Lesson 6: THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF EXISTENCE

When we try to acquire 'Right Understanding' (samma ditthi), what we are trying to become aware of is the Three Characteristics of Existence / The Three Marks of Being / The Three Signs of Being.

These three basic facts of all existence are:

Anicca - Impermanence (or Change)
Dukkha - Suffering (or Unsatisfactoriness)
Anatta - Not-self (or Insubstantiality)

To begin with we can try to understand this on an intellectual level, through reading or being taught second-hand. However, the best form of wisdom comes from a direct experience. One of the Buddha's Nuns became enlightened and discovered by her own personal investigation, "The world is nothing but vibration and combustion."

In the practice of meditation we are using our body and our mind as a laboratory. We are observing what is going on from moment to moment in the body or in the mind. With development of this practice we can begin to get direct experience of change.

Impermanence (anicca) is the easiest characteristic to experience directly, so that is where the practice focusses - in becoming aware of impermanence.

That leads on to Dukkha; the Buddha said "Whatever is impermanent is also Dukkha" because if something is impermanent, it must be, in an ultimate sense unsatisfactory - it cannot give us lasting happiness.

Impermanence also helps us to get insight into the third of these characteristic - anatta. Unlike the concept of 'a soul' 'the Atman' that many religions teach, where a soul continues on after death. But the Buddha says no. No soul. No Atman (Anatta); just the Five Aggregates....



This dhamma class was recorded with Richard Jones at the London Buddhist Vihara. 2016