Anicca: how to look into impermanence in practice

You decide to start running every morning from Monday. By Monday evening you'd rather sleep in; on Tuesday a better idea turns up — swimming; by Thursday a third one has replaced it. Wishes, decisions, plans change faster than the weather. Buddhism has a name for this: anicca. Impermanence in Buddhism isn't just something to complain about — you can look into it.

Here's how to look into impermanence in practice, step by step.

Read the suttas and you'll find many variants. But most often the Buddha says something like "look into impermanence, friend" — and doesn't explain how. So the how is a matter of detail, and everyone does it the way that suits them.

Here's one variant, for example. A person starts with the body and sees that the body, as they perceive it, is a constantly changing stream. Then they add feelings — these keep changing too. Then the work of the mind that describes and analyses the world — countless processes there as well. Then their own activity, mental above all. And consciousness itself, grasping first one thing, then another, then a third.

Once everything is added, you have the whole perceived world. And the practitioner sees that this world is born every moment and every moment falls apart. You can attend to its birth, or to how each moment the world flies off into nothingness. That brings a sense of total fleetingness.

Or more simply: just remember that every phenomenon is fleeting — everywhere, at the micro and macro level. Perception itself is impermanent and very fluid. The picture becomes very dynamic, as if the world were in superposition, a wave and a particle at once. It's complex, but people who've dealt with maths or physics sometimes find this view even more natural.

Here they are, retold.

1. 1

   Contemplate the impermanence of all sankharas

   It's usually rendered "all formations", but the meaning gets lost. Sankharas are above all what we do with the mind. The mind's volitional activity underlies both speech and bodily action. Watch: decisions, desires, feelings, acts of will are ephemeral and keep changing.

2. 2

   Perceive suffering in what is impermanent

   Our activity is fleeting and unstable, and so it constantly breeds suffering. That's what we watch.

3. 3

   Perceive not-self in what is suffering

   There's no Person in this activity. It's just ripples on water, the mind's restlessness, like a force of nature. In Sanskrit this is called chitta-vritti — the mind's fluctuations.

4. 4

   Perceive relinquishment

   As if you were separate from these sankharas — and had let them go.

5. 5

   Perceive fading

   The mind's ripples start to fade because you've let them go and stepped apart from them.

6. 6

   Perceive cessation

   Nirodha. By its origin the word may be closer to "breakthrough": a breakthrough beyond perception and feeling.

"That is how you should train," the Buddha concludes. You can see that contemplating anicca here is a step in a wider looking: into the impermanence, suffering and not-self of sankharas, and then into relinquishment, fading, cessation. That's how impermanence in Buddhism is usually treated in the suttas. This is vipassana meditation. More in What is vipassana.

«Anicca isn't a topic to think about — it's what you see right now if you look at your own mind»

We sit and begin watching what's happening in the head, what activity is going on. It helps to give the practice a little structure: for instance, silently repeat something good — "Buddha" or "Dhamma". The repetition itself is already activity, something you can watch. After it comes a pause, and in the pause we see what the mind is doing. Then we repeat attentively again — and look again.

Even without any special setup it becomes clear: all this activity is incredibly impermanent. Good. We watch that impermanence for a day, two days, maybe a month.

At some point, most likely in meditation, it will surface in memory: this impermanence is suffering. All the bustle of activity is tiresome and never stops. "Suffering" may be too strong a word — more like tiresomeness, discomfort with it all. Each time you'll start with impermanence and move more easily to seeing the unsatisfactoriness.

Then you'll see that none of this depends on you at all. It has a life of its own; something stirs about by itself. That's seeing not-self. Next it's as if you separate from this activity: you're calm and still, and it happens somewhere apart. That's relinquishment. Then the activity starts dying down. And then comes that existential breakthrough beyond the limits.

That's the full path of vipassana. Most likely you'll pass through jhanas along the way. They aren't mentioned here because they're secondary: they simply arise naturally in the process.

How exactly should you practise insight into impermanence, satipatthana, or even specific methods like breath meditation or loving-kindness? It seems the Buddha gave us wide latitude to adapt the methods to ourselves, so they're workable, interesting and effective for you in particular. Everyone has their own nuances.

That's why it's hard to speak of any specific technique "from the Buddha". When people teach a step-by-step instruction — step one, two, three, ten — and say this is exactly what the Buddha taught, that's certainly not right. Such a technique may work for a few but not for most: it's a special case. The Buddha gave methods, not techniques, and a method holds a huge number of variations.

The six things the Buddha gave Dighavu don't appear in this form anywhere else. It was an individual practice for one particular person. It may suit some of us too, but it was given to him.

That's exactly what makes Buddhas so valuable: they see a person's mind and can give them precisely the version of practice that will lead them to liberation — take them by the hand and walk them there. We have no such Buddha to ask. But we do have the suttas of the Pali Canon — what the Buddha said to different people. Relying on them, we can work out our own techniques. Creativity and flexibility are absolutely essential today for following the Buddha's teaching. More on this in How to meditate.

A good place to start is the Samyutta Nikaya, available in translation in several volumes. The suttas there are mostly short; it's a foundational collection. The translation can be idiosyncratic in places: without some acquaintance with the original, it isn't always clear at first glance what's being said. That's normal — it happens to many people.

You can note down the unclear passages and go through them with someone who knows the texts more deeply. Gradually the context and language of the suttas become familiar, and you'll be able to read them on your own. And the Pali original isn't as scary as it seems.

Impermanence isn't only visible on the cushion.

The week's plan changed three times

Yesterday's decision no longer seems so important. Noticing that without annoyance is looking into the impermanence of sankharas.

Anger at a colleague was gone by lunch

In the morning it felt permanent. Watching how it arose, held on and left is a small vipassana.

A new phone stopped delighting you

Pleasant for a week, just a phone a month later. The impermanent brings dissatisfaction, even when it's pleasant.

A thought about a deadline circles at bedtime

It comes and goes by itself, without asking permission. That's not-self: not "I think" but "thinking happens".

Your child has outgrown a favourite jacket

A little sad and very clear: whatever has arisen changes.

And this is no longer anicca

Gloomily repeating "it's all meaningless" and sinking into despondency. Seeing impermanence leads to calm and letting go, not to depression.

Monday's plan changed by evening. That's not a problem but an invitation to look.

Everything the mind does is born and passes. Watch it long and calmly enough, and one day you also see what doesn't pass.