Impermanence

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Impermanence (Sanskrit: अिनत्य anitya; Pāli: अिनच्च anicca; Tibetan: mi rtag pa; Chinese: 無常 wúcháng; Japanese: 無常 mujō) is one of the essential doctrines or three marks of Buddhism. The term expresses the Buddhist notion that everything, without exception, is constantly in flux, even planets, stars and gods. Human life embodies this flux in the ageing process, 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 impermanence is nirvana, the one reality that knows no change, decay or death. In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, all compounded and constructed things and states are said to be impermanent - but to say the same of nirvana and the Buddha (who is the personalisation of nirvana) is to commit a gross error in understanding and to fall into a harmful misperception of truth (as discussed in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra).