Search results for: "The Three Characteristics"

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  2. For the Cessation of Dukkha
     … It’s why the practice begins with the four noble truths, not with the three characteristics. The simple fact that there are things that arise and pass away that are dependent on conditions, fabrications, and there’s a stress inherent in the fact that those things are dependent on conditions and are inconstant.: That’s not the beginning of the practice. It’s simply … 
  3. Acceptance
     … Sometimes we’re told that the Buddha awakened to the three characteristics, that this is the way things are: There’s nobody there. Nothing’s permanent. That teaching on its own makes it sound like you just have to accept things. But the Buddha awakened to the four noble truths. The three characteristics or the three perceptions played a role in fulfilling the duties … 
  4. Doing Meditation
     … This is where the teachings on the three characteristics have their role: They’re applied to the doing. We’re looking for true happiness, and they’re our test, like a touchstone. In the past they used a touchstone to test gold. Well, in your meditation, the three characteristics are your touchstone. Have you arrived at the end of the meditation? Have you arrived … 
  5. You Should Heed These Shoulds
     … On their own, the three characteristics—when the perceptions are turned into characteristics—have no imperatives. You can use them to justify any kind of behavior—like the idea, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” Or, “Try to squeeze as much pleasure as you can out of things as they go running past.” Or the idea that you shouldn’t … 
  6. Right Questions in the Right Order
     … the one on the four noble truths and the one on the three characteristics or the three perceptions. It’s important to note that the one on the four noble truths comes first. He starts out by saying that the path he teaches is for the sake of the deathless and for the sake of unbinding. So he establishes the purpose first. And what … 
  7. Right View about Right View
     … Now, you notice that the three characteristics are not on that list. In fact, the word “three characteristics” is never applied by the Buddha to the teachings on inconstancy, stress, and not-self. He calls them perceptions. In a couple of cases, they’re also called contemplations, which means that they’re ways of looking at things. When you try to map these perceptions … 
  8. Anti-slacker Dhamma
     … So how did Slacker Buddhism get started? It can be traced back to a tendency that you find in the Commentary, where they say, “What is the Buddha’s categorical teaching, the teaching that’s true across the board?” And, in response, they identify the three characteristics. There are several reasons for not accepting this response. The first is that the Buddha never taught … 
  9. Maintenance Work
     … If you start analyzing states of concentration in terms of the three characteristics before you’ve really depended on those states, before you’ve really gotten familiar with them, it short-circuits the whole process. “Oh yes, concentration is unstable.” Well, anyone can sit and meditate for two minutes and learn that, and it doesn’t mean very much. But if you develop the … 
  10. Patience & Sensitivity
     … And what are you going to see? When the Buddha talks about his awakening, it’s interesting to notice that he never talks in terms of the three characteristics or the three perceptions. It’s always in terms of the four noble truths, which are truths about action and result: There are unskillful mental actions that lead to suffering, skillful actions that lead to … 
  11. The Psychology of Harmlessness
     … Other teachings fit in the context of those values—for instance, the three characteristics or the three perceptions. One of the ways of comprehending your clinging is to see that the things you’re clinging to are inconstant and stressful. Now, if we didn’t have the four noble truths as a framework, a part of the mind would say, “Well, they may be … 
  12. Rooted in Desire
     … And I was struck by how many times the authors, when explaining right view, would make a brief mention of the four noble truths and then shift almost immediately to the three characteristics, saying that the four noble truths are true because things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, not-self. That’s the reality out there, and we suffer because we cling to things that change … 
  13. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … Some people define right view as the three characteristics, but the Buddha never does that. The three characteristics, or the three perceptions, have their place within the four noble truths as you apply them to help comprehend suffering or abandon the cause. But the underlying framework you’ve always got to always keep in mind, the framework that actually gives meaning to these perceptions … 
  14. The Dhamma Mirror
     … This is why Ajaan Lee, when he talks about awakening, doesn’t talk about seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. Instead, he talks about seeing them in terms of the four noble truths, because with the four noble truths, you have to reflect, “What am I doing?” The three characteristics don’t necessarily have you reflect in that way. Trees are inconstant … 
  15. Infinite Good Humor
     … We tend to think of wisdom or discernment as dealing with the three characteristics or emptiness or dependent co-arising: very high-level teachings. But as the Buddha pointed out, it begins with this ability to talk yourself into doing things that you don’t like doing but you know are going to give good results, and the ability to talk yourself out of … 
  16. Return of Wisdom for Dummies
    When the Buddha introduced his teachings to people, he very rarely started out with big principles like the four noble truths or the three characteristics. He started out instead with an action that his listeners were familiar with: He’d start out with the act of generosity. And he had an etiquette around that. It wasn’t to get people to be generous. Often … 
  17. Complaining Rights
     … What’s the connection between the four noble truths and the three characteristics? Which noble truth do they fall under? Well, the three characteristics—they’re actually three perceptions—are tools for performing the duties of the four noble truths. They don’t come under any one particular truth. You apply them to the stress so that you can see the arising and falling … 
  18. Discernment on the Path
     … This is what the teachings on the three characteristics are all about. All too often, they’re presented as, “This is the picture of reality, and if you see this is the way things really are, then you’ve gained awakening.” But these three characteristics are not goals to which we strive, they’re actually meant to be tools to a higher goal. You … 
  19. Frame Your Questions Well
     … They’re not like, say the three characteristics, which, if they’re taken on their own, don’t have any duties. The Buddha wasn’t the first to point out that things are inconstant, stressful and not-self. There are a lot of hedonists who say, “Hah, that’s the way things are,” and they drew a very different conclusion from that. But the … 
  20. Outside the Box
     … And you find the teachers coming up with original teachings on, say, the three characteristics. Ajaan Chah would note that inconstant things do have their constant side. They all fall constantly under their pattern of dependent co-arising. They constantly fall under the truths of the four noble truths. That’s what’s constant about them. Ajaan Lee had his own way—in fact … 
  21. You Are Not a Textbook
     … The translator was saying in the footnote, “This is the wisdom factor, and yet it’s defined as to be sensitive to what is skillful and what is unskillful in the mind.” I was puzzled by the “and yet.” Apparently the translator was thinking that insight or discernment means seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But the three characteristics have their meaning … 
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