Chapter 19 Further Reading: Time, Change, and Impermanence

Primary Texts

Heraclitus, Fragments The pre-Socratic philosopher left no complete works — only approximately 130 fragments preserved in later writers. The best modern edition for English readers is Charles Kahn's The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Cambridge University Press, 1979), which provides the fragments with extensive philosophical commentary. For a more accessible reading experience, try the selections in G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield's The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 1983). Do not be deterred by the obscurity of the fragments — their compressed, paradoxical style is part of what makes Heraclitus philosophically interesting. The fragments on flux (DK 12, 49a, 91), the logos (DK 1, 2, 50), fire (DK 30, 31), and the unity of opposites (DK 10, 51, 88) are the essential ones for this chapter.

The Dhammapada The most accessible entry point to Buddhist thought on impermanence, this collection of the Buddha's verses has been translated many times into English. Recommended translations: Eknath Easwaran (Nilgiri Press) for elegance and readability; Bhikkhu Bodhi for scholarly precision. The sections on mind, impermanence, and the path are directly relevant. For a deeper engagement with anicca specifically, the Anattalakkhana Sutta (the discourse on not-self) is essential — available free online through Access to Insight (accesstoinsight.org).

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Any translation will serve, but Gregory Hays (Modern Library, 2002) is particularly readable and well-introduced. For passages specifically on time and impermanence, focus on Books II, IV, VI, and IX. Marcus returns to the same themes again and again — this is deliberate; the Meditations were exercises in philosophical self-discipline, not systematic treatises. Reading them as a practice manual rather than an argument reveals their particular power.

Henri Bergson, Duration and Simultaneity (1922) Written partly as a response to Einstein's relativity, this is one of Bergson's most accessible works on the philosophy of time. For a broader introduction to his thought, An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903) is a short, brilliant essay that can be read in an evening and serves as the best single-document entry point to Bergsonian philosophy. His larger work Matter and Memory (1896) contains his most developed account of how the past lives within the present.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Division II (1927) Division I of Being and Time (sections 1–44) is required reading for Division II, but the chapter relevant to this course begins with the analysis of authentic temporality in Division II (sections 45–83). Translations by Joan Stambaugh (revised edition, SUNY Press, 2010) and by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Harper, 1962) are both widely used. Fair warning: this is one of the most difficult texts in Western philosophy. Hubert Dreyfus's Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I (MIT Press, 1991) is the best secondary guide for serious students.

Secondary Works

Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997) A Tibetan Buddhist teacher writes about impermanence with extraordinary directness, warmth, and honesty. This is not a philosophy textbook — it is a practice manual written from lived experience — and it is one of the best introductions to what Buddhist teachings about impermanence actually feel like to apply in a difficult life. Her discussion of "groundlessness" — the feeling of the rug being pulled out — is philosophically precise and practically useful.

Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It (2021) A contemporary journalist engages seriously with Heidegger, the Stoics, and Buddhist traditions to write about what it means to live well within the radical constraints of finite time. Bergson, being-toward-death, and the paradox of productivity culture all appear. Written with genuine philosophical seriousness and accessible prose, this is one of the best recent popular treatments of the philosophical questions in this chapter.

Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding (2007) Johnson's account of embodied cognition connects Bergson's philosophy of duration to contemporary cognitive science, arguing that the body and its temporal rhythms are the primary site of meaning-making. More technical than the other secondary works but rewarding for those interested in the biological dimension of lived time.

Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time (2017) An Italian theoretical physicist writes beautifully about what physics actually says about time — and how surprisingly close it comes to what philosophers and poets have said. Rovelli's account of the "block universe," the directionality of time, and the relationship between time and entropy is both scientifically informed and philosophically sensitive. His final chapter, drawing on Aristotle and Buddhist thought to make sense of human temporality in light of physics, is a genuine philosophical contribution.

Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004) The first four chapters provide the clearest account available for general readers of what modern physics (from Newton through Einstein through quantum mechanics) actually says about the nature of time. Essential background for appreciating both the distance and the proximity between the physicist's time and the philosopher's time.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970) Brief, deceptively simple, and inexhaustible — this classic of Zen literature is the best single text for understanding the experiential dimension of Buddhist impermanence. The chapter on "beginner's mind" is directly relevant to the practice exercises in this chapter. Read slowly, more than once.

A Note on Practice

The philosophical traditions in this chapter are not primarily theories to be assessed from a distance. They are practices — disciplines of attention, inquiry, and relationship with one's own experience. If the ideas in this chapter interest you, the most important next step is not more reading but some form of direct engagement: a meditation practice, a journaling practice, a Stoic reflection practice, or a sustained effort to inhabit Bergsonian duration in at least some portion of your day. The reading will deepen as the practice develops, and the practice will make the reading more alive.