Does anicca mean 'constantly changing'?

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A lot of this is just book knowledge which by itself is never liberating. If correct (in line with knowledge gained by insight meditation) it can be inspiring, but that’s all.

It can be better to understand anicca as ‘constantly changing’. Pleasant, unpleasant and neutral are all in a constant state of flux. This is the truth of ‘now’, the present moment (which is all that ever exists). The conditioned tendency, however, is to grasp for the pleasant, reject the unpleasant and ignore the neutral which amounts to wandering in the past and future. This ‘not in the now’ ’default’ mind state is constantly buffeted by this truth and the lack of control that goes with that is a constant source of dissatisfaction that easily balloons into misery.
So, the world as it can be known is conducive to misery and the misery is experienced as a result of clinging to wrong views. That same world conducive to misery, for the arhat, is not miserable because the tendencies to grasp, reject and ignore are abandoned.

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What does ‘constantly changing’ mean?
It sounds similar to this:

wikipedia.org Heraclitus
The central ideas of Heraclitus’s philosophy are the unity of opposites and the concept of change. He also saw harmony and justice in strife. He viewed the world as constantly in flux, always “becoming” but never “being”. He expressed this in sayings like “Everything flows” (Greek: πάντα ρει, panta rhei) and “No man ever steps in the same river twice”.

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The reply is a contribution to the topic it was split off from. You may start your own topic on trying to understand but this is not a reply to your question.

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This is original topic: The connection between the impermanence of formations and the characteristic of dukkha

Repost it there again if you wish.

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I think the idea of constant change is a idea that most people agree with. We are born, age and die. Everything, whether mountains, cars, buildings, body, hair, organs, is changing. Life and the universe is in a flux. No one disagrees with that.

Heraclitus and also Hinduism incorporates this idea in carefully thought out explanations that are, by and large, reasonably useful.

However the Buddhist explanation is rather more radical. Each moment of nama and rupa arises and then ceases instantly. The river that Heraclitus mentioned is merely the shadow of vast amount of groups of matter. And these masses of groups of rupas pass away utterly moment by moment.

Thus the chair we are sitting on, the river, our body, our mind, are concepts - the realities underlying the concepts are evanescent. Not one iota of mind and matter from a second ago is still here. But new ones, conditioned by the past ones ( and other factors) are arising now.

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Yes, I like this teaching because it helps us let go of the notion of self. Each moment of nama and rupa arises and ceases so quickly without our control that we can’t regard them as mine, me, or self.

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I have seen some of these ideas mentioned in the commentaries( don’t remember exactly where right now). Sort of arguments like the following. A flame is a temporary accumulation and play of heat, when the flame is blown off, the manifest flame disappears but the heat is not destroyed etc

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Addendum to above,

many an outsider anumāna is based off of , cause is inherent in the effect(phalena sagabbho hetū) type logic or reasoning.

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Heat is produced and leaves the stream of fire at the moment of its burning every moment, therefore we cannot consider heat as part of the essence of fire, just as we cannot consider sweat, tears, skin dust, exhalation, other waste products as our own body and our Self, our sanatana.
These are simply waste products of matter into the external world, which ceases to be a continuation of our form, our formation, ceases to be internal, captured by kamma and becomes external. In the same way, fire throws out waste products of “life” in the form of smoke, heat, light and ash. But when it begins to die out, it reduces the emission, when it dies out, it stops emitting. It is not that, having ceased to burn, it leaves behind a certain main emission that represents it, but precisely at the moment of burning it throws out, and at the moment of dying out, it stops throwing out. The heat after the fire is the remnants of the emission that it threw out at the moments of burning before, and they continue to sound like an echo when the source has already fallen silent.

By such reasoning we understand that in fact fire has no essence on its side, which would remain, exist after it. Fire is empty of essence, it is only an effect from the combination of conditions. As soon as the conditions cease - it stops arising, as if it had never existed at all. Emissions also stop escaping into the external environment. Fire is not some substance, but a specific form of a process.

If you destroy a beautiful painting, its form will disappear forever, as if it had never existed, it will disappear without a trace, but the substance of the painting will simply pass into the environment. A painting is not reduced to a substance, a painting is only a form of a substance, information recorded on it. If you dig deeper, then substance is also such forms and manifestations, created by a combination of causes and conditions, like fire from the example or a painting recorded on canvas. Atoms and molecules are only forms/formations, conditioned processes, etc. They will disappear as soon as the conditions change, as if they had never existed, leaving no trace of some essence.

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We have to be careful,

reasoning based off of, education in the school of avijja can lead one astray.

The first aid to our problem of moha is nāmarūpapariggaha ñāṇa. Then there is a degree of lokiya ñāṇa regarding dukkha sacca.

Next aid is paccayapariggaha ñāṇa. Then there is a degree of lokiya ñāṇa regarding samudaya sacca.

Then at least, reasoning might have a solid foundation.

In my opinion

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