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Buddhism: Details about 'Anitya'

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Impermanence (Sanskrit: anitya; Pali anicca; Tibetan: mi rtag pa; Chinese: 無常, wúcháng; Japanese: mujō) is one of the essential doctrines or the three marks of Buddhism. According to it, everything is constantly in flux. This changing flux excludes nothing--even planets, stars and gods. This is embodied in human life in the aging process and the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara), and in any experience of loss; because things are impermanent, attachment to them is futile, and leads to suffering. The only true end of anicca is Nirvana. Nirvana is the one Reality



which knows of no change, decay or death. In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, all compounded, constructed things and states are said to be "impermanent" - but to say the same of Nirvana and the Buddha (the personalisation of Nirvana) is to commit a gross error in understanding and to fall into harmful misperception of Truth (as discussed in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra).

Anicca is intimately associated with the doctrine of anatta, according to which things have no fixed nature.

See also: three marks of existence

Aničča

anitya 諸行無常 Anicca Vô thường 无常


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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anitya". A list of the wikipedia authors can be found here.