Search results for: "The Three Characteristics"

  1. Fighting the Three Characteristics
  2. Fighting the Three Characteristics
  3. The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites
    The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites May 12, 2020 The teaching on the three characteristics or the three perceptions—inconstancy, stress, not-self—occupies a peculiar place in the Buddha’s teachings. It’s always true, but it’s not always beneficial. That means it’s not categorical. The Buddha doesn’t apply it all the time. In fact, there are a couple of cases … 
  4. Delight in the Path
     … His position was that the three characteristics took priority. In other words, you had to tame your search for happiness to admit the truth of the three characteristics. Otherwise, you’re fighting against reality, hoping for illusory forms of happiness, only to be disappointed. But if you resigned yourself to the fact that nothing was permanent, nothing was free of stress, nothing was really … 
  5. Pushing the Three Characteristics
     … So in a way, we’re pushing against the three themes of what are often called the three characteristics. It’s important that we do. The Buddha didn’t ask you simply to accept what he had to say. He said to test it. And one good way of testing the principle of inconstancy is to try to make your mind as constant as … 
  6. Respect for Emptiness
     … So the Buddha gives you tools — the three characteristics — for undoing those habits, to help you realize that those things aren’t really worth all that much worry, worth all that much care. They’re not worth burdening the mind. It’s important to note, though, that he doesn’t have you contemplate things radically in terms of the three characteristics until you’ve … 
  7. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … When you’re doing concentration, you’re actually working against the three characteristics. You’re trying to get the mind under your control, make it solid, constant, and steady, and give rise to a sense of well-being. You apply the three characteristics in this instance to anything that would pull you out of concentration—or, as you’re getting deeper into concentration, to … 
  8. A Noble Warrior’s Path
     … And as for perceptions of the three characteristics, don’t apply them too quickly to what you’re doing. There’s a passage in the commentaries describing the three characteristics as the Buddha’s categorical teaching—in other words, the teaching that’s true across the board. But the Buddha didn’t treat them that way. There are only two teachings in the whole … 
  9. The Problem of Suffering
     … These are the first steps in getting the mind to settle down, to put it in a place where it can start using the Buddha’s different teachings, say, on the three characteristics. Suppose something comes up to distract you, anything that creates a burden on the mind, and no matter how much you bring your mind back to the breath, that particular distraction … 
  10. Three Perceptions
    Three Perceptions August 21, 2007 Almost any book on Buddhism will tell you that the three characteristics — the characteristic of inconstancy, the characteristic of stress or suffering, and the characteristic of not-self — were one of the Buddha’s most central teachings. The strange thing, though, is that when you look in the Pali Canon, the word for “three characteristics,” ti-lakkhana,doesn’t … 
  11. In the Elephant’s Footprint
     … But he never mentioned the three characteristics. He didn’t awaken to the three characteristics. He awakened to the four noble truths. And from the four noble truths, he was able to awaken to nibbana. What are the four noble truths about? They’re about karma. They’re about action: the actions you do that lead to suffering, and the actions you can do … 
  12. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … Sometimes you hear it said that the Buddha awakened to the three characteristics. But in the descriptions that he gives of his own awakening, he never mentions the three characteristics. He mentions the four noble truths. The three characteristics have to do with the way things are. The four noble truths have to do with potentials — what potentials those things have. As the Buddha … 
  13. Freedom through Restraint
     … There’s that interpretation of insight where everything is based on the three characteristics. But the three characteristics, if they’re not in the context of the four noble truths, don’t carry any duties. You can see things being inconstant, stressful, and not-self, and you can come to all kinds of conclusions about what you might want to do: Just let things … 
  14. The Noble Truths Come First
     … So instead of placing the three characteristics first, he put the four noble truths first, and then the three characteristics—which are actually not really characteristics; he called them perceptions—find their role within the framework of the four noble truths and the duties appropriate to each. You’ve got to comprehend suffering. You’ve got to abandon its cause. You’ve got to … 
  15. The Constancy of the Body
     … But only when you develop the mind in this direction will you begin to see the really subtle things that the Buddha was teaching when he was talking about the three characteristics. You can’t see what’s inconstant unless you make yourself really, really constant. Otherwise everything seems to be moving—like everything in the countryside when you look out the window of … 
  16. In the Context of the Path
     … So whenever you read a teaching of the Buddha’s, ask yourself, “Where does it fit in the training? Where does it fit in this course of action?” There is a tendency, sometimes, to focus on the three characteristics as the Buddha’s primary description of reality. And then, into the framework of that description, everything else gets squeezed. But what are you to … 
  17. The Raft
     … As Ajaan Lee said, when we’re practicing concentration, we’re actually going against the three characteristics. We think about the three characteristics or the three perceptions to give rise to a sense of dispassion. While you’re in concentration, you use them, you apply them, to your distractions. Anything that would pull you away right now, you try to see how it’s … 
  18. Using What You’ve Got
     … There’s a simple pain in the aggregates, in terms of the three characteristics, but there’s also the suffering that’s caused by craving. That’s pain in terms of the four noble truths. This is why, when the Buddha uses the word dukkha in the three characteristics, it’s not quite the same as dukkha in the four noble truths. The three … 
  19. Stop Squirming
     … There’s suffering in the four noble truths and also suffering or stress in the three characteristics. The stress of the three characteristics is something that’s simply everywhere. It’s part of the fact that everything is conditioned by causes, maintained in being only for a little while, only to change. That kind of tenuous existence is inherently stressful. But fortunately, that’s … 
  20. Right Now
     … The Buddha talks about the three characteristics. As I mentioned the other night, they’re the terms in which he discusses discernment. All I emphasized the other night role was that discernment plays after you’ve developed concentration. But it can also be your preparation for concentration on a certain level—at least enough to clear away a lot of the distractions that would … 
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