Search results for: "The Three Characteristics"

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  2. Help Others, Help Your Mind
     … Apparently he thought that discernment had to mean seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha’s categorical teachings don’t include the three characteristics. They include the principle that skillful actions should be developed, and unskillful actions should be abandoned, and then the four noble truths, which are basically the application of that first principle to the problem of suffering … 
  3. The World of the Noble Truths
     … All too often you hear it the other way around, that the world is described by these three characteristics, and the four noble truths are true because they admit the truth of the three characteristics. But that’s getting things backwards—because the three characteristics, on their own, don’t have any duties. You can say, “The world is inconstant,” and you can do … 
  4. A Questioning Attitude
     … Or looking at things in terms of the three characteristics: I was reading a book a while back saying that other perceptions come under the five aggregates of clinging, and therefore are a form of suffering. But for some reason the author was saying that the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self don’t count as a form of suffering. Therefore, you can … 
  5. A Refuge Inside
     … There’s the suffering of the three characteristics. As he says, Sabbe sankhara dukkha: All fabricated things are suffering. But then there’s also the suffering of the four noble truths, what he calls the five clinging-aggregates. The first kind of suffering is just the way things are, in and of themselves. The question is: Why does that create suffering for us? Because … 
  6. The Power of Truth
     … The content of insight is not the three characteristics, it’s the four noble truths. The three characteristics are helpful within that context, but they don’t form the context themselves. Actually, the word three “characteristics” doesn’t even appear in the Pali Canon. They talk about anicca as a *sañña, *a perception, or as an anupassana, something you focus on as a practice … 
  7. Time & Place
     … But something, say, like the three characteristics, or more properly the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, not-self: There are cases in the Canon where people try to apply those teachings, and the Buddha reprimands them, saying that this is not the place to apply that teaching. One case is of a young monk who is asked by some sectarians, “What does the Buddha … 
  8. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … Back in medieval India, when they introduced the four noble truths in the basic textbooks for Buddhist doctrine, they would start with the five aggregates; move quickly to the three characteristics, and then get to the four noble truths. In other words, they started with a picture of reality: Reality is composed of aggregates, and the aggregates are marked by the three characteristics. The … 
  9. A Connoisseur of Happiness
     … There’s the suffering of the three characteristics, which is inherent in fabricated things. But on top of that is the suffering in the four noble truths, which is caused by craving and clinging. That kind of suffering you can put an end to. And when you put an end to it, the suffering of the three characteristics no longer weighs on the mind … 
  10. Insight into Pain
     … There’s the pain in the three characteristics and there’s the pain or suffering in the four noble truths. The pain in the three characteristics is something universal. Wherever there’s a process of fabrication where conditions come together to create other conditions, there’s going to be stress. There’s stress inherent in the fact that things arise and pass away, and … 
  11. Immersed in the Body
     … for. This is one of the ways in which concentration gives rise to discernment. It may not be in terms of what you’ve heard about what discernment should be: the three characteristics or dependent co-arising. It actually embodies those teachings, but you don’t have to keep the words of those teachings in mind. Just notice: Where’s there a disturbance? And … 
  12. In Context
     … Then there’s the question of what they call the three characteristics or, more accurately, the three perceptions: the principle that everything that’s a product of intentions is inconstant and stressful, and all experiences in the six senses are not self. But that teaching the Buddha never described as categorical. He did say that the four noble truths were categorical—in other words … 
  13. Allowing the Breath to Spread
     … Some forms of suffering or stress are part of the three characteristics. In other words, everything conditioned is going to have some stress. There’s not much you can do about that. But there are other kinds of suffering that are based on craving. That’s stress in the four noble truths, which is based on craving. Because of the craving, you have your … 
  14. Timeless Practice
     … the suffering of the three characteristics and the suffering of the four noble truths. The suffering of the three characteristics is simply the fact that things are fabricated, and there’s stress when you try to find happiness in things that are fabricated. The real suffering is the stress that comes from craving, the stress mentioned in the first noble truth, and that’s … 
  15. Forest Bathing
     … We often hear that we’re here to see things as they are largely in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha never taught that. The three characteristics, he said, are subordinate to the four noble truths. We’re here to understand our craving. We’re here to understand our clinging. We’re here to follow the path. The insight we’re after … 
  16. Dwelling in Emptiness
     … If you want to see the first noble truth, if you want to see the three characteristics, look at where there’s disturbance. In fact, one of the Buddha’s main teachings on emptiness is precisely this point. We tend to think of emptiness as being a very abstract, metaphysical principle: the lack of any self, the lack of any self-nature, even in … 
  17. Doubt vs. Discernment
     … It defines it as seeing things in terms of the three characteristics, which is why you often see sampajañña translated as “clear comprehension.” But the Canon doesn’t define alertness that way at all. It’s simply knowing what you’re doing while you’re doing it. It’s funny that the commentary is very snide when it tries to argue with people who … 
  18. The Beginnings of Wisdom
     … the four noble truths on the one hand, or the three characteristics or perceptions on the other. The two issues are actually related. The four noble truths tell us that the end of suffering is possible. Long-term happiness is possible. We cultivate the desire for that long-term happiness as we practice the path. We let go of any desires that get in … 
  19. The Buddha’s Shoulds
     … And the three characteristics—or more appropriately, the three perceptions—are there to help you see what’s worth holding on to and what’s not, as you go along the fourth noble truth, the path. If you work on something and you find that it’s inconstant, you have to ask yourself, “Is it stressful? Is this the cause of stress, or is … 
  20. Choose Your Actions Wisely
     … He said his practice was to see everything in daily life in terms of the three characteristics. He’d watch TV and see, “Ah, this is inconstant, stressful, not-self.” The traffic was inconstant, stressful, not-self. With everything, he’d apply those three labels to it. Ajaan Fuang had me write back to him, saying, “Don’t place the blame on things outside … 
  21. Cooking with Kamma
     … There’s the suffering in the three characteristics, which is in the way that things change. But that, he says, isn’t the suffering that weighs the mind down. The suffering that weighs the mind down comes from craving and clinging. Craving and clinging he defines in different ways. There’s delight and there’s passion, which can take all kinds of forms. So … 
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