ABSTRACT
The feeling of impermanence (mujōkan) is made up of two elements. One is keen perception of change occurring over time in the actual world, including the self. The other is cathexis, or investment with significance, of things which go away or die away (as opposed to things which are growing or being created). When the element of awareness is stronger, the feeling of impermanence becomes a transcendent affective neutrality; this farsighted type of feeling is typified in the extreme by a Buddhist priest who has attained ‘enlightenment.’ When the element of cathexis is stronger, the feeling of impermanence is colored by a boundless attachment to that which has passed on; this is the exclamatory (or grieving) type.
