From a certain perspective, "Things" simply "are":
they are not self & not "not self";
They are neither satisfactory nor "not satisfactory";
But they are definitely transitory.

Does this make sense?

Yes and no. These words. Pop up on this screen. Seemingly from nowhere. Are they your words or mine. Or are they both or no ones. Is the screen me or you or nothing or everything. Are the words more important than the space between them. Is there a screen. What is satisfying, but a word. How do these words even appear on the screen. Are they separate from the screen. Do they exist when I turn it off. Does the screen care about the words. 

I've had similar thoughts and questions pop up during investigation myself. Makes sense to me. I don't remember my exact formulation or question but I've had it pop up too. Curious what people have to say.

1. Necessary for what?
2. How are you using 3C's or just impermanence currently in your practice?
3. What is your goal/s?
4. How do ya see the 3C's as useful to acheive that goal?
5. What results would you expect?
6. If you focused on any 1 outa 3, would it lead to the other 2?

Fun questions,
I would love to hear about how your practice experiments go.

1. UMMM....ok....what perspective?
6. Yes it makes sense. 2-5 is a standard "Emptiness" explanation.

Good Luck,
~D

Dream Walker,
Always a pleasure interacting with you.

*. Necessary for what?

Does it have to be necessary for something. Can’t the sentence be complete without an object?

*. How are you using 3C's or just impermanence currently in your practice?

My “Practice” is mostly “being” when I am not distracted or involved in something too demanding. Quite often “practice” related ideas pop up in the mind. This idea just kept presenting itself and I thought about sharing it here to get some feedback. Your questions are welcomed and hopefully my answers will elicit some constructive insights that could be helpful for me and for the “silent” readers. I always think about the silent readers as I’ve been one of them for many YEARS.

*. What is your goal/s?
I never see things in terms of “goals”. I rather have “values” that act as “north stars” or directions if you wish. But nothing that could be achieved. One example of something I don’t do is: my goal is stream entry and I am going to do vipassana for 1 hour every day.

*. How do ya see the 3C's as useful to acheive that goal?

I discovered the 3Cs reading MCTB but never really used them to achieve anything. “Impermanence” seems to be a fundamental characteristic of existence at all levels. the other two seem to characterize what I call the “deluded state” or the “state of ignorance”. Otherwise they simply do not apply.

*. What results would you expect?

Oh, expectations!
That something I try to avoid like the plague. When I find myself expecting anything I roll my eyes at myself: “will you ever learn anything?”

*. If you focused on any 1 outa 3, would it lead to the other 2?

This isn’t something I really considered. What would you say? I will do this “practice” and see.

Fun questions, I would love to hear about how your practice experiments go.

​​​​​​​I don’t have a “methodical, dedicated practice” like what is described in the logs here. However, I find myself drawn or pulled into this stuff most of the time: during waking time and often in dreams. Not in dreamless sleep as far as I can tell. I actually spend most of my nights in an intermediary state between sleep & wakefulness meditating or rather being “meditated”: just taking things in (sensations in the body, thoughts in the mind, external sounds, mostly.)

Thank you again Dream Walker & looking forward to hearing from you. 

I think DW is asking the right questions since this is a practice-oriented discussion site.

For additional context, there is a classic bit of writing Daniel did a while ago, which he integrated into the second version of MCTB: 
The “Nothing To Do” and “You Are Already There” Schools – MCTB.org

In fact, the whole chapter is really good:
​​​​​​​37. Models of the Stages of Awakening – MCTB.org

Back atcha

Umm, dunno....I always assume that clarity is useful for two parties to communicate.

non goals but -

1. values
2. north stars
3. directions
4. non achievements

Ok. shrug

apparently non useful to not achieve stuff, or not.

1. So you didn't use the 3C's. 
2. You didn't achieve anything by not using them
3. From this not doing you concluded something

Sounds about right

Awesome!

Well, my advice over many posts is to look at the opposite of the 3C's.
Look for sensations that seem Permanent, Me, Satisfying
Stay on those sensations til they get "empty" or not so much Permanent, Me, Satisfying.
This strategy seemed to work well for me....to each their own.
Best of luck!
~D

If you just study for example your car rusting, you might not get much out of it. If you look deeper you might get some insight into how your egoistic attachment to your impermanent car leads to suffering. The three characteristics are interrelated and studying one usually involves all three. By just focusing on impermanence and not looking deeper, I think you would be missing something important.

But ultimately, I think it depends on why you are observing the three characteristics.

Are doing it because it is something to do while you wait for fruition to occur?

Or are you doing it because you want to gain insight into the cause of suffering and the end of suffering as explained in the four noble truths and the eightfold path? And do you want to gain insight into anatta because the main ingredient in stream-entry is loss of identity-view?

If you want to gain insight into the cause of suffering and the end of suffering and into anatta, I recommend first calming the mind with some type of samatha practice so you can focus your mind, and then, in meditation and daily life, observe the activity of the mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and senses of self and no-self).  If you do that you will see a lot of dukkha, impermanence, and anatta.

Knowing what to look for in particular can help so I will also suggest:

Notice dukkha arising and fading and notice how the ego or attachment to the self-image is involved in the arising of dukkha.

Notice how things pop into awareness by themselves uninvited: thoughts distract you, you have unwanted emotions, and impulses are often unhelpful. Notice how the activity of the mind operates on cause and effect one bit of mental activity leading to another and another through associations, memories, and reasoning, until something sets it off on a new tangent without any entity in control - notice that different bits of mental activity sometimes work at cross purposes or undermine conscious goals, (for example people crave rich foods while hating to gain weight). 

Notice how the feeling of being an observer, an experiencer, a doer, a sufferer is no different than any other thought or feeling. And notice how the sense of self changes in different situations and as your emotions change.

​​​​​​​(Most people already know a lot of this and therefore most people already have a lot of insight into anatta. They just don't connect the dots. To connect the dots you have to see it operating in your own mind over and over along with the connection to dukkha arising. Then you get disenchantment and attachments begin to fade. Some people have a sudden insight, but for many people it happens gradually.)

If you do that you will be studying dukkha, impermanence, anatta, and dependent origination.
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

This is a good formula for eventually inducing cessation/fruition. In my experience, observing and investigating the process described above led to streamentry and beyond.

As much sense as the followiing.

We could ask, which is your favorite mark of existence? Impermanence, of course.

They are like the gunas: good, bad, and neutral. (I'm working on "the quarks of existence.")

Non-self is neutral, neither attractive nor unattractive. Suffering is bad, obviously. And impermanence is kind of attractive, we always hope for more. No impermanence without desire.

Thank you all, if I may clarify: No sensation is nor seems permanent when watched carefully.. ever. There are sensations that seem to be me, but they are exactly the same as sensations that seems to be “not me”. For example sensations that seem to be you, those that seem to be the barking dog or the garbage dump. Some sensations seem satisfactory & others seem to be unsatisfactory but they are fundamentally the same as those that seem to be “me or not me”, like the fragrant rose or the smelly wet dog. That's why I said only “impermanence” seems to be what counts.
Agree ?

Yes, dukkha follows attachment like its shadow. However, attachment is not something you can or have to do anything about. With wrong view attachment is inevitable, with correct view attachment is impossible.
Agree ?

​​​​​​​You all, Chris, DW, Shargol & the others seem to put all the 3Cs on the same level: watch for them all or for their opposites (which is ultimately the same). To me "impermanence" seen from that "certain perspective" is all that counts. For the sake of DW, that other perspective is the view "opposite" to the ordinary view from Ignorance & Delusion. You know the other side of the coin where all the myriad things & beings collapse into the One or into Nothingness, depending on your preference.

I don't know what cessation/fruition is!
And I am not interested in stream entry! Who/what enters “the stream”?

makes sense? 

In my experience, the three characteristics are intertwined and inseparable. They are called "marks of existence" because they are fundamental properties of what we call reality. Any time we're conscious what we experience is subject to and described by these three marks.

Chris,
"In my experience, the three characteristics are intertwined and inseparable."

Ok,
it seems my experience is different from yours.
From the perspective I have been describing here for some time now, both "self/no-self" & "dukkha/no-dukkha" simply do not apply.
Only "transtoriness" is unaffected. 

Still working on it, although it has a very definitive quality to it. This "definitive, clear, unambiguous" quality it has may make seem stubborn or even arrogant or appear like I am claiming something I am not.
The only claim I can make is that I no longer have any doubt whatsoever. Not a single atom of doubt. This perspective is exactly like seeing for someone not visually impaired. You open your eyes & a whole universe is there.

Apologies for all.

Impermanence is, in many ways, the easiest of the 3Cs to see. It is true that, when really seen and understood, that is enough to defang dukkha. I remember going to the dentist after really getting good at Shinzen Young's "Gone" technique, which is an impermanence recognition technique, and finding that none of the vanishing sensations arising at the dentist could hurt me. 

You can also use impermanence to conceptually understand the other characteristics: impertinent and hence necessarily not lastingly satisfactory; impertinent and hence necessarily not indicative of permanent self.

But just as we would not say that we know everything that needs to be known about color because we can recognize "red," impermanence is not the full package. A deep, in-your-bones understanding of not-self is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have in this life. And really understanding dukkha is the only way to understand how it arises and how it ends. 

In short: Impermanence is great! Keep going!

Do not apply to ... ?

From my perspective, the three characteristics are inherent in all experiences (objects). It's just how things work. Intellectually, I can separate them. Experientially, however, they appear together as inseparable and fundamental to the way human perceptions work.

- everything arises and passes
- nothing I perceive is "me"
- all perceptions are unsatisfactory

​​​​​​​

Chris, let me use the same format you used & give  it my twist!

Chris: "- everything arises and passes";
Ok, agreed.

Chris: "- nothing I perceive is "me"";
I would say that some things perceived appear to be "me" but they are not fundamentally different from all the things that appear to be "not-me".

Chris: "- all perceptions are unsatisfactory";
I would say they are neither satisfactory nor unsatisfactory. They just are. No qualifiers needed.
That is what I mean by "doesn't apply" (like the option you find in questionnaires).

Of course the above is "me" talking from that "other perspective". I totally agree that from the "normal perspective", things are transitory, not-I & unsatisfactory.

So, I am not denying your perspective which I find totally valid. I guess what I am saying is that it's not the only one.

Can you see any value in "that other perspective" I am talking about?

Chris, many thanks for being patient with me.

PS: would anyone else like to chime in? 

Hey Martin, 

I guess that what I am saying is that neither selfhood nor dukkha are inherent properties of reality as seen from a particular perspective.

while transitoriness is really fundamental as there is no perspective that I am aware of that gets around it.

Makes sense? 

The same analysis applies to all three. They are not qualitatively different in terms of inherency. 

Making sense doesn't matter if you are wrong. It makes things worse, actually.

Parmenides is the most famous of progenitors of the idea that there is absolutely no impermanence or change going on whatsoever. Philospohers ever since have been split on the issue. 

As you say, it is a certain point of view, a "perspective." No more. You won't know that doubt will never arise until you are dead. Being certain is transitory. Perhaps hubristic.

The view of impermanence as the only absolute could, from another perspective, be seen as a view of permanence. The permanence of impermanence, the snake swallowing its tail.


​​​​​​​Most claims of attainment involve the sense of making permnent some perspective or other.

​​​​​​​It makes sense.  


Actually, it more than makes sense, and I do not want to appear dismissive. The ideas provide a sound basis for selfless practice. Unless regarded as a permnent attainment, which indeed it is explicitly not claimed to be. As a perspective it is noble and good and likely supportive of virtue.

I wouldn't advance it  as a categorical imperative. Nonself is something one keeps to oneself.

After all, it is all our nonselves which make us who we are.

I made a comment here and then apparently edited it away, which makes the next one less clear. I'll try to reconstruct it. That the marks are inseparable is true because everything is inseparable, all dependetly coarises. However, I think todo is right that there is a natural division between the first statement and the last, as you give them.

- everything arises and passes

All objects are mpermanent todo agrees. But there is a natural division between the first statement and the following:

- nothing I perceive is "me"
- all perceptions are unsatisfactory

If non-self is internalized (I know, right?) then we no longer perceive any me and the sense of not perceiving me does not arise. And if no self to judge arises, there is no perception of unsatisfactoriness either. In practice it comes down to contol of memory, or rather, forgettery as I like to call it. So the two terms drop out and there are only transitory objects.

​​​​​​​So, it makes sense.

Terry,

"The view of impermanence as the only absolute could, from another perspective, be seen as a view of permanence. The permanence of impermanence, the snake swallowing its tail."

I think that talking about the "permanence of impermanence" is just words.
I wish I could explain it satisfactorily (pun intended).

The closest to an explanation is that talking about impermanence being permanent is a reification of impermanence.
Impermanence "just is". Not that there is something that is always there.

It's like no-seldf, it's like nothingness, it's like death. These are not "things" that could be experienced.
There isn't a "you" experiencing "no-sslf".
There isn't "something" that you could experience as "nothingness"
There isn't "someone" who is dead & experiences death.
Similarly, there isn't something that endures that you could call impermanence.

I hope that I haven't just made things more confusing! 

Chime: From a non perspective, I agree that perspectives are various, especially without defining what a perspective is.
Stuff is stuff, everything is everything (vaguely). 
If that might be a perspective or not. 
What a philosophical conundrum to "think" about.
What might direct experience by practicing investigation into the 3 lead to?
Might impermanence be the low hanging fruit that most people can grasp first? Find out from trying.
~D

terry --


This version is logically consistent. But I don't think we literally lose our self. Rather, we see through it (deconstruct it) to realize it is not a fixed entity. It's like all other objects, a mind construct. Anyway, I'll stick with my earlier comment that the three characteristics come as a package. We can logically play with them as separate "things," but they occur together with every perception.

​​​​​​​

DW,
"Chime: From a non perspective, I agree that perspectives are various, especially without defining what a perspective is."

I made a thread with an explanation/definition of the "certain perspective":

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/28155397

​​​​​​​makes sense?

Recently in other topic terry refereed to 'self' being all suffering and other such things so it is obvious he didn't fix this muscle tension/clenching thingy or have even realized what it was.

Back when I realized to have such issue I already had good enough perception to at most refer to it as "quote on quote 'sense of self'" (internally I mean) and not for a moment believing it has anything to do existence of some permanent self. It made sense in my early teens to check myself through this tension and it also made sense I would at the time focus on pleasant aspects of this experience not realizing how I can develop issues if I abuse it - which I guess is how most people get it. Though some people might have also be confused about what it is when their perception is lacking in resolving ability to clearly realize its just tension/clenching.

Since then I have like:
1) cessation of whole attention - makes it just don't happen unless dynamic attention falls on it
2) cessation of something inside this tension - makes it so even when dynamic attention falls on it then it doesn't cause dukkha
3) fixing sense of self itself - so it just doesn't have the issue and both dynamic attention or this quote on quote 'normal attention' can refer to sense of self without feeling dukkha
4) that fancy arhat 'flip' or untangling knot - change of perspective which causes dynamically created consciousnesses which are copies of experiences that confused me (read: obstructed real experiences) to not need to arise when unasked for

So absolutely no issue with self. In doesn't even feel like it used to with the 4th path because it itself removes feedback necessary to experience it... but so does this 'whole attention' thing but in different aspect. In fact I think that this attention thing Daniel attained after 4th path (that actualism thingy) but it to various degree can be attained before it and it perfectly explains why in the past it felt people were missing something including Daniel in MCTB1 wheras it also felt like whatever Daniel talked about in MCTB1 wasn't the 'solution' I used and something totally different.

I learned to control each and every faculty to such a degree I can e.g. flip that 4th path thing back and forth. It may sound stupid to flip it back but I did it anyways just to train my conscious control over it and with it made it less 'edgy'. There is always a certain amount of tension within these things when they are 'attained' but not under complete volitional control. I noticed it with each and every 'attainment' as in change which happened for whatever reason. Once I became more conscious to the point controlling it was obvious then the edginess about having them (the changes related to attainments) be in this or that state was gone. It isn't of course any 'control' as in being confused that one part of mind controls another (let alone through muscle tension ) but merely consciousness over conditions - and of course its consciousness of it and parts of the mind which constitute condition. Makes the whole thing feel like its just consciousness... well, I know, consciousness of mind makes it feel like conscious mind sounds silly but for whatever reason I needed literally decades to fully become conscious of that ;)

From what I gather Chris you don't have that issue which you workaround? Or 3rd point on the list. And with it you can experience your self in any way you want including tensing your muscles (these are allover the body including face, neck, etc.) like if you were a teenager but perhaps not tight like a teenager would most often be ;)

BTW. I know four points looks like paths and it is the order of my paths but I think it might be different order for different people (if only because I can control how each of these axes of control apply - including causing dukkha in 3rd point - just like I can cause dukkha in my hand if I clench my fist too tight!) or at the very least and different levels of conscious in/within each point versus unconscious conditioning.

ps. 3C -- I think it was originally three axes of characteristics with 6 extremes and the point was to do Anatta-style contemplation on all experiences/perceptions it in order to realize the "True Self". It got then butchered by ascetes who focusing on negativity made it so that no one could actually realize the true original True Self. Of course True Self having nothing to do with muscle tension and it also requires "technical 4th path" and the whole practice was invention of Buddha before Gautama Buddha. IMHO.

In other words IMHO people over time lost original meaning of this practice (Dharma Ending age) and Gautama Buddha didn't fully realize it because his realization of Nibbana was about "seclusion from sensuality" which just needs to be realized by itself (and to full effect also needs 4th path) and if anything for other things he was teaching about related to Anatta and such threshold for that doesn't require full realization of True Self. IMHO Nibbana and True Self are equal in rank. Different experiences achieved slightly differently but actually its almost the same thing. IMHO Gautama Buddha did realize True Self but only later in life and did realize that ascetism he was practicing butchered it and how whatever he says will be similarly butchered. Its I guess just cycle of rebirth of Buddhas ;)

In other words when someone does 3C or even does Anatta practice it is NOT what Buddha really wanted people to do - it was literally nothing else than "being secluded from sensuality" - or in other words Nibbana.

Since I respect you Chris I recommend you to try both of these Buddha's inventions as they were invented - which might require some wiggling around to get right. While you do, and especially Nibbana please DO NOT refer to THIS. Not like in any way or form but its something else and its better to get to basics. I wholeheartedly recommend it. Not because there is anything wrong with any 'solution' as I call them or there is difference in rank but because its just more fun to have more of these Enlightenments. Broadening own horizons is always a good thing.

And if its something you already did realize (Nibbana, maybe True Self) then I hope me recommending practices won't feel offensive.
Personally I wouldn't mind anyone recommending practice to me. For as long as it is not ascetic. I don't do ascetic practices. Conscious practices on aspects I might have not thought about yet or did thought but didn't practice to get a realization - bring it on!

   I think you are righter here than you know. We can't "literally" lose our ":self" because the self only exists literally, which is to say, in language.

   And this is the real objection to todo's argument. Language is inescapable, the cage of consciousness. 

   Your words are contradictory. You maintain "non-self" but use it to maintain "self."  Once deconstructed, the self does not exist, todo might argue. 

   In another thread, on another day, stirling was saying that nirvana was right here, *this.* He could access it any time he wanted to, like right now, and here it is. Cessation on demand.  Why not?

   Self can't be literally lost because it is an artefact of language. That is no small thing, because language is a social construct and we are social creatures. Our identites as selves are social constructs and artefacts. That is to say, conditioning. Slings and arrows.

  Nonself is our refuge. Realer than the literal.

How could he be offended, he's been recommending practices for ages.

I'm too old and dense to try to understand all these high falutin' words. A nice peaceful place this is, to be honest. I harbor no ill will for any of you. Be well!

I had a fling I was going to let fly but no doubt it would be high falutin if not rank r us...

party poop in your stocking as well

I treat words people write as pointers - empty of inherent meaning.
Nice places... everyone needs to have one! Except Buddha who apparently is fine sitting around trees but even then he went places. Perhaps something I forgot about regarding how pointers work is to have a defined place to point too. Its emptiness and trees everywhere so why sit in one place!

Also important if one do have a place they should work on ventilation. Some issues are resolved by good ventilation. And perhaps being generally more open. It is like with hats. They are comfy but not as comfy when you wear them only on occasion. It is the movement that helps remove stale air. Bring fresh air? Nah, we can make our own out of empty space! Now flipping hats that I mentioned before is something only crazy people do when they have explicit purpose for doing so but to take it off your head, dust off and take a moment to appreciate your hair not being pressed by the hat - as much as hats are amazing nothing beats freedom.

@terry

You see recommending practices require practice too.
It is one thing to get results from doing practice and other thing to recommend practice and for person to whom its recommended to get good results.
Recommend it wrong and person might end up in e.g. the lake or e.g. gorge
I haven't even had that much practice doing recommended practices and just did whatever I felt like would do something to then figure out what I should really practice - but doing all the wrong things had some practical effect too. I also cannot recommend doing everything like I did because that would be just bad. Takes way too much time and effort to do things the way I did them. Its the whole moral conundrum what things to recommend and what it even means to recommend practice in the first place.

Its called purposefully making it hard on myself. There are reasons why some people do it this way.
To me its my hobby. Cannot make it too easy because then what will I have to do to pass the time? I already spend too much time on my other hobbies and need no others. Sometimes need to meditate on this because I make too much assumptions on it being a main hobby for everyone. Apparently it not only isn't everyone main hobby but at times it isn't any hobby at all. I don't get it, it is inconceivable how that could be... but then again I don't get most hobbies that people do either so I guess things are in balance.

I understand. I must beg your indulgence and ask you as you asked, does this not make sense?


"Becoming" refers to impermanence, while "being" refers to existence. "Existence" refers to phenomena.

To say these are "just words" is obviously missing the point. To say that things "just are" is to acknowledge there are "things" or at least objects which may be spoken of as such. I would be happy to stipulate that a "thing" is arbitrarily bounded in both space and time and in reality all things are continuous in all dimensions. And impermanent and thus ultimately unbounded. There are forms and appearances, no real things at all, everything beng connected. As ram dass liked to say, the smallest particle in the universe is the universe.

And yet, there is "the universe." The totality. There is impermanence itself. However impermanent the universe, however much it changes, it doesn't ever not exist. It's happening happening happening,as real as can be.

You can deny the experiencer, but you cannot deny the experience. I think, therefore thinking exists.


The thinking is not satisfactory  and not generated by a self, but you might not consider that significant.


I think the following discussion is pertinent and actually the classic contrast between the views of permanence vs impermanence is usually heraclitus vs parmenides.



from nietzsche and philosophy by gilles deleuze


Heraclitus is the tragic thinker. The problem of justice runs
through his entire work. Heraclitus is the one for whom life is
radically innocent and just. He understands existence on the basis of
an instinct of play. He makes existence an aesthetic phenomenon rather than a moral or religious one. Thus Nietzsche opposes him point by point to Anaximander, just as Nietzsche himself is opposed to Schopenhauer. ‘Heraclitus denied the duality of worlds. He denied 
being itself'. Moreover he made an affirmation of becoming. We have to reflect for a long time to understand what it means to make an affirmation of becoming. In the first place it is doubtless to say that there is only becoming. No doubt it is also to affirm becoming. But we also affirm the being of becoming, we say that becoming affirms being or that being is affirmed in becoming. Heraclitus has two thoughts which are like ciphers: according to one there is no being, everything is becoming; according to the other, being is the being of becoming as such. A working thought which affirms becoming and a contemplative thought which affirms the being of becoming. These two ways of thinking are inseparable, they are the thought of a single element, as Fire and Dike, as Physis and Logos. For there is no being beyond becoming, nothing beyond multiplicity; neither multiplicity nor becoming are appearances or illusions. But neither are there multiple or eternal realities which would be, in turn, like essences beyond appearance. Multiplicity is the inseparable manifestation, essential transformation and constant symptom of unity. Multiplicity is the affirmation of unity; becoming is the affirmation of being. The affir- mation of becoming is itself being, the affirmation of multiplicity is itself one. Multiple affirmation is the way in which the one affirms itself. "The one is the many, unity is multiplicity." And indeed, how would multiplicity come forth from unity and how would it continue to come forth from it after an eternity of time if unity was not actually affirmed in multiplicity? "If Heraclitus only perceives a single element it is nevertheless, in a sense, diametrically opposed to that of Parmenides (or of Anaximander). . . The unique must be affirmed in generation and destruction." Heraclitus had taken a deep look, he had seen no chastisement of multiplicity, no expiation of becoming, no culpability of existence. He saw no negativity in becoming, he saw precisely the opposite: the double affirmation of becoming and of the being of becoming - in short the justification of being.