Anchoring equanimity in impermanence

When difficulty or pleasure arises, add the silent note "this too will change" — not as denial but as accurate perception.

Why it works

The mind's habitual over-weighting of the current moment — loss aversion, hedonic forecasting errors — produces both excessive suffering during bad times and excessive grasping during good ones. Noting impermanence as a real fact (not a consolation story) corrects the over-weighting and produces genuine equanimity: the situation is exactly as it is, and it will change.

How to do it

1. During formal meditation, note the arising and passing of each sensation, sound, and thought: "arising… passing…"
2. In daily life, when strongly attracted to or repelled by something, silently note: "This is impermanent."
3. Do not use the phrase as a bypass ("it does not matter") — use it as an accurate description.
4. Notice the difference between noting impermanence with resignation versus noting it with spacious acceptance.

Evidence

Temporal distancing — mentally stepping back from current experience and perceiving it in a longer timeframe — reliably reduces emotional reactivity in experimental studies. (rct)

Grossmann & Kross test self-distancing reasoning, not impermanence noting in Buddhist practice; the temporal-perspective mechanism is shared.

Sources

• Grossmann & Kross (2014), exploring Solomon's paradox: self-distancing eliminates the self-other asymmetry in wise reasoning, Psychological Science

Common mistake

Using "this too will pass" to avoid fully feeling difficult emotions, which produces bypassing rather than equanimity — upekkha holds experience, not at arm’s length, but without being swept away.