Quotes About Impermanence

She left a lingering smudge of smoke on the sky, and two vanishing trails of foam on the water.

he knew very well we were all mortal

When we see deeply that all that is subject to arising is also subject to cessation, that whatever arises will also pass away, the mind becomes disenchanted. Becoming disenchanted, one becomes dispassionate. And through dispassion, the mind is liberated.

This attachment to the body also deeply conditions our fear of death. The more we cling, the harder it is to let go.

We can also strengthen the quality of ardor by reflecting on the transiency of all phenomena. Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

Wisdom is the clear seeing of the impermanent, conditioned nature of all phenomena, knowing that whatever arises has the nature to cease. When we see this impermanence deeply, we no longer cling; and when we no longer cling, we come to the end of suffering.

Not Seeing Dukkha Is Dukkha

together and disappear when the conditions change. None of them

Whatever is born will die; Whatever is joined will come apart; Whatever is gathered will disperse; Whatever is high will fall. Having considered this, I resolve not to be attached To these lush meadows, Even now, in the full glory of my display, Even as my petals unfold in splendor . . . You too, while strong and fit, Should abandon your clinging. . . . Seek the pure field of freedom, The great serenity.3

Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping.

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

Whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away.

When the mind is silent, relaxed and attentive, pain is experienced not as a solid mass but as a flow, arising and vanishing moment to moment.

When we see something pleasant, we want to hold on, not understanding the impermanence of it all. As soon as we become mindful, paying attention to what's happening, seeing how everything is arising and passing away, the grasping and greed decreases. There's nothing to hold onto. It's all bubbles. And the experience of impermanence, the dissolving of the solidity of everything, brings about the letting go, the state of non-attachment.

That which is impermanent is inherently unreliable and unsatisfying. And that which is unreliable and unsatisfying cannot truly be considered to be I or Mine.

Better than one hundred years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things / Is one day lived seeing their arising and passing."2 What does this say about what we value and work for in our lives, and about the liberating effect of seeing directly, in the moment, the truth of change?

Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change.

He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.

Live each day as if it were your last, 'cause I'm gonna kill you but I'm not super-good w/schedules

My wish is to live a life in which emotions come slowly as clouds on a calm day. You see the approach, you contemplate the beauty of the cloud, you observe it passing, you let it go. You do not dwell upon what you have seen, you do not regret it, you are content to understand that the identical cloud will never come again—no matter how beautiful, unique, you do not weep at its loss.

Everything that you think is solid is actually fleeting and ephemeral.

Death, I now see, may not come when I am 85 and weary, or after I have solved all my problems or met all my deadlines. It will come whenever it damn well pleases; all I can control is the time between. So when I see something I want, I grab it. If the tulips are particularly yellow, I buy them.

Seen in either geological or biological terms, we don't warrant attention as individuals. One of us doesn't differ that much from another, each generation repeats its parents, the works we build to outlast us are not much more enduring than anthills, and much less so than coral reefs.