All Dharmas Are Impermanent

All phenomena are impermanent; emotions are likewise impermanent. Each undergoes stages of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, none can endure unchanged or exist permanently. If the emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure arising from the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion could persist eternally unchanged, consider what the outcome would be for sentient beings? The result would be mental collapse and, ultimately, death. Even if non-afflictive joy and pleasure were to remain permanently unchanged within a person, that individual would still be incapable of attaining profound meditative absorption.

The universal law of impermanence in the world is suited to the survival of sentient beings. If that law were to become permanent, sentient beings would be utterly unable to endure it. Although the impermanence of phenomena causes suffering for sentient beings, permanence would equally cause suffering. Therefore, the very nature of the world is suffering.