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Daily Buddhism, Meditation

Three Marks of Existence

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The Three Marks or The Three Basic Facts of Existence

In Buddhism, the Three Marks of Existence are three characteristics shared by all sentient beings, namely impermanence (anicca), suffering or unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (anatta).

Annica – Impermanence – Nothing ever stays the same, and change is often painful in some way. You fall in love with your young lover who promises their love is forever. They then grow old with you. Then they die. As they grew older, they changed, becoming slower, in more pain, and perhaps with difficulty thinking straight. Once they die, they change physically; one way or another they decompose, returning to the environment and becoming part of something new. Remember hearing about the “Cycle of Life?” A cycle is a series of changes.

Dukkha – Suffering – We’ve talked about this a lot here in the past. This isn’t simple physical pain that we’re talking about, although that’s certainly a part of it. Some of the dukka results from our desire to fight impermanence. You want to hold on to the things that are changing. No one wants to grow old and die, and sometimes it’s a real fight. Dukka isn’t always this dramatic though- sometimes it’s a simpler desire- like the desire to smack that guy in the restaurant who won’t get off his cell phone, or the need for a new car. What all these various types of suffering have in common is desire, the root of all suffering.

Annata – Non-Self – (Also called Anatman) This is the hardest to grasp for most of us. I mentioned a decomposing body above; aren’t you really the same body right now? Isn’t part of you made up of people that came before, both physically (raw materials) and genetically? Are you the same person you were when you were five years old? Are you even the same person you were yesterday? Which part of your body is really you? You can’t pick a single point? You can sense many parts of your body, but can’t you also sense what’s going on around you in the room? Are you a part of the room? Yes. Is the room a part of you? That’s one to meditate on.

Daily Buddhism, Meditation, Video

Impermanence – Not Even the Mountains?

Impermanence – Not Even the Mountains?

A reader wrote:

I’m a big fan of your Daily Buddhism blog and thought that you’d be interested in seeing this 8-minute film that I recently made about impermanence, “Mountains Made of Chalk, Fall into the Sea, Eventually.”

The synergy of creative collaboration can result in magic beyond our imagining.  Witnessing Genna Panzarella paint this 8×10′ mural of Mt. Tamalpais as it was when it was whole, literally inside of what used to be the mountaintop, is akin to stealing a peek through the kimono of mystery… the misty mystery of impermanence.

The project bears a great resemblance to the process of making a Sand Painting.

You are welcome to link to it in your blog if you feel that it would be a worthy addition to it.

https://vimeo.com/119016971

Mountains Made of Chalk, Fall into the Sea, Eventually. from Gary Yost on Vimeo.

My Response:

Well, there it is, up there in the link. Take a minute (or eight) to watch the movie. As you point out, it is similar in many ways to the monks who do sand mandalas [Link to 2009 Mandala Post].

The reasons (mostly Tibetan) monks spend hours or days creating intricate mandalas made of sand seems to be an exercise in patience and concentration. It’s another form of concentration/meditation. When they are finished, they sweep up all that sand and destroy the beautiful work of art they have been working on, one grain of sand at a time, for days. Why? In many ways, the destruction of the mandala is the most important part of the process.

This erasing of the art demonstrates and exemplifies the Buddhist idea of impermanence. The Pali word for this kind of impermanence is anicca. This lack of permanence extends to everything. Your mood today. Your job. The personal problem you are dealing with this week. Your life. The mountain the artist in the movie is on. The planet Earth itself. None of these things are permanent; some will go away quickly, some take decades, some may take millions of years, but nothing is forever. The knowledge that nothing lasts and that change is the only thing that is inevitable is a big part of the Buddhist’s conception of suffering (dukkha).

How do we get past this idea that everything is temporary? As the mandala-making monks and the chalk artist in the movie above have learned, the best way to deal with it is to embrace change.

Does anyone have an experience or story they’d like to share that demonstrates something you have learned about impermanence? Post in the comments!