in the midst of constant change - we are not "selves"

 

But just why is everything impermanent and in constant change? 

The answer has to do with what might be called 

the flip-side of anicca: pratityasamutpada, 

or, technically, “interdependent origination.”

More simply: everything changes because everything is interrelated.

 Everything comes into being 

and continues in being 

through and with something else.

Nothing, Buddha came to see, has its own existence.

In fact, when he wanted to describe the human self, 

or the self/identity of anything,

 the term he used was anatta,

 which means literally no-self. 

We are not “selves” in the sense of individual, 

separate, independent “things.”

 Rather, we are constantly changing

 because we are constantly interrelating.

~ Paul F. Knitter

Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture

 at Union Theological Seminary in New York

with thanks to love is a place