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 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 enough!
Therefore is all perception foreign, strange, not-me-nor-mine-nor-self!
All construction is insecure, subsiding, ephemeral and always leaving!
Therefore is all construction brittle, irksome,
and invariably inadequate!
Therefore is all construction impersonal and not-me-nor-mine-nor-self!
All consciousness is momentary, fleeting, passing, evanescent and lost!
Therefore is all consciousness insubstantial, tedious,
and quite miserable!
Therefore is all consciousness egoless, alien and neither-me-nor-I-nor-self!
Thus seeing, thus knowing, thus assured, and 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!
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:
Constructions are all impermanent:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is ill,
Then that is the path to mental purity.
Constructions are all suffering:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is sick,
Then this is the path to mental purity.
All states are all without a same self:
When he sees thus with understanding
And turns away from what is illusory,
This is verily the path to mental
purity.
Dhammapada 277-79
