The 3
Universal Characteristics are Absolute:
All form
is unstable, falling apart, transient, and inevitably
vanishing.
Therefore is all form fragile, frustrating,
and ultimately disappointing..
Therefore is all form
ownerless, neither what I am, nor mine or any self...
All feeling is unsteady, disintegrating, temporary, and
just fading away.
Therefore is all feeling feeble,
annoying, and really a painful suffering..
Therefore is all feeling unkeepable,
alien, not-me-nor-mine-nor-any-self...
All perception is fickle, collapsing, transitory, and
quickly disappearing.
Therefore is all perception frail,
bothering, and never quite real, nor enough..
Therefore is all perception foreign, strange,
alien, not-me-nor-mine-nor-self...
All mental construction is
insecure, subsiding, ephemeral, and always leaving.
Therefore is all mental construction brittle, irksome, and
invariably inadequate..
Therefore is all construction impersonal, and neither-me-nor-mine-nor-any-self...
All consciousness is momentary, fleeting, passing, evanescent,
and forever lost.
Therefore is all consciousness
insubstantial, tedious, and quite miserable..
Therefore
is all consciousness egoless, alien, and
neither-me-nor-I-nor-myself...
Thus seeing, thus
knowing, thus assured, clearly comprehending, but shattered,
and disgusted, yet still calm, cool
and collected, one gradually stops taking up
and accumulating these things, since only fools pick up pain
ever again and again!
One instead relinquishes! This - only and exactly this release by letting go -
is the liberating escape from all suffering, be it past, future or present!
The Blessed
Buddha said:
Whether Perfect Ones appear in the world, or whether Perfect Ones do not
appear in the world, this still remains the same condition, an immutable fact,
and a fixed regular nature-law: That all constructions are impermanent, that
all constructions are subject to suffering, that everything is without any self...
Anguttara
Nikāya III 134
Constructions are all impermanent:
When he sees this though understanding
And turns away from
all that is ill,
Then that is the path to mental purity.
Constructions are all suffering:
When he sees this with understanding
And turns away from
all that is sick,
Then this is the path to mental purity.
All states are all without
substance or self:
When he sees this
via genuine understanding
And turns away from
all that is illusory,
Then this is verily the path to
mental purity!
Dhammapada 277-79
Regarding these 3 general characteristics or signs (Ti-lakkhana)
see also:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/The_3_Universal_Characteristics.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/s_t/ti_lakkhana.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/V/Anything_Whatsoever.htm
