The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
— Isaac Asimov
You cannot step into the same river twice.
— Heraclitus
Plato, like so many other Greek philosphers, was stymied by the question of change in the physical world. Heraclitus had said that there is nothing certain or stable except the fact that things change, and Parmenides and the Eleatic philosophers claimed that all change, motion, and time was an illusion. Where was the truth? How can these two opposite positions be reconciled?
The buddhist call it Annica
As a consequence of all of its focus of attention on impermanence, Buddhism teaches the practice of aniccanupassana, ("contemplation of impermanence" or Vipassana) as the way of learning the truth of impermanence. The importance of the practice of aniccanupassana has traditionally been demonstrated by the snapping of the fingers, this is an invaluable exercise illustrating how little attention people give to impermanence. The concern devoted to impermanence is not just an academic issue but is important to the process of continuity because it liberates the person from attachment to objects, both mental and physical, within the world. If things are impermanent they have no intrinsic value; therefore they are unworthy of one's preoccupation. In particular, emphasis is placed upon the impermanence of physical, emotional, and mental states through which the external world is perceived. The actual contemplation process involves observing, or watching, the rise or appearance of a certain datum, verifying its "dependent" or "caused" origin, then by a similar method, "watching" its subsidence or disappearance and verifying its transient characteristic. Here, a given object of experience, is not only "seen" to be impermanent but is also "deduced" to be such on the basis of the fact that it is "dependent" for its existence on something else which is impermanent; so, for example, "feeling" is impermanent because it is dependent on the "body" which is impermanent, and so on. It is a process by which one moves from the particular to the general and from the general back to the particular, until ultimately one arrives at the insight (panna) that all is "impermanent" (sabbam aniccam).
Acceding intellectually to the truth of impermanence is termed in Buddhism the acquisition of the "right view" and is synonymous with entry on the path to enlightenment. The discernment of impermanence correspondingly represents the "explosion" or "dissolution" of all wrong views because the construction of any metaphysical system necessarily rests upon the assumption of some notion of "permanence" or of some element of "permanence" within it; therefore, the acceptance of anicca works counter to the tendency to superimpose constructions on reality.
I just want to read imminst members views on change, and what place it has in your principles personally so please feel free to reply.
