Based on — Hillside Hermitage Talk 108

Introduction

Among the three characteristics taught by the Buddha, anicca — impermanence — is the most commonly mentioned yet the most misunderstood. It is often reduced to a simple idea: “everything changes”. While factually true, this understanding remains superficial and does not touch the liberating insight taught in the early Buddhist texts.

In this article, based on a discussion with Ajahn Ñāṇamoli Thero, we explore the true depth of anicca and how it must be understood on the level of saṅkhārās — the underlying structures that determine experience itself.

1. The Common but Incorrect View: “Everything Changes”

Many people equate anicca with the observable fact that:

  • Things appear
  • Things change
  • Things pass away

But Ajahn Ñāṇamoli points out that simply seeing change in phenomena does not lead to insight. Scientific knowledge, which explains that “everything is changing,” does not free anyone from suffering. Why?

Because it is understood at the wrong level — the level of dhammas (phenomena), not the level of saṅkhārās.

The Buddha did not say “all things are impermanent.” He said:

  • sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā — all formations/conditioned constructs are impermanent.

This difference is crucial.

2. What Are Saṅkhārās?

The Hidden Basis of Experience
Saṅkhārās are not the objects you experience. They are the determinants, the underlying structures that make experience possible:

  • The living body
  • The enduring feeling tone
  • The assumption of ownership
  • The given field of experience you find yourself in every moment

These cannot be directly stared at. They are the background, not the objects. You discern them peripherally, as the enduring condition that supports every moment of experience.

Thus:

  • You can sense a sight.
  • You can hear a sound.
  • But you cannot see the body as the necessary basis while you are looking at sights.

Yet the body is always there first, enabling everything else.

3. The Body as the Primary Saṅkhāra

The Buddha often described the body as:

“This body, made of the four great elements, procreated by mother and father, built up by food, subject to change, decay, and dissolution.” (MN 77)

The body is:

  • Given to you
  • Enduring on its own
  • Not created by you
  • Not under your control

Without it:

  • No seeing
  • No hearing
  • No thinking
  • No experience at all

The body is therefore the primary container of all experience — the most immediate saṅkhāra.

The sense of ownership (“my body,” “my experience”) sits on top of this given container, disguising its instability.

4. Why Anicca Leads to Dukkha

When anicca is fully understood at the level of saṅkhārās, a deep emotional realization arises:

  • The entire basis of your existence is unstable.
  • You depend completely on something you did not create.
  • All control is enclosed within a larger field of non-control.

This is why the Buddha said:

sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā — all formations are suffering.

The suffering does not come from “things changing,” but from being enclosed in an unstable, uncontrollable condition.

Ajahn Ñāṇamoli compares this to:

Being buried alive in a coffin with air to breathe.
You can move, think, decide, speak — but never escape the container that holds you.

This image evokes the existential pressure of saṃsāra.

5. Craving: The Fuel That Keeps the Cycle Turning

Craving arises because things have already changed in a way you dislike. Examples:

  • Pain arises → you want it to stop.
  • Pleasure arises → you want it to continue.
  • Neutrality feels boring → you want stimulation.

In all cases:

You react to change with more wanting of change.

Craving tries to escape instability by demanding more instability. Ajahn compares this to a fish hooked on a line:

  • The more it struggles,
  • The deeper the hook pierces.

6. The Real Way Out

The Buddha did not teach a way to escape the aggregates or the body. There is no outside to sensory experience. You cannot “dig a tunnel” out of your own body.

The true escape is internal:

Stop resisting the nature of saṅkhārās.

Stop insisting that the unstable must become stable.**

This is achieved through:

  • Right View
  • Mindfulness of death
  • Recognition of non-control
  • Gradual dispassion toward craving
  • Understanding the emptiness of ownership

When craving ceases:

  • The emotional burden lifts.
  • The basis is still unstable, but no longer oppressive.
  • The heart becomes free.

For an arahant, the aggregates continue merely as a container. When the body finally breaks apart at death:

  • Nibbāna is realized — the complete cessation of saṅkhārās.

Conclusion

Anicca is not about watching things appear and disappear. It is about recognizing that the very foundation of your experience—the body, feelings, existence itself—is unstable, given, and beyond control.

Seeing this clearly:

  • undermines attachment,
  • reveals the nature of dukkha, and
  • opens the path to dispassion.

When this understanding matures, the mind loses its compulsive need to resist reality. This is the beginning of liberation.