Shabd Braham E ISSN 2320 – 0871 International Research Journal of Indian languages 17 December 2016 Peer Reviewed Refereed Research Journal

Concept Of Tilakkhana (Three Marks Of ) Of

Dr.Manish T. Meshram Assistant Professor School of & Civilization Gautam Buddha University Express Way, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract. According to Buddhist tradition, a full understanding of these three can bring an end to suffering (dukkha ,). The Buddha taught that all things conditioned by causes (saṅkhāra) are impermanent (anicca / anitya) and suffering (dukkhā / duhkha) while he said not-self ( / anatman) characterises all dhammas meaning there is no "I" or "mine" in the conditioned as well as the unconditioned (i.e. Nibbāna).The founder and central figure of Buddhism, Siddhartha achieved and awakening after much meditation, thus becoming the Buddha Shakyamuni. With the faculty of wisdom the Buddha directly perceived that everything in the physical world (and everything in the phenomenology of psychology) is marked by these three characteristics. In this article I would like to express about the true nature of existence according by Buddhist wisdom. Key Words: Tilakkhana, Anicca, Dukkha, , Impermanent, Not-self, Suffering, Unsatisfactory, Nibbana

Introduction All Conditioned Things Are In A The Three marks of existence are an Constant State Of Flux (Sabbe essential Buddhist teaching regarding the Sankhara Anicca) nature of experience. A basic teaching of Anicca ( anitya) "inconstancy" or Buddhism, the three marks of existence are "" The first of the Three three characteristics that all conditioned Marks of Existence is anicca. Anicca is phenomena share. This means that every word that literally means inconstant or not sensation, thought, and experience we have continuous. The Buddha’s teaching of is subject to these three marks. An example impermanence points toward the natural of a non-conditioned phenomena in changing nature of everything. Nothing we Buddhism is full enlightenment or nibbana. experience is constant and unchanging. The three marks of existence are anicca, Whether is a sound, physical sensation, dukkha, and anatta, or impermanence, thought, emotion, or something external, unsatisfactory, and non-self. We grow to everything changes. This paragraph may know these characteristics through seem redundant in its mentioning of change. meditation practice, especially with the It’s because it really is that important and practice of the Four simple: everything is changing. Foundations of . All three of Take the body, for example. It is constantly these marks may be hard to grasp or even changing. Almost every cell in the body agree with at first, and that is okay. We may regenerates after a period, meaning that even find ourselves aversion to the idea of body your have today is not same body you them. Through meditation practice, we had twenty years ago. Or, you may take a gradually come to know these feeling of love you have or somebody. characteristics. Whether it is child, a parent, a friend, a pet, or a significant other, you may love another

This paper is published online at www.shabdbraham.com in Vol 5, Issue 2 23 Shabd Braham E ISSN 2320 – 0871 International Research Journal of Indian languages 17 December 2016 Peer Reviewed Refereed Research Journal being deeply. Although your love may not caveat is added: one should indeed always wane, it changes. How you loved this being meditate on the impermanence and a year ago is not the same way in which you transitory nature of compound structures love the being today. The quality of the love and phenomena, but one must guard changes. The feeling, though patterns, and against extending this to the realm of physical sensations change. Nirvana, where impermanence holds no When we look at any of our experiences we sway. In this , the ultimate nature of can see it changing, sometimes subtly. May reality is free from the stains of dualistic be we have chronic pain in meditation thought, and should therefore not be labeled practice. Tuning in to the experience, we see as 'one' or the 'other' (i.e. 'permanent' or that the pain may have a natural moving 'impermanent'). quality. When we move or shift position, the Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse pain changes. This doesn’t mean the pain states that in the four seals of the necessarily goes away, but the intricacies of , Nirvana should be viewed as the experience changes. It’s easy to see "beyond extremes". Furthermore, he states how some things change, while it is difficult that "In many philosophies or religions, the to see how other phenomena are final goal is something that you can hold on impermanent. One helpful practice is to to and keep. The final goal is the only thing bring to mind something we consider that truly exists. But nirvana is not permanent or unchanging and challenge fabricated, so it is not something to be held ourselves to find the impermanence in it. In on to. It is referred to as 'beyond extremes.' meditation, we don’t necessarily need to "We somehow think that we can go look directly for impermanence; if we are somewhere where we’ll have a better sofa truly mindful, the impermanent nature seat, a better shower system, a better sewer becomes clear. system, a nirvana where you don’t even In reality there is no thing that ultimately have to have a remote control, where ceases to exist; only the appearance of a everything is there the moment you think of thing ceases as it changes from one form to it. But as I said earlier, it’s not that we are another. Imagine a leaf that falls to the adding something new that was not there ground and decomposes. While the before. Nirvana is achieved when you appearance and relative existence of the remove everything that was artificial and leaf ceases, the components that formed the obscuring." leaf become particulate material that may go All Conditioned Things Are on to form new plants. Buddhism teaches a Dissatisfaction (Sabbe Sankhara , avoiding the extreme views of Dukkha) eternalism and nihilism. Dukkha (Sanskrit duhkha) or dissatisfaction All compounded phenomena (things and (or "dis-ease"). The second of the Three experiences) are inconstant, unsteady, and Marks of Existence is dukkha. Dukkha is impermanent. Everything we can experience most commonly translated into English as through our senses is made up of parts, and “suffering,” but “unsatisfactoriness,” its existence is dependent on external “disease,”, or “stress” may convey the conditions. Everything is in constant flux, meaning of dukkha more accurately. and so conditions and the thing itself is Dukkha, in general sense, is the natural constantly changing. Things are constantly discomfort we all experience in life. it may coming into being, and ceasing to be. come in many forms: anxiety, regret, anger, Nothing lasts. grief, sadness, clinging, and may more. We The important point here is that phenomena experience the pain of loss, the pain of arise and cease according to (complex) craving more, and the simple pain of living. conditions. In Mahayana Buddhism, a There is a shared experience of disease.

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Although we just offered several different process of dissolution is quite painful. There translations of the Pali word dukkha, it may is much mental suffering connected with it. just be best to abandon any English word. There are other forms of suffering. To be When we translate dukkha, we lose some if joined with what one dislikes is suffering. its meaning, and it may create confusion One the other hand, the Buddha says that to about the principle. be separated from what one likes is As one of the Three Marks of Existence, suffering. Not to get what one wants is dukkha is the idea that nothing we suffering. We all know the very well because experience outside nibbana causes lasting we all like to get what we want. If we are satisfaction. This is easiest to see with cannot get what we want we feel upset, unpleasant experiences we have. When we disturbed, troubled. have pain , hear a sound that we find The Buddha on those many occasions when unpleasant, or find ourselves thinking he spoke about suffering, trying to get unpleasant thoughts, we can see that these people to see it in perspective, summed up experiences are not creating happiness. his discourse by saying, in short, that the Furthermore, that aversion that arises in ‘Five Aggregates’(skanddha) (form, feeling, response to these stimuli are dukkha. With perceptions, volitions, and consciousness), neutral experiences, it is similarly easy. The which make up the totality of conditioned neutral sensation don’t create happiness, sentient existence, themselves are suffering. and the reaction of boredom, confusion, or Buddhism of course, does not deny that even aversion certainly aren’t sukkha (the there may be pleasant experiences in life as opposite of dukkha). well as painful ones. But Buddhism does say The Buddha speaks usually of seven that even the pleasant experiences are at different kinds of suffering or bottom painful. The pleasant experiences unsatisfactoriness. First the Buddha says themselves are really only concealed that birth is suffering. It is rather significant suffering, suffering ‘glossed over’, the ‘honey that our life begins with suffering. The event on the razor’s edge’. of birth is certainly physically painful for the According to the law of anicca, mother and the infant. Then the Buddha nothing lasts. Everything falls apart, not only says that decay in the sense of old age is material possession, but also bodies, suffering. Old age has quite a number of relationships, experiences, entire disadvantages. civilizations and cultures. Dukkha is not There is physical weakness you cannot get getting what one wants and wanting more about as you used to; you used to. There is than one gets. Not understanding the law of also loss of memory. Sometimes it is quite anicca leads to dukkha, the omnipresent tragic to see this in old people. All this uncertainty and stress and anxiety makes the time of old age, especially fluctuating between irritation and despair extreme old age, despite all modern and arising from the sense that things are comforts and amenities, very often a time of not right because I don’t have enough, suffering. because I can’t hold onto what I do have, The sickness is suffering. No sickness is because what I have doesn’t bring lasting pleasant, whether it is a little toothache or a satisfaction and that therefore I must persist terrible disease like cancer. Death is acquiring and doing rather than being. suffering. Death is often suffering because Nothing found in the physical world or even people do not want to go. They want to hang the psychological realm can bring lasting on to life. They are very sorry to leave. But deep satisfaction. Whatever is impermanent even if they do want to go, even if they are is subject to change. Whatever is subject to happy to pass on to a new life or into they change is subject to suffering. Whatever we know not what very often the physical choose to call it its distinctive characteristic

This paper is published online at www.shabdbraham.com in Vol 5, Issue 2 25 Shabd Braham E ISSN 2320 – 0871 International Research Journal of Indian languages 17 December 2016 Peer Reviewed Refereed Research Journal is that it cannot be satisfied by anything; it many things, it is only our perception of it as can be satisfied only by the Unconditioned. a table that makes it a table. Think or Therefore, to come back to the Buddha’s everything that had to happen to bring that conclusion, all conditional things, whether table to fruition, a tree had to grow, it had to actually or potentially are unsatisfactory. receive sun and water, somebody had to cut That unsatisfactoriness is a basic down, it had to be shipped somewhere to be characteristic of all forms of conditioned made into a table, it was cut and assembled, existence, especially sentient conditioned somebody shipped it to a store, and you existence. walked in and bought the table with money All Phenomena are not, or are without, a you earned from working. If we went more in permanent self (Sabbe Dhamma Anatta) depth, we would see an infinite number of The final of the Three Marks of Existence, causes and conditions for the table to be anatta, is at the centre of much confusion an present. When we look at the table we see debate. Often translated as ‘no-self’ people all of the effort, time, and different materials get the impression that the Buddha taught used to make by itself, is a combination of there is no self. There is no you reading this, these causes and conditions. Once we and there is no me writing it. However, that perceive it as table, it becomes a table. is not what anatta means. often Finally, let’s consider our own being. When points out that Anatta is more appropriately we look at ourselves, we can disassemble understood as “not-self”. It is just a one letter our experience. The mind is similar to a difference, but an important one. The mirror, just reflecting whatever experience is teaching here is not that there is no self; it is occurring. Think of a mirror sitting in a experience is not self. So what does this hallway, and numerous people walking past mean? it. The mirror stays a mirror, but it content Let’s start with the sensation of yours feet on changes. Every moment a new person walks the ground. We can see the anatta in this by it and a new image is reflected. It is experience by looking closely at what is similar with the mind. We hear a noise or happening. We may not be aware this have a thought, and the composition of the always, but it happens quite often. The foot mind changes. You have notice by simply is in contact with the ground, and the closing yours eyes and noticing the thoughts sensation reaches the brain. The mind sees that arise. Our own experience is a process, it as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The this is the key. We are not stable beings. We mind has response or react (clinging, are ever-changing processes, with the mind boredom, aversion, etc.) By itself, the reflecting what is occurring. sensation of the foot on the ground is Anatta (Sanskrit anatman) or "non-Self" is nothing. It cannot exist by itself. It is process, used in the suttas both as a noun and as a dependent upon the mind, the ground, the predicative adjective to denote that food, feeling tone, and much more. So phenomena are not, or are without, a anatta may be understood as; no permanent self, to describe any and all phenomena exists inherently by itself. The composite, consubstantial, phenomenal and same may be said for sounds, emotions, temporal things, from the macrocosmic to thought, tastes, and smells. They lack an microcosmic, be it matter pertaining to the inherent self; they are processes dependent physical body or the cosmos at large, as well upon other processes. as any and all mental machinations, which Next, we can consider a physical object. are impermanent. Let’s take wooden coffee table. When we In Indian philosophy, the concept of a self is look or feel, we sense a coffee table. Anatta called (that is, "soul" or metaphysical here isn’t that the table doesn’t exist. Rather, self), which refers to an unchanging, it is that the table is dependent upon so permanent essence conceived by virtue of

This paper is published online at www.shabdbraham.com in Vol 5, Issue 2 26 Shabd Braham E ISSN 2320 – 0871 International Research Journal of Indian languages 17 December 2016 Peer Reviewed Refereed Research Journal existence. This concept and the related existing phenomenon one can grasp onto as concept of Brahman, the Vedantic monistic being me or self. ideal, which was regarded as an ultimate Anatta is discussed in the Questions of King ātman for all beings, were indispensable for Milinda, composed during the period of the mainstream Indian metaphysics, logic, and Hellenistic Indo-Greek kingdom of the 2nd science; for all apparent things there had to and 1st centuries BCE. In this text, the monk be an underlying and persistent reality, akin demonstrates the concept of to a Platonic form. The Buddha rejected all absolute "non-Self" by likening human concepts of ātman, emphasizing beings to a chariot and challenges the changeability not permanence. He taught Greek king "Milinda" (Menander) to find the that all concepts of a substantial personal essence of the chariot. Nagasena states that self were incorrect, and formed in the realm just as a chariot is made up of a number of of ignorance. The Buddha criticized things, none of which are the essence of the conceiving theories even of a unitary soul or chariot in isolation, without the other pieces, identity immanent in all things as unskillful in similarly no one part of a person is a the Great Discourse on Causation. In fact, permanent entity; we can be broken up into according to the Buddha's statement in five constituents – body, sensations, Khandha Samyutta, all thoughts about self ideation, mental formations and are necessarily, whether the thinker is aware consciousness – the consciousness being of it or not, thoughts about the five closest to the permanent idea of "Self", but aggregates or one of them. is ever-changing with each new thought In a number of major Mahayana (e.g. according to this viewpoint. the Mahaparinirvana , the According to some thinkers both in the East Tathagatagarbha Sutra, the Srimala Sutra, and the West, the doctrine of "non-Self", among others), the Buddha is presented as may imply that Buddhism is a form of clarifying this teaching by saying that, while nihilism or something similar. However, as the (constituents of the ordinary thinkers like have clearly pointed body and mind) are not the self, there does out, Buddhism is not simply a rejection of the truly exist an eternal, unchanging, blissful concept of existence or meaning, but of the Buddha-essence in all sentient beings, hard and fast distinction between existence which is the uncreated and deathless and non-existence, or rather between being Buddha-nature ("Buddha-dhatu") or "True and no-thingness. Phenomena are not Self" of the Buddha himself. The independent from causes and conditions "tathagatagarbha"/Buddha nature does not and do not exist as isolated things as we represent a substantial self; rather, it is a perceive them to be. positive language expression of "sunyata" The lack of a permanent, unchanging, (emptiness) and represents the potentiality substantial Self in beings and things does to realize through Buddhist not mean that they do not experience growth practices; the intention of the teaching of and decay on the relative level. But on the tathagatagarbha (Buddha nature) is ultimate level of analysis, one cannot soteriological rather than theoretical. distinguish an object from its causes and This immaculate Buddhic Self (atman) is in conditions or even distinguish between no way to be construed as a mundane, object and subject (an idea appearing impermanent, suffering "ego", of which it is relatively recently in Western science). the diametrical opposite. On the other hand, Buddhism thus has much more in common this Buddha-essence or Buddha-nature is with Western empiricism, pragmatism, anti- also often explained as the potential for foundationalism, and even post structuralism achieving Buddhahood, rather than an than with nihilism.

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In the Nikāyas, the Buddha and his disciples 4 Inda, K.K., Nagarjuna:A Translation of his commonly question or declare "Is that which Mulamadhyamakakarika with an introductory is impermanent, subject to change, subject essay, The Hokuscid Press, Tokyo, 1970. to suffering fit to be considered thus: 'This I 5 Jayadeva Singha, An introduction to Philosophy, Motilalbanarisidass, am, this is mine, this is my self'?" The Delhi, 1997. question which the Buddha poses to his 6 Meshram Manish, Boudha-dhamm mein audience is whether compounded Bodhicharyavatar ki darnshanmimansa, Reliable phenomena are fit to be considered as self, Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 2013. to which the audience agrees that it is 7 Meshram, Manish, Bouddh Darshan ka unworthy to be considered so. And in Udbhava evam Vikas, Kalpana Prakashak, Delhi, relinquishing such an attachment to 2013 compounded phenomena, such a person 8 Morris, R. and Hardy E. ed. Anguttaranikaya gives up delight, desire and craving for Vol.111, P. T. S. London, 1900. Motilal Banarsidas Publishers Private Limited, Delhi: compounded phenomena and is unbounded 2003. by its change. When completely free from 9 Narada, Mahathera. A Manual of Buddhism. attachments, craving or desire to the five Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Buddhist Missionary aggregates, such a person experiences then Society, 1992. transcends the very causes of suffering. 10 Pali Buddhist Dictionary, by Ven. , Conclusion Buddha Shamma Education Association Inc, PDF All conditioned things, without exception, are internet publication. suffering (dukkha), impermanent (anitya), 11 Path of Purification, Buddhist Publication and devoid of self (anatman). These are the Society, Kandy 1991, Ñānamoli 12 Ramanan, K. Venkata. Nāgārjuna's three characteristics of conditioned Philosophy. Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass,1978. existence. They are of central importance, Rhys Davids, T.W., The Questions of King not just in , but in the Milinda , Vol. I, SBE Vol. 35, Buddhist spiritual life. according to the 13 Sangharakshita, A Guide to the Buddhist Buddha, we do not really see conditioned Path, Windhorse Publications, Birmingham, 1995. experience until we learn to see it in these 14 Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism: Its terms. If we see anything until else, that is doctrines and methods through the ages, just an illusion, a projection. Once we start Granthamala, Pune, 1996. seeing the conditioned in these terms, then 15 The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2000, Translated little by little we get a glimpse of the by Unconditioned, and that glimpse guides us 16 The Long Discourses of the Budhda, Wisdom on our way. In this way, the insight wisdom Publications, Boston, 1995, Translated by or of non-Self gives rise to cessation Maurice Walshe of suffering, and not an intellectual debate 17 The Middle Length Discourses, Buddhist over whether a self exists or not. It is by Publication Society, Kandy 19995 Translated by realizing (not merely understanding Bhikkhu Bodhi intellectually, but making real in one's experience) the three marks of conditioned existence that one develops prajñā, which is the antidote to the ignorance that lies at the root of all suffering. References 1 Buddhism – a History, Noble Ross Reat, Jain Publishing Company, 1994. 2 Gombrich, Buddhism, 2nd edn, Routledge, London, 2006. 3 Harvey, Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press, 1990

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