Buddhism's Three Marks of Existence: Deepest Part of the Dharma
Doug's Dharma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqAW6BU2O_8

Transkript (automatisch erstellt)

0:00 so today we're going to talk about what is probably the deepest part of the Dharma which are the three marks of existence coming right up
0:09 [Music] so I'm Doug Smith I'm study director at the secular Buddhist Association that secular Buddhism org if you're new to
0:18 the channel and interested in living a wiser and a kinder and a less stress filled life consider subscribing so the three marks of existence are sort of the
0:27 basis of the Buddha's wisdom about the world I've talked about trying to trying to live a wiser life well part of I think the heart of the Buddha's wisdom
0:37 is in these three marks so we'll look at them we'll look at the way that they're slightly different and then we'll look a little bit at the end in the way
0:46 historically that I think the Buddhist tradition changed slightly in the way that they were emphasized because I think they were emphasized one way at
0:55 the beginning and then it became emphasized at a different way a little farther on in history so the first of these three marks of existence is use
1:04 the pali word anita which means inconstancy because nietzsche means something that's constant or permanent Anitra means impermanence inconstancy
1:14 basically the way the world is always changing so that's the first of these of these marks of existence the first of the ways the existence around us is it's
1:25 always changing the second mark of existence is use they use the pali word dukka dukka literally means suffering although I think a better translation of
1:36 it would be unsatisfactoriness there's the ways that the world is unsatisfactory so whether they're whether it's unsatisfactory because it's
1:45 literally a suffering because it's painful or hard or sad or even if it's happy and and pleasurable it's unsatisfactory because it's going to
1:55 change it's it's going to continue to unfold in ways that we are not prepared for no matter what okay so the second is this is is dukkha or or suffering or
2:06 unsatisfactoriness and the third is anata or non-self again anata is the is the poly anata and Auto means self so anata means non self
2:18 it's the way that no matter how we look at the world no matter what is within our experience none of it is our self none of it is who we really are so we
2:27 construct a self in various ways during our life I've had a video recently about five ways that we construct our self course there many more but I tried to
2:36 structure these as five the point is that a self is kind of a mental construct around our experience and it can be useful in certain situations but
2:47 in the end at the end of the day it tends not to be it tends to get us into ruts where we we expect the self that we've constructed to remain the way it
2:56 is and of course it doesn't so these three are again that everything is always changing that everything is unsatisfactory and that everything is
3:05 non-self now there's this there is a very very important and subtle way in which these three things are different I mean I've said that everything is all
3:14 three but but that's not quite true and to illustrate that I'm going to look at a short passage of three stanzas from the Dhammapada which is a very famous
3:24 early Buddhist text and so this goes numb all conditions are impermanent seeing this with insight one becomes disenchanted with suffering and this is
3:35 the path to purity or the path to awakening all conditions are suffering seeing this with insight one becomes disenchanted with suffering this is the
3:44 path to purity all things are non-self seeing this with insight one becomes disenchanted with suffering this is the path to purity so there's a lot of
3:53 repetition there and we'll see that in a lot of early but as text if you look at them but the important important thing here is to notice the differences which
4:01 has to do with the words conditions in the first two and the word things in the third conditions or Sankara in the Pali conditions are the basically the parts
4:13 of the conditioned world the part of the blooming buzzing confusion that surrounds us it's part of lived reality for all of us all things though you
4:24 more general it includes something else that is outside of our ordinary experience it includes the experience of awakening itself or Nibbana nirvana so
4:35 the distinction here is subtle but for Buddhist philosophy or for but its thinking is critical which is all things are changing I should say all
4:47 conditioned things are changing but not all things because there's one thing that isn't changing which is the awakened state all things all
4:56 conditioned things are painful or suffering or non satisfactory but not all things because there's one thing that isn't suffering and that is
5:08 satisfactory which is again the awakened state state of near banna banna or nirvana but all of experience including the awakened state is non-self so if
5:19 we're in the awakened state which I should say I think strictly speaking if we're getting into a kind of a very subtle kind of interpretation here it
5:27 may not be an experience per se but that doesn't really matter the point is that non-self is literally pervades everything and nothing is self including
5:37 the awakened state so if we shouldn't even expect that when we become awakened or we reach nirvana if such a thing ever happens that we would ever find our true
5:47 self that's not the case in early Buddhism that's at least the interpretation so in this understanding from early Buddhism Nirvana and Nirvana
5:55 is constant it is something that doesn't change it is something that is reliable in that sense it is something that is is pleasurable it's true pleasure it's the
6:05 deepest pleasure and it's something that in fact is called the unconditioned so so the conditioned states are all changing conditioned states that it
6:16 states a cause and effect of the hurly-burly world are all changed they're all unsatisfactory but this one state the state of Nirvana this is
6:26 something it's unconditioned and the problem with this kind of talk that I'm that I'm getting into here which you do find in the early text problem is we can
6:35 tend to come to a thought of awakening as some kind of a thing as some kind of a positive state that we get ourselves into that that persists
6:45 forever and that isn't correct what we should think of when we think of Awakening is as the complete extinction of greed of hatred and of a certain kind
6:57 of ignorance ignorance about the Noble Truths in particular and the point is that once once these dry up once we lose all of our greed once we lose all of our
7:07 hatred once we gain this understanding of the Noble Truths we get ourselves into a kind of a mind state that is permanently awakened that's at least the
7:17 argument and that's why the first two of these three marks of existence are quite different from the third of them that is that's why change and unsatisfactoriness
7:27 are a little bit different from non-self non self is the most the one with the broadest scope now these three marks of existence can be thought of as kind of
7:36 the heart the basis of the Buddha's metaphysics the Buddha had a quite complex metaphysical system within the early texts which I don't need to get
7:46 into but the heart of it the basis of it were these three marks of existence and we know that these are kind of these are when I say metaphysics that means there
7:54 something goes beyond simple experience because the Buddha said that these things are really quite general it's not simply he's not simply making claims
8:02 about my experiences this he's making broad claims broader claims the broadest possible claim that all experiences like this that all things are like this so he
8:13 says in a famous passage bhikkhus or or monks whether to toccatas to target of being another name for the Buddha whether to target is arise or not there
8:22 persists this law of nature this regularity of natural principles this invariance of natural principles all conditions are impermanent at at Agata
8:32 understands this and comprehends it and then he teaches it and again whether tataka does arise or not there is this regularity all conditions are suffering
8:41 there's irregularity all things are non-self so these regularities these consistencies these laws of nature are
8:47 around whether or not and even knows about them they're around whether or not there is an awakened being to recognize them as
8:54 such so these are not sort of constructs out of the Buddha's own experience they're not things that he's willing to say you know look your experience might
9:02 be different check it out he does say check it out but he says check it out because he knows what you're gonna what answer
9:08 you're gonna come to if you're looking carefully if you're looking carefully and you're gonna find out that all things that all conditions are
9:15 impermanent if you're looking carefully you're gonna find that all conditions are suffering or that they're non satisfactory if you're looking carefully
9:24 you're gonna find that all of experience that all things you see are non-self so this isn't just some experience of his that might or might not be true of you
9:34 it's a deep insight into the way reality is under the way reality works in particular to take the first two Noble Truths that reality is changeable and
9:48 that in this changeable kind of atmosphere when this change interacts with the grasping mind with the mind that ordinarily tends to grasp of things
9:58 that leads to suffering that leads to to a feeling of inconstancy of problem of stress of unsatisfactoriness that's how this the first two are linked that the
10:13 inconstancy plus the grasping mind leads to the second one or the unsatisfactory and so in particular change and its relation to our grasping mind change of
10:26 these three changes the most important in the early tradition and the early tradition change plus the grasp in mind is the problem the problem that we were
10:36 faced with every day every moment of every day that we struggle with that we meditate upon that we try to come to terms with that those this interrelation
10:46 between change and the grasping mind is sort of the basis of our practice in much of the early tradition and then of course at within the early tradition as
10:57 well as one got farther along as well got more advanced one then brought in more of this notion of non-self of trying to break
11:03 the notion of self and realize how the notion of self is the problem here or as part of the problem with our grasping mind but then since all things both
11:13 conditioned and supposedly non conditioned or unconditioned are non self because non self is this broad or kind of umbrella that embraces more
11:21 things then it be that that is a more sort of as it were philosophically interesting kind of of claim as a more interesting term because it's a broader
11:31 term and I think as the tradition went on this notion of non-self became more important it tended to then over eclipsed notions of impermanence which
11:41 became sort of more mundane and less interesting and so in the leader tradition you have this notion of Shunyata or emptiness where emptiness
11:50 means emptiness of self and so this notion non self became the important focus in the later tradition of much of thought and practice and philosophy
12:00 really whereas the earlier tradition it wasn't so much the center and I began this we're talking about how or mentioning how these three aspects of
12:08 existence are the deepest part of the Dharma and the reason I say that is because it's awareness of these three aspects of existence that leads to the
12:17 breakthrough to awakening in the early texts so we practice and we practice and we do many different things and practice we do calming practice we do mindfulness
12:29 practice all kinds of different things but at the very end it's this awareness that all of these practices are changeable that they are dukkha that is
12:39 to say they're not satisfactory and that they are non-self that then leads to this break through to awakening more specifically they lead to these are
12:48 called to three insights the three insights we have into the way the world works into the reality of the world that we live in inside other word for inside
12:57 is Vipassana so the these are what are known as the the heart of Vipassana or Insight Meditation because the posture Insight Meditation is trying to trying
13:07 to constantly turn our practice towards looking at these three aspects of experience Insight Meditation although its roots go back to the early
13:16 tax to the to the earliest tax within Buddhism insight practice is a relatively modern practice that was that
13:25 was popularized by lady syadaahally 20th century monk in Burma I have an earlier talk about his importance which I'll put here up here on the screen if you're
13:36 interested to learn more about his importance in the way that he got that he popularized and sort of reformed Buddhism to look towards these insights
13:44 rather than towards other things but that's why these are so important they're they're important because they are sort of the last key in the lock
13:51 towards awakening and so in lady saya does understanding if we bring our focus of practice to the most important part of it to the last bit to that last
14:01 little key perhaps we could speed up our access to awakening and approach it within this very life rather than having to in his
14:11 view spend many lifetimes at it or just simply give it up altogether and think it's too big for me but a question for you guys how much do you practice with
14:18 these do you practice with these insights are when you do meditation do you practice Insight Meditation Vipassana or do you perhaps practice a
14:27 different kind or are you in the Mahayana tradition where you perhaps practice more with emptiness with notions of emptiness of self where
14:34 that's sort of the key to practice in that tradition because there's so many different ways we can approach this does these issues so thanks so much for being
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14:57 thanks for all of your kind comments and questions and we'll catch you on the next one be well