Paramita – Wisdom 3

If we examine our experiences in life, we see that nothing stays the same. Everything is always changing. All our material possessions will eventually breakdown. Friends come and go, and even our family does not live forever (nor do we). You see this in your life, right?

When we are able to gain a level of mindfulness through practice, we begin to see that all of the experiences we have are continually changing, not fixed, without any solid or fixed sense that we can identify or hang on to, and that includes when we try to find a fixed sense of self. This is an experience of emptiness and selflessness.

When we see that we cannot achieve lasting peace or contentment, we always have a sense of life being unsatisfactory. Even when we are happy, we know that whatever conditions are creating that sense of happiness will not last, and we suffer with the awareness of that projection of future disappointment.

These conditions are what the Buddhists call the three marks of existence: dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), and anatta (selflessness).

Here is a quote from Mike Slott from the Secular Buddhist Network.

In his [Buddha’s] view, the correct understanding of these three marks of existence is an essential aspect of “right view”; and it is only when we directly experience and appropriately conceptualize these three marks, that we can be truly liberated from suffering and attain a happiness not disturbed by unpleasant conditions.

The notion that dukkha, anicca, and anatta are three basic characteristics of reality is thus, for all Buddhists – both secular and traditional – accepted as both a true statement about reality and an essential prescription to end suffering.

I will argue in this blog post that dukkha, anicca, and anatta are more fruitfully understood not as three marks of existence but rather as three pervasive factors of human experience in its existential-psychological dimension. These factors arise in our experience because of the mutual interaction of who we are as human beings (including our unique capacities and tendencies), social conditions, and natural processes.

In my view, dukkha, anicca, and anatta do not describe the way the world “really” or ultimately is below or behind the world of forms and appearances. To understand these factors of human experience in this way is to mistakenly “ontologize” them, to elevate them to primary or basic attributes of existence. In this respect, while Buddhism is non-theistic, the notion of three marks of existence results in the same split between the phenomena of the day-to-day world and some “really real” or ultimate dimension of life which is an essential feature of all religions. In my view, a consistent and thoroughgoing secular Buddhism should avoid the mistake of transforming these three vital factors of human experience into something foundational or primary.

If we see anicca, anatta, and dukkha as three interrelated factors of human experience, then the goal of meditation is not to experience directly the “really” real, the absolute, or the ultimate dimension of existence. Instead, it’s about coming to understand through meditative experience, as well as reflection, how these three factors of our experience mutually interact and lead to suffering.

So, dukkha occurs when we experience life as if we were an independent self who should have all the good things on a permanent basis.

And, when we forget that impermanence is an integral part of life, we see and experience our life as one in which an independent self must always suffer.

Then, when we get lost in the trance of the egoic self, we don’t recognize the sense in which we are interconnected and dependent on our families, society, and nature, and we then experience life as a permanently suffering, independent self.

Meditation is a mind/heart training which enables us to weaken our tendency or proclivity as a human being to experience life in these unskillful ways and to move toward a more skillful way of experiencing life, not with the ultimate goal of gaining liberation from these factors of experience, but with the aim of reducing our own suffering and participating in the creation of a society which fosters a more realistic, humane experience of life.