Search results for: "The Three Characteristics"
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- Skillful Effort… Because after all, what are you doing as you get the mind concentrated? You’re pushing against the three characteristics. In other words, you’re taking things that are inconstant and trying to make them constant. You want the mind to stay still. You take things that are stressful—this body here has lots of stress—but you’re learning how to make it …
- The Wisdom of Wising Up… When you consider the Buddha’s teachings—for example, the four noble truths, the three characteristics, the five hindrances—it’s easy to dismiss them as cultural relics or somebody’s personal proclivity. Why not five or three noble truths? Why does he focus on these particular teachings? Why focus on suffering? Was there something about his culture that kept him from seeing the …
- Two Types of Dukkha… the suffering in what are called the three characteristics, the suffering that’s in inconstancy, and then the suffering in the four noble truths, which comes from craving. When you take care of the second one, the first one is no longer a problem. So the second type of suffering is where your energy is going to be focused. When that problem is solved …
- The Noble Path to Happiness… Sometimes we’re told that it’s seeing things in terms of the three characteristics, but, one, the Buddha never used the term, “three characteristics.” And, two, the four noble truths are actually the context, his definition of right view: the question of where there’s stress and suffering, and what’s causing it, what you can do to put an end to it …
- Bless Yourself… When the Buddha described his own awakening in his autobiographical accounts, he never taught about the three characteristics as being part of the awakening. It was all about the four noble truths. And the four noble truths are about what your desires can do. There are desires that can lead to suffering; there are desires that can lead to the end of suffering. The …
- The Noble Search… Sometimes they’re called the three characteristics, but they’re basically perceptions you develop. And they correspond to those first three reflections that Ratthapala taught to the king. “The world is swept away”: That’s the principle of inconstancy. You look at the things you’re trying to hold onto and you see they just slip through your fingers like water. “Offers no shelter …
- Not Resolved on Self… This is why when the Buddha described his own awakening, he didn’t describe it as awakening to the three characteristics. It was awakening to the four noble truths. The four noble truths are all about skill: the skill of abandoning craving, the skill of developing the path. The same with his first listeners, the five monks: His first teaching to them was the …
- The Flamethrowing Mind… Ajaan Lee, when he divides things up, says that some things are subject to the three characteristics, and other things are not. But that doesn’t mean you hold on to the ones that are not. Everything should be let go of. That’s where we’re headed. That’s how you put out the fires inside. In the meantime, though, you need to …
- Stress… This is why the three characteristics are lined up the way they are. You detect it first because of its inconstancy: There’s an unevenness in the concentration. The level of stress goes up. The level of stress goes down. You have to ask yourself, “When it goes up, what did you just do? What perception appeared to the mind that you held on …
- Duties… There’s the stress of what they call the three characteristics or the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, not-self. The fact that things are inconstant means they’re stressful. And if they’re stressful, why call them your self? That kind of stress happens to everybody. But that’s not the stress that weighs us down. The stress that weighs us down is …
- Analysis of Dhammas… It means profound understanding of the three characteristics. But the word pañña is related to a verb, pajanati, and that can relate to anything, profound or un-profound, where you use your discernment to distinguish what’s happening, what’s also good about what’s happening, or what’s wrong with what’s happening. Even noticing that your breath is short or long: That …
- A Mind Like Earth… Because that’s mainly what we’re looking for: “To what extent is this stress that I’m feeling in my mind right now the result of my own actions?” There is the stress that comes just from the three characteristics, i.e., the fact that things change, that they’re inconstant. They’re dependent on conditions, and anything dependent on conditions has some …
- Dichotomies… I guess he was assuming that discernment had to mean seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha’s wisdom teachings are all about “two’s.” The two teachings he says are categorical are dichotomies. The first is that unskillful qualities should be abandoned, and skillful qualities should be developed. Sometimes those activities—the abandoning and the developing—are two sides …
- Remembering Ajaan Lee… comprehending things in terms of the three characteristics, comprehending them in context. The problem is, the commentary gets very snide about defining alertness as knowing what you’re doing, while you’re doing it—even though that’s clearly how the Canon defines it. Of the three qualities, Ajaan Lee taught that the wisdom quality was in the ardency. You don’t just watch …
- An Issue of Control… It’s suffering or dukkha in the three characteristics. But you don’t just write it off. You look at it. What are the ups and downs of that pain? What makes the pain worse? What makes it better? Is there anything you’re doing right now that makes a difference? Always the Buddha has you explore this line between where you can make …
- Truths of the Will… There’s the truth of the three characteristics which is that anything willed is going to be inconstant, stressful, and not self; anything that’s subject to conditions is going to be stressful. But then there’s also the suffering that comes from craving, especially unskillful craving. The first kind of suffering you can’t do much about, but you can make a difference …
- The Choice Not to Suffer… One is pain in the three characteristics: the fact that there is stress simply because things are put together and fabricated—and that’s everywhere. But the stress that weighs down the mind is a different kind of stress. It’s the stress that comes from craving and ignorance. And those are things you can change. This is where it’s good to think …
- Pain Is a Noble Truth… This is an important distinction we make between the stress and pain of the four noble truths and the stress and pain of what they call the three characteristics. The second kind of stress and pain is the simple fact that we have bodies that have pains. It’s a natural part of the physical processes and the mental processes by which we live …
- Facing Pain Straight On… The pain in the body, that’s the pain of the three characteristics: Wherever there’s inconstancy, there’s going to be stress. And whatever is stressful, the Buddha said, is not self. So that’s not the issue. The issue is the suffering that comes from your craving, your ignorance. And the ignorance is just your inability to see things in terms of …
- Not Getting What You Want… In terms of the Buddha’s teachings, it’s called the stress in the three characteristics. Anything that’s fabricated—in other words, anything that’s put together by nature, put together by causes—is going to have to have these three qualities: inconstant, i.e. it’s wavering and undependable; stressful because it is so fabricated; and that it’s not really worth …
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