Impermanence and Attachment

But I love cheese. My grandmother made that recipe every Christmas. I’ve always eaten this way. These are not shallow objections to dietary change — they point to something real and deep. Impermanence and attachment are, in Buddhist teaching, at the root of most human suffering, and nowhere is this clearer than in our relationship with food. This chapter of The Compassionate Table explores why changing what we eat can feel like a threat to who we are — and how the Buddhist teaching of anicca (impermanence) offers both a precise analysis of that difficulty and a genuine path through it.

The Teaching of Anicca

Anicca — impermanence — is the first of the three marks of existence in Buddhist teaching. The Anattalakkhana Sutta, traditionally the second discourse the Buddha gave after his enlightenment, applied it systematically to every aspect of experience: all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not fit to be regarded as a fixed self. The Pali word upadana — clinging or attachment — describes what happens when we mistake an impermanent pattern for a permanent feature of who we are. The literal meaning of upadana is fuel: it is what keeps the fire of craving burning.

When someone says I am a meat eater, they are not simply describing a dietary habit. They are asserting an identity. And identity, as the Buddhist analysis correctly predicts and contemporary psychology confirms, is one of the most fiercely defended things a human being possesses.

What the Research Shows

Contemporary identity research confirms the Buddhist account. A 2022 scoping review published in Nutrients (Markowski, 2022) found that identity centrality — the degree to which a particular self-concept is central to one’s overall sense of self — is one of the strongest predictors of dietary behaviour and resistance to change. Strong identification as a meat eater predicts higher meat consumption independently of beliefs, access, or self-efficacy. Conversely, a stable vegan identity is the strongest predictor of sustained dietary commitment (Markowski, 2023). The attachment is real. So is the possibility of change.

The Impermanence of Food Traditions

One of the most liberating insights available to anyone anxious about losing food traditions is the historical evidence for how thoroughly those traditions have already changed. Impermanence and attachment to culinary heritage can obscure the fact that virtually every beloved food tradition is the product of radical historical change. There were no tomatoes in Italian cooking before the Columbian Exchange in the sixteenth century. No potatoes in Ireland before the seventeenth century. No chili peppers in any Asian or Indian cuisine before contact with the Americas. The foods that feel most essentially ours are, in historical terms, recent arrivals. The essence of food tradition — the love, the gathering, the care — does not reside in specific ingredients. It resides in the relationship and the intention.

The Neuroscience of Letting Go

Neuroscience supports the Buddhist teaching on the gradual path. Research by Graybiel and Smith (2023) at MIT found that habit consolidation — the transfer of a behaviour from conscious decision to automatic response — requires between 66 and 91 consistent repetitions, not the widely cited 21 days. The brain changes through patient, repeated practice. Old circuits weaken. New ones strengthen. The Vipassana technique of noting — observing cravings with labelled attention (craving… craving fading… gone) rather than either suppressing them or acting on them — makes the impermanent nature of mental states directly visible. The craving that feels irresistible and permanent is revealed, through direct observation, as a passing weather pattern. Impermanence and attachment, seen clearly, begin to loosen their grip.

Want to read more?