Anicca · अनित्य · impermanence

The first of the three marks: everything that arises passes. Not as melancholy but as observation, and observed closely enough that it becomes the whole practice — watch any sensation long enough and you will not find it holding still. The Buddha's reported last words are the doctrine in one sentence: all conditioned things are impermanent; work out your salvation with diligence. The Kabbalah's nearest neighbour is ratzo va-shov, the running-and-returning of the chayot in Ezekiel's chariot: existence itself pulsing in and out of being, so that creation is not an event but a continuous re-issuing. Both traditions found the flicker. Judaism reads it as evidence of a Sustainer re-speaking the world each instant; Buddhism reads it as evidence that there is nothing solid enough to need one.