Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) — "All conditioned things are impermanent — when one sees this with wisdom, then on…"
All conditioned things are impermanent — when one sees this with wisdom, then one turns away from suffering.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
"Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is in the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in sta…"
"If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart."
"The greatest prayer is patience."
"The Enlightened One is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the ocean."
"When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky."
Verification
Confirmed
Found in 2 providers: grok,gemini
2 sources checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Everything that comes into being through causes and conditions eventually changes or ends. Relationships, possessions, feelings, even our own bodies are temporary. The quote argues that truly grasping this truth, not just intellectually but deeply, loosens our grip on clinging. When we stop expecting permanence from things that cannot provide it, we free ourselves from the disappointment and craving that generate most of our pain.
Relevance to Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
This is a core teaching of the Buddha, tied directly to his awakening under the Bodhi tree. After abandoning his princely life and years of extreme asceticism, he identified impermanence (anicca) as one of the three marks of existence. As a teacher who spent 45 years traveling northern India guiding monks and laypeople, he repeatedly returned to this insight as the gateway out of dukkha, the suffering he vowed to help others escape.
The era
In 5th-century BCE northern India, the dominant Vedic-Brahmanical tradition emphasized an eternal self (atman) and ritual sacrifice to secure favorable rebirth. The Buddha taught during the sramana movement, when wandering ascetics openly challenged priestly orthodoxy. Declaring all conditioned things impermanent directly contradicted Brahmanical metaphysics and offered an alternative path based on direct insight rather than caste-bound ritual, which is partly why his teachings spread rapidly across the Ganges plain.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].