THREE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS

　　We shall now discuss in detail the three characteristics common to all things, namely impermanence, unsatisfactoriness (suffering) and non-selfhood.

　　All things whatsoever have the property of changing incessantly; they are unstable. All things whatsoever have the characteristic of unsatisfactoriness; seeing them evokes disillusionment and disenchantment in anyone having clear insight into their nature. Nothing whatsoever is such that we are justified in regarding it as "mine." To our normally imperfect vision, things appear as selves; but as soon as our vision becomes clear, unobscured and accurate, we realize that there is no self-entity present in any of them.

　　These three characteristics were the aspect of the teaching which the Buddha stressed more than any other. The entire teaching when summed up amounts simply to insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-selfhood. Sometimes they are mentioned explicitly, sometimes they are expressed in other terms, but fundamentally they aim at demonstrating the same single truth. The impermanence of all things had been taught before the time of the Buddha, but it had not been expounded as profoundly as it was by the Buddha. Unsatisfactoriness, likewise, had been taught but not in its full depth. It had not been treated from the point of view of causation, and no directions had been given as to how it could be thoroughly and completely done away with. Earlier teachers had not understood its true nature as did the Buddha in his enlightenment. As for non-selfhood in the ultimate sense, this is taught only in Buddhism This doctrine tells us that a person who has complete understanding of the "what is what" or the nature of things will know that nothing whatsoever is a self or belongs to a self. This was taught only by the Buddha, who truly had a complete and thorough understanding of the "what is what" or the true nature of things. The ways of practice designed to bring about insight in these three characteristics are numerous; but one single noteworthy fact is bound to be revealed once that perfect insight has been attained, namely the fact that nothing is worth grasping at or clinging to. There is nothing that we should want to get, to have, to be. In short: nothing is worth getting; nothing is worth being. Only when one has come to perceive that having anything or being anything is a delusion, a deception, a mirage, and that nothing at all is worth getting or worth being, has one achieved true insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-selfhood. A man may have been reciting the formula: "anicca, dukkha, anatta" morning and evening hundreds and thousands of times and yet not be able to perceive these characteristics. It is just not in their nature to be perceptible through hearing or reciting.

　　Now intuitive insight, or what we call "seeing Dhamma," is not by any means the same thing as rational thinking. One will never come to see Dhamma by means of rational thinking. Intuitive insight can be gained only by means of a true inner realization. For instance, suppose we are examining a situation where we had thoughtlessly become quite wrapped up in something which later caused us suffering. If, on looking closely at the actual course of events, we become genuinely fed up, disillusioned and disenchanted with that thing, we can be said to have seen Dhamma, or to have gained clear insight. This clear insight may develop in time until it is perfected, and has the power to bring liberation from all things. If a person recites aloud: "anicca, dukkha, anatta" or examines these characteristics day and night without ever becoming disenchanted with things, without ever losing the desire to get things or to be something, or the desire to cling to t…

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