Facts of Life: The Three Marks of Existence

Sumano Tong, BPS.lk (Wheel 435); Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Here, Hon, you said you were feeling about 300 years old, right? - Dad, don't do it.

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Read in full (BPS.lk)

The Buddha taught that all conditioned things — ourselves included — have three characteristics: 

1. impermanence (anicca)
2. unsatisfactoriness (dukkha)
3. selflessness (anattā).

When we fail to recognize these Three Characteristics of Existence, we regard that which is impermanent as permanent, that which is disappointing as pleasant [able to fulfill us], and the impersonal (selfless) as possessing an unchanging (eternal, immutable, substantial) self.

The Buddha summed up these tendencies in the exclusively Buddhist Pali language word avijjā, "ignorance."

Being ignorant of our own TRUE NATURE, and of the true nature of everything around us, we engage in actions based on these delusions -- and thereby we accumulate karma, which keeps us in bound to the Cycle of Birth and Death (samsara).

It is through understanding these characteristics that wisdom arises. Only then can one free oneself from the bonds of endless rebirth and attain nirvana (nibbana), the final end of all suffering.

The following article is a humble attempt to analyze the Three Characteristics of Existence based on day-to-day observations. It makes no pretense at erudition or mastery of the sutras.

By reflecting on my own daily experience and on the experiences of others, I have jotted down various pointers to the three characteristics in facts and events lying just beneath our noses. I hope these reflections will help you, too, to see the truth of the Dharma more clearly in your own everyday life.

I – Analysis of Impermanence

Cats are so changeable...just like humans.

What is the meaning of anicca? This exclusively Buddhist Pali-language word means “impermanence.”

Now what is impermanent? One is oneself impermanent -- physically and mentally -- and all things in and around one are impermanent.

• [NOTE: We, like everything else except nirvana, are dependently originated; that is to say, we come into existence dependent on conditional/constituent things. What we think and feel is "I" is, in fact, form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness. But all of these things themselves depend on conditions for their existence. Like a peeled onion, there is nothing there but layers of rind. Thinking thinks there should be something under the rind, inside these five layers called self, but there is no enduring self to be found there. All that is there is only a dynamic process rather than a static self, soul, ego, or personality.]

In what way is this form, this physical body, impermanent?

POSTURE
Posture is constantly being changed from one of the following to another: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down.

STATE OF HEALTH
Our health is ever fluctuating depending on many factors. Some days one feels well, other days one feels ill; some days one feels energetic, other days one feels weak.

CLEANLINESS

Immediately after the body is cleaned, it begins accruing soil. Soon it is dirty again due, for example, to the secretion of skin oil and sweat and due to contact with pollutants in the environment.

GROWTH AND DECAY
Hair and nails are constantly increasing in length; body hairs are constantly falling off and being replaced; the skin of the entire body is constantly being shed and worn away; the body cells are always being replaced; one’s body mass (weight) is ever fluctuating; the whole body is gradually aging, and one day it will die of age if nothing kills it first.

NUTRIENTS FOR THE BODY
The air one breathes is being converted to carbon dioxide. The water one drinks is being converted to urine and sweat. Within a day the food we eat turns into feces.

In what way is one’s mind impermanent?

FEELING

The Real Facts of Life (Tong)

One’s bodily sensations alternate between pleasure and pain and neither-pleasure-nor-pain, hunger and fullness, thirst and satiation.

One’s mental feelings vary between pleasure, displeasure, and indifference, depending on many factors, such as the sense object one experiences.

One’s state of mind is ever changing from one to another: joyful, angry, sad, happy, bored, worried, greedy, faithful, and so on. One’s interests change as one grows. One’s perceptions of the things around one also change with time and experience, for example, one’s choice of colors, one’s preference for types of material or designs, or one’s opinion about an issue.

In what way are the things impermanent?
All human artifacts (buildings, roads, cars, etc.) get soiled by the environment, wither due to exposure to the sun, and get eroded by the elements. Due to wear and tear, the mechanism of these things ceases to function. More