The Buddhist world view includes a sense of impermanence, which tells us that everything about life is temporary. Clearly, our state of being alive is temporary. However, impermanence – annica – has greater implications. The Buddha noticed that everything is transient or subject to decline and destruction. Beautiful trees lose their leaves, emotional bonds break, memories fade, water in the ocean becomes rain. Everything is always and actively changing.

Many centuries after the Buddha lived (4th century BC), scientists identified “entropy”, a scientific parallel of the philosophical notion of impermanence. Entropy states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state, and entropy also reveals the natural processes that fuel change and breakdown in the physical world.

The enormity and grandeur found in my current landscape — 11,000-foot mountains, wide vistas, sweeping valleys –seems to contradict entropy. After all, the Gallatin Range formed in the Eocene Epoch, 66 million to 23 million years ago and has been around a long time. Such mighty, ancient mountains seem permanent to me – masters of the universe, immovable and ever-present, gazing over their earthly domain and the creatures who live and die on its slopes.

Yet, if we zoom to Eagle Creek along the edge of the campground, we can see sediment from higher elevations that is moving to the valley. If we look at a clump of trees on a slope, we see not only healthy specimens but old trees in various states of decay. As I gaze through my scope at Electric Peak, I see avalanche chutes littered with rocks and fallen trees brought down by a wall of snow. I look out the window of my camper and see bison mowing the grass as they feed and then depositing seeds further down the road, nicely encased in fertilizer.  In Yellowstone, I can even see the very core of the earth changing. It heats up, spews out superheated water, and then settles down for a time. In fact, Yellowstone is a premiere example of change in a mountainous domain. Many of the famous landmarks in the Park lie inside a caldera, the formation left after a massive volcanic explosion. So, in the solitude and permanent vibe of these mountains, billions upon billions of organic and inorganic molecules, above and below ground, slowly transform everything around them.

And so, we change too. The physical changes are obvious! I look in the mirror and see silver hair that was once deep brown. Less obvious: the emotional, spiritual, and mental changes that occur over our lifespan. Annica is a useful concept as we grow spiritually.  We can change so many things we don’t like about ourselves. We can enhance our spiritual life and we can let go of our burdens. We can mature beyond the whims of our youth. How?

It all begins with accepting the truth of impermanence and change. Nothing is fixed or permanent. What is real in the existing moment may change next week. We can then reframe how we think about losing a loved one. We can let go of our past and forgive ourselves or others. In time we become less sorrowful and more joyous, focused on today.

If Buddhist thought doesn’t excite you, consider this: the ancient Israelites developed their own version of the temporary, changing nature of life, as seen in Ecclesiastes 3 (Jewish Scripture):

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴

Temporary