| | I assert that, while there are many different paths to insight, even those paths that don't call anything the The Three Characteristics, and don't emphasize any aspect that sounds like The Three Characteristics, and has no technique that focuses on The Three Characteristics, nevertheless, by focusing on reality, these aspects present, as they are universal characteristics, and thus, understood or not, conceptualized or not, focused on or not, I will still assert that it is by comprehending the Three Characteristics that Fruitions arise, as the only entrances are through the Three Doors (Really Six Doors given the sub-varieties related to which two of the three are presenting), and so, even if other traditions or practitioners or whatever, attain to the ultimate, they did it by noticing this even if that was not their intention, and I will, for better or for worse, assert that on this particular front Buddhism excels in what I will call descriptive spiritual or meditative anatomy in a way that no other tradition does, and I have looked a the maps of a lot of traditions.
It is not coincidence that most actually do have aspects that parallel at least some of the Three Characteristics, given that they are universal and lead to the entrances to Fruition, even if they don't call them that, and functionally serve the same pointing role.
Distinguishing these can be difficult until one has had a bunch of Fruitions. For instance, the mirror-like nature of mind and the emptiness or no-self door initially seem to have nothing to do with each other from the point of view of theory, but in practice the Emptiness/No-Self Door often presents in a way that is very much mirror-like. Seeing one's original face falls into the exact same camp, as to many other examples. |