Constancy has been at the forefront of insight meditation and Buddhist philosophy throughout the religion’s long and varied history. Like paying attention to the other two “signs” of existence (non-self and suffering), meditation on impermanence has proven deeply liberating for practitioners in the Buddhist tradition. Although Buddhists in all eras seem to agree on the efficacy of this practice, there has nevertheless been considerable disagreement throughout Buddhist history as to what kind of liberation meditation on impermanence can bring.
One way to understand these differences is between dualistic accounts of liberation—those that envision the Buddhist ideal of nirvana as this impermanent world—and nondualist accounts of Buddhist liberation—those that envision liberation as an enlightened, more skillful way of being in this ephemeral world. The dualistic versions focus on the incomprehensible difference between the impermanent worldly existence of samsara and the unchanging, unconditioned realm of nirvana. In contrast, non-dualist accounts focus on liberation in this conditioned, transitory world, sometimes denying that anything is unconditional and permanent to be achieved. Of course, many liberation experiences are described between and around these two poles, but these diametrically opposed positions are always somewhere near the surface. Both types of Buddhist practitioners meditate extensively on impermanence, but they do so for very different reasons and envision very different outcomes.
Although there are certainly differences of opinion in the earliest Buddhist sutras, they tend to lean strongly toward an otherworldly conception of nirvana. Unlike virtually everything else, nirvana was thought to be Assamese Sanskrit– “unconfused” or “unconditioned” – and therefore completely beyond the processes of birth and death that define the permanent, unstable world in which we live. The crucial point here is that what many early Buddhist monks sought to cultivate by meditating on impermanence was disillusionment with the world, not interest in it. And sometimes, beyond disillusionment, they sought a whole range of responses to the world from indifference and indifference to disgust and revulsion.
The most ardent early practitioners did this meditation in charnel grounds, cemeteries of death, rather than in peaceful and beautiful places—by a lake or in a shady garden—to emphasize their dissatisfaction with the world and to distract their minds from it. They sought to undermine the “pleasure in being,” knowing that the ephemeral world of samsara is wildly alluring, even if it is full of dissatisfaction and pain. They understood how the flashy movements of this world lure us into attachments and delusions that tragically prolong suffering, death, and rebirth. Early meditations on impermanence were intended to lead practitioners away from the unreliable, unbound world of coming and going and toward the unchanging tranquility of nirvana.
While not advocating disenchantment, many contemporary Buddhist teachers and writers recognize that certain qualities of detachment from the attractions of the world are necessary for deep practice—a retreat into the service of mindfulness without the need for renunciation. Either way, these practitioners meditate on impermanence in a non-dualistic way. Here is Susan Murphy, who emphasizes the non-duality of impermanence when she writes: “Samsara and nirvana… are not opposed to each other…” so that “the sacred order of things is not in some safe somewhere else but manifests in impermanence itself” (“Why love what you lose” Tricycle, 20 March 2025).
Only by dualistically opposing each other can dualism and non-dualism be anything but non-dual, inevitably entangled with each other.
This rethinking and reappraisal of impermanence is not entirely new. In the early layers of Buddhist experience, many non-dual tendencies are employed, with some Mahayana sutras and practices equating nirvana with samsara. Nirvana is not a static realm that transcends the world of movement and interdependence. Following these influential insights, Chan/Zen adepts relied on the secular trends of Chinese culture to deeply ground everyday life in the theoretical non-dualism of South Asian Mahayana, while in their own way, Tibetan tantric practices tended in a similar direction. All these expansions of non-dual Buddhism naturally occurred alongside various otherworldly, transcendent ways of conceiving the goal of practice. Only by dualistically opposing each other can dualism and non-dualism be anything but non-dual, inevitably intertwined.
Returning to the perspective of this long history, one thematic pattern of the entire history of Buddhism is a gradual and very complex journey from dualism to non-dualism, from awakening from this world to awakening into the world. If we think about impermanence embedded in the historical movement of Buddhism, we can see that what Buddhists have done so gradually over the long history of Buddhism is to meditate on constant change and movement, to free the contemplative experience of impermanence from its otherworldly implications, to understand ourselves and the world more deeply, and to live in the most appropriate way to love it.
These meditations on impermanence reveal the dynamic complexity of our world and the ever-changing connections between all its dimensions. They open our minds to the delusions of “separation” and “static isolation” that run through our everyday assumptions. They allow us to viscerally sense the closeness and kinship we can experience with the rich diversity around us. Although we are moving toward a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of non-dualism in all areas of culture, from science to politics, this vision still seeps into our daily experience, gradually teaching us the two ethical poles of impermanence that we learned from the Buddhists: letting go and compassionate participation, nonchalance and open-heartedness. By freeing the consciousness of impermanence from its role as something to be resisted and overcome, we free it to play more fully the role it has played throughout the extraordinary history of Buddhism—as a meditative catalyst for a deeper awareness of reality.
