The three marks of existence

Overview

Recall questions on anicca and its gross and subtle levels, dukkha and its three categories, anatta, eternalism and annihilationism, the chariot analogy in The Questions of King Milinda, the five khandhas, and whether Buddhism is pessimistic, optimistic or realistic.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What are the three marks of existence, and what claim do they make?

   Model answer

   They are anicca or anitya, impermanence; dukkha or duhkha, unsatisfactoriness; and anatta or anatman, no fixed self. Buddhists hold that these characterise everything within conditioned experience, not just some unlucky parts of it. They are presented as observations about how things are rather than as commandments, and Buddhists say seeing them clearly, not merely agreeing with them, is what loosens craving.

2. 2

   What is anicca or anitya?

   Model answer

   Impermanence: the teaching that nothing in conditioned existence stays the same, because everything that arises depends on conditions that are themselves changing. Bodies age, feelings pass, relationships end, mountains erode, and even the universe is described as passing through vast cycles. Buddhists stress that this includes the pleasant things a person most wants to keep, which is why the teaching has emotional force and not merely descriptive interest.

3. 3

   Distinguish the gross and the subtle or momentary levels of impermanence.

   Model answer

   Gross impermanence is the obvious kind: things wear out, people grow old and die, possessions break, situations change. Subtle or momentary impermanence is the claim that change is happening continuously at every instant, so that what looks like a persisting object is a rapid succession of arising and passing states. Buddhists say the gross level can be accepted intellectually while leaving the sense of a solid world intact; it is the momentary level, seen directly in meditation, that undermines grasping.

4. 4

   How does impermanence lead to dukkha?

   Model answer

   Because craving attaches to things that cannot hold still. Buddhists argue that a person seeks security in a body, a relationship, a status or a mood, and each of these is in the process of changing or ending, so the attempt is bound to fail. The suffering is not caused by change itself but by the mismatch between what is wanted, permanence, and what is available. This is why Buddhists say the remedy lies in changing the wanting rather than in stabilising the world.

5. 5

   How does impermanence support the teaching of no-self?

   Model answer

   The argument runs that a self worth the name would have to be permanent, unchanging and in control. When experience is examined, every candidate for the self, the body, sensations, perceptions, habits, awareness, is found to be arising and ceasing and not reliably obedient to one's wishes. Since nothing that is impermanent can be that kind of self, no such self is found. So anicca supplies the premise from which Buddhists reach anatta.

6. 6

   What is dukkha or duhkha, and why do Buddhists say suffering is an inadequate translation?

   Model answer

   Dukkha covers everything from acute pain to a faint background sense that things are not quite right. Translating it as suffering makes the teaching sound like a claim that life is nothing but agony, which Buddhists deny. Alternatives such as unsatisfactoriness, dis-ease, stress or imperfection catch more of it. The word is often linked to the image of a wheel whose axle does not sit true, so it turns but grinds.

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