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| Kids, you'll go blind, I tell you, blind. - C'mon, dad, what are you talking about? |
What are some myths we've been told our whole life? That Eve gave Adam an apple as the forbidden fruit? [More likely, according to textual clues, it was a magic mushroom; DMT="magic"; the Christian Apocrypha states that it was a grape from which came alcohol, the ruin of Man.] That we can see the Great Wall of China from space? Find out more about lies that we've been told.
"Whatever IS will be WAS."
— Ven. Ñanamoli
Everything is permanent?
Ven. Ñanamoli, The Three Basic Facts of Existence: I. Impermanence (Anicca), Wheel No. 202/203/204 (Buddhist Publication Society, BPS.lk) edited by Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly
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| Here, Adam, have a flower. - Thank you, my love, but I'm really in the mood for fruit. |
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| Wow, Serpent was right about 'shroom fruit. |
If we contemplate even a tiny stretch of the vast range of life, we are faced with such a tremendous variety of life's manifestations that it defies description.
Yet, three basic statements can be made that are valid for all animate existence, from the microbe up to the creative mind of a human genius.
These three features common to all life were first found and formulated over 2,600 years ago by the Buddha, who was called a "Knower of the Worlds" (loka-vidu). They are the Three Characteristics of Existence, that is, characteristics or marks of all that is conditioned (dependently arisen). These three basic facts of all existence are:
- Impermanence (anicca): All things change.
- Disappointment (dukkha): All things are unsatisfactory.
- Not-self (anatta): All things are unsatisfactory.
The first and the third apply to inanimate existence as well, while the second (disappointment) is, of course, only an experience of the animate.
The inanimate, however, can and very often is, a cause of unsatisfactoriness for living beings. For instance, a falling stone may cause injury, or loss of property may cause mental pain. In that sense, the three are common to all that is conditioned, even to what is below or beyond the normal range of human perception.
- Adam was NOT the first human, for the Bible tells us Genesis makes it clear that Adam was not the first...
- Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, According to the Bible... “Paul certainly assumed that Adam was a person and the progenitor of the human race...
- Geneticist searches for DNA of "Adam," the first human (National Geographic) Geneticist searches for DNA of "Adam," the first human. "Our DNA tells the story of the journey of our species." DNA studies suggest that all humans descended from a single African ancestor who lived 60,000 years ago.
Existence can be understood only if these three basic facts are realized, not only logically but by one's own direct experience. Insight-wisdom, which is the ultimate liberating factor in Buddhism, consists just of this thorough-going experiential perception of the Three Characteristics applied to one's own physical and mental processes, which is deepened and matured in vipassana or "insight meditation."
To see things as they really are means seeing them consistent with the Three Characteristics. Ignorance of these three, or self-deception about them, is by itself a potent cause of disappointment -- by knitting, as it were, the net of false hopes, of unrealistic and harmful desires, false ideologies, false values and aims of life, in which we are caught.
Ignoring or distorting these three basic facts only leads to frustration, disappointment, and despair. But we ignore or distort in hopes of relief, escapism, and happiness.
Hence, from a positive and negative angle, this teaching on the Three Basic Facts of Existence is of vital importance. — Ven. Nyanaponika More
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