Permanent Phenomena (nitya, rtag pa)

Permanent phenomena are not necessarily eternal. Although some permanent phenomena always exist in an unbroken continuum throughout time, others come into and go out of existence. Thus there are two types of permanent phenomena, occasional and non-occasional. What makes a permanent permanent permanent is that while it exists it does not change.

In general, permanent phenomena are divided into four types:

• space (akasha, nam mkha’)
• analytical cessation (pratisamkhyanirodha, so sor brtags ‘gog)
• non-analytical cessation (apratisamkhyanirodha, so sor brtags min gyi ‘gog pa)
• suchness (tathata, de bzhin nyid)