The Ancient Elders explained reflection thus: One sees all constructions as impermanent based on the following facts: They are inconstant, momentary, non-continuous, temporary, limited by rise and fall, disintegrating, unstable, perishable, transient, subject to change, coreless, due to vanish, constructed, subject to decay, to ageing, to death! One sees all phenomena as ultimate suffering based on the following facts: They are continuously oppressing, hard to bear, the source of pain, a disease, a tumour, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, a stress, a disaster, a terror that offers no protection, no shelter, no refuge, a danger, the root of calamity, murderous, subject to mental fermentation, Mara's bait, subject to birth, subject to ageing, illness and despair, producing sorrow, cause of grieving! One knows all constructions as disgusting, foul & ugly, because they surely are deplorable, stinking, detestable, repulsive, & grotesque pain in disguise! One regards all constructions as egoless no-self based on the these facts: Because they are alien, empty, vain, void, ownerless, with no full controller, with none to wield power over them, prone to washed about by conditions... It is then one acquires Knowledge & Vision of the Way by associating all constructions with these 3 universal characteristics. But why this grossly negative way? It is in order to achieve the tools to releasing deliverance!!! Here is a simile: a man thought to catch a fish, so he took a fishing net and cast it in the water. He put his hand into the mouth of the net under the water and seized a snake by the neck. He was glad, thinking: I have caught a fish! In the belief that he had caught a big fish, he lifted it up to see it... When he saw three marks, he perceived that it was a snake & he was truly terrified. He saw danger, felt revulsion & desired to be delivered from it. Contriving a means to deliverance, he flung it away, yelling: Go, foul snake! Then quickly hasting up on dry land, he stood looking back, while thinking: Happily, by effort, I have been delivered from the jaws of a huge snake!! Vism 652
