Three Characteristics

Awhile ago Alan Chapman started a thread called "The absolute nature of the three characteristics" at Dharma Overground with the following post:

To what extent do you believe observing the three characteristics is fundamental to achieving fruition?

In a recent thread (Vipassana vs the Suttas) the question was asked 'what does ultimately lead to Nibbana? Seeing the Three Characteristics or understanding Dependent Origination?!' The resounding reply was that they are both the same thing, but I would like to propose that any idea of a fundamental characteristic to reality is nothing of the sort, as fruition clearly demonstrates. For those of you who believe the Buddha's teachings offer the truth, do you not think that the three characteristics would present themselves by any serious investigation of reality, as opposed to reqiuring perceptual cultivation?

Consider Centered Prayer, Maharshi's Self-Enquiry and Gurdjieff's Fourth Way. None of them offer the others' 'fundamental' or 'absolute' characteristics of reality, but each leads to fruition (I'm speaking from experience). In light of this, I'm of the opinion that simply observing reality is the key to the progress of insight, and vipassana (looking for the three characteristics) is just one more method for keeping the mind present and attentive, just like consenting to God's presence, finding the feeling of self or 'splitting the attention' . Taking any methodology for the truth is inherently problematic and the mess surrounding 'no-self' and emptiness is a prime example.

Don't get me wrong here - I'm not dismissing vipassana (on the contrary, I love it!); rather I am highlighting what I believe is a dogma developed from something that should have remained an injunction.

Thoughts?

My first reply was thus:

Nice intro to this important subject, Alan. I will approach this issue from a perspective of wider Buddhist tradition. The problem arising with three characteristics is of semantic and interpretative nature. Namely, the three characteristics are NOT a description of "reality", which is indeed obvious when we have a look at the four seals of the View, as follows:

All compounded things are impermanent.
All phenomena lack self-nature.
All dualistic experience is intrinsically painful.
Nirvana alone is peace, and is beyond concept.

The first three lines, obviously, refer to the three "lakshana" - characteristics, signs, or marks. These three actually refer to everything that can be witnessed, made an object of awareness, and of "any serious investigation" as you propose. Now, to "investigate reality", one need to also consider that which never becomes an object, and therefore escapes this methodology, but does however reveal itself once self-recognized as already obvious. The approach to this recognition does indeed differ among traditions, as it does differ among Buddhist traditions themselves. Indeed, many of which do not work with three characteristics, but all of which lead to three doors of liberation (signless, desireless, and emptiness) which are sometimes, but not exclusively, connected to the three characteristics in a one-to-one manner. As made clear by the fourth line, reality in its ultimate aspect transcends (yet includes) the three characteristics (as well as their opposites, which give content to wholly different methodologies).

When the ultimate is referred to from the perspective of the relative, then three characteristics are used which neither describe the relative itself (that being more properly done by dependent co-arising), nor the ultimate, but are instead used as path (this corresponds somewhat to the via negativa, or the apophatic approach); other Buddhist vehicles equally use a positive language (corresponding to via positiva, or the cataphatic approach) whence Nirvana itself - the fourth line - is described as "self, purity, eternity, and bliss" but again in a special sense.

Now, methodology shouldn't be taken for the truth, as you say, unless we're clear which truth it refers to. There is the twofold truth, but there is also the threefold scheme known as basis, path, and fruit (or fruition). The three characteristics belong to the truth of the path, and specifically to the method and not the wisdom. There are stages in the relationship of relative and ultimate (e.g. five ranks of Tozan in Zen are a good example) and the language used always involves some paradox in absence of fruition.

As to your remark that "looking for the three characteristics is just one more method for keeping the mind present and attentive", this also requires some qualification. Technically, "keeping the mind present and attentive" may mean different things in different methodologies. In Buddhism, presence and attentiveness is generally known as shamatha (pali: samatha), sometimes referred simply as "calm", and the three characteristics are specifically used in a way that is referred to as vipashyana (pali: vipassana), referred to simply as "insight" or "seeing".

Insight may indeed be into the three characteristics, but also may be into the ineffable nature of mind ("suchness"), or even into the inseparability of the three characteristics and suchness itself, and that's why interpretation becomes crucial in the process of realization, and what is usually understood as "fruition" is only the beginning of an integrative process, a rather long road for most. Specifically, seeing the three characteristics is not identified with seeing the reality as it is, the three being precisely referred to [in Western translations] as "characteristics of existence", and existence not being identical with ultimate reality. As clear from the four seals, impermanence refers to compounded phenomena, lack of self-nature to all phenomena, and suffering to dualistic experience. (As to the fourth line, there's the Heart sutra as a widely available entry point.)

Meditation (both calm and insight) is necessary but not enough, and concepts used in the path are balanced by the View, without which methodology easily becomes a dogma. Just as, without practice, the View itself degenerates into mere doctrine.

See the rest of the ensuing discussion.