents of our mind’s awareness – do not stay in place; they constantly arise and recede. The focus of concern of the doctrine is not whether there is permanence in the external physical world. Instead, its focus is on our impressions of the physical world, as well as other mental occurrences, and it asserts that these are subject to
arising and passing. The Buddha was not trying to be a natural scientist;
his observations are psychological and bear on the mind and the human condition. Likewise, the doctrine of Impermanence does not comment on the permanence or impermanence of truths. It does not assert, for instance, that scientific or mathematical truths will not last, or that they will eventually turn from true to false. It does not say that Buddhist teachings are only true for a limited time (although it does not deny that some teachings may be less useful at some stages or for some objectives than others and so may need to be put aside; this point will be discussed in Chapter Fourteen). Rather, it says that any thoughts or beliefs about such truths or teachings will, just as with any aggregate, arise in our mind’s attention and then pass from our attention. And if the belief arises in our minds again, this does not contravene that it had previously passed from our attention, and that it will pass again.
It will further help to elucidate the sense of impermanence in the doctrine of Impermanence to compare this with other, perhaps more commonplace, views of change.
Other Views of Change
One way in which we understand change is in terms of motion or loco-motion. In this sense, an object can undergo change without changes in its internal structure. For instance, everything on earth is moving just in virtue of the movement of the earth on its axis, or the movement of our solar system within the galaxy, or the motion of the Milky Way galaxy within the universe. This is a motion in which an object or person may take part while remaining otherwise unchanged except for this motion.
Other examples: an object on the seat of a moving car is in motion but otherwise may be quite still. A bullet tearing through the air is also in motion, and so undergoing change, but it need not be undergoing change in its composition or structure while it is moving.
However, the impermanence of the aggregates does not involve motion. Not literally. The aggregates, witnessed introspectively as men-tal events do not literally move about in the mind’s eye (although the
brain events that underlie them do involve motion). Still, we use terms that signify motion figuratively. For instance, a fear may seem to rush in unannounced, or an anger to slowly creep away. Also, we may say, more generally, that these mental contents come and go, or arise and pass.
These terms do figuratively connote motion, but even this connotation should not be taken too far. The aggregates are described as arising or being born in our mind’s attention, and as passing or disappearing from
These terms do figuratively connote motion, but even this connotation should not be taken too far. The aggregates are described as arising or being born in our mind’s attention, and as passing or disappearing from