The Three Signata:

Anicca, Dukkha, Anattā

(With extracts from the Buddha’s discourses)

by

Dr. O. H. de A. Wijesekera
Professor of Sanskrit
University of Ceylon

Buddhist Publication Society

Kandy, Sri Lanka

The Wheel Publication No. 20

First Edition: 1960.

Second Edition: 1970
Third Edition: 1982
BPS Online Edition © (2008)
Digital Transcription Source: BPS and Access to Insight Transcription Project

For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and
redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be
made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and translations and other
derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.
 Contents
I. Anicca...........................................................................................................................................3
II. Dukkha........................................................................................................................................5
III. Anattā.........................................................................................................................................8
Gleanings from the Pali Scriptures.............................................................................................11
Anicca—Impermanence.........................................................................................................11
Dukkha—Suffering or Unsatisfactoriness...........................................................................13
Anattā: Not-self or Egolessness.............................................................................................15

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 The Three Signata
I. Anicca
The concept of the three signata forms the essential basis for understanding the Buddha’s
scheme of emancipation. The three signata, the three universal properties of all existing
things of the phenomenal world, are anicca (impermanence, transience or transitoriness),
dukkha (unsatisfactoriness, ill, suffering or painfulness), and anattā (non-self, absence of a
permanent ego, or insubstantiality). It is the contemplation of these three universal
characteristics of all compounded things and processes (saṅkhāra), or of all phenomena , that
leads to true insight and enlightenment . The realisation of these three fundamental truths
can thus be regarded as the key to the highest spiritual perfection afforded by the Buddha
Dhamma.
The first of the three signata, anicca (impermanence, transitoriness of all things in the
universe), is a doctrine constantly and emphatically insisted upon in the Buddhist texts.
According to the Buddha’s Teaching, the Buddha Dhamma, there is nothing divine or
human, animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic, which is permanent or stable,
unchanging or everlasting.
This Buddhist concept of the transitoriness of all things, the Buddhist law of
impermanence, finds classic expression in the famous formula “sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā”
occurring in the Cūlasaccaka Sutta (MN 35), and in the more popular statement “aniccā vata
saṅkhārā.” Both these formulas amount to saying that all conditioned things or processes are
transient or impermanent. This is not given as the result of metaphysical inquiry, or of any
mystical intuition, but as a straightforward judgement to be arrived at by investigation and
analysis. It is founded on unbiased thought and has a purely empirical basis. In the
Mahāvagga of the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 7:62/IV 100ff.) the Master admonishes his
disciples thus: “Impermanent, monks, are (all) saṅkhāras, unstable (not constant), monks,
are [al] saṅkhāras, [hence] not a cause for comfort and satisfaction are [all] saṅkhāras, so
much so that one must get tired of all these saṅkhāras, be disgusted with them, and be
completely free of them.”
There is no doubt here as to what is meant by the term saṅkhāra, for the Master himself
continues by way of illustration:
There will come a time, monks, maybe hundreds of thousands of years hence, when no
more rains will fall and consequently all plants and trees, all vegetation, will dry up
and be destroyed with the scorching due to the appearance of a second sun; streams
and rivulets will go dry; and with the appearance of a third sun, such large rivers as the
Ganges and Yamunā will dry up; similarly, the lakes and even the great ocean itself will
dry up in course of time, and even such great mountains as Sineru, nay even this wide
earth, will begin to smoke and be burnt up in a great and universal holocaust … Thus
impermanent, monks, are all saṅkhārā, unstable, and hardly a cause for comfort, so
much so that one [contemplating their impermanent nature] must necessarily get tired
of them.
It is easy to understand from this discourse in what an all-embracing sense the term saṅkhāra
is used: it includes all things, all phenomena that come into existence by natural
development or evolution, being conditioned by prior causes and therefore containing

3
within themselves the liability to come to an end, to be dissolved from the state in which
they are found.
According to the Buddha, there is no “being,” but only a ceaseless “becoming” . Every
thing is the product of antecedent causes, and, therefore, of dependent origination .1 These
causes themselves are not everlasting and static, but simply antecedent aspects of the same
ceaseless becoming. Thus we may conceive everything as the result of a concatenation of
dynamic processes and, therefore, everything created or formed is only created or formed
through these processes and not by any agency outside its own nature. In Buddhism
everything is regarded as compounded . Thus saṅkhata in these contexts implies everything
arisen or become , which depends on antecedent conditions . It is for this very reason
(namely, that everything conceivable in this world has come to be or become depending on
antecedent conditions or processes) that everything is to be regarded as liable to pass away.
As it is declared in the Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN 12:31/S II 49): “Whatever has become is of the
nature of passing away .” This law, if one may call it so, holds in the case of the mightiest of
gods, such as Mahā-Brahmā, as much as of the tiniest creature. In the 11th discourse of the
Dīgha Nikāya it is regarded as ludicrous that even God or Brahma should imagine himself
to be eternal. As Professor Rhys Davids remarked,
The state of an individual, of a thing or person, distinct from its surroundings, bounded
off from them, is unstable, temporary, sure to pass away. It may last as, for instance, in
the case of the gods for hundreds of thousands of years; or, as in the case of some
insects, for some hours only; or as in the cause of some material things (as we should
say some chemical compounds), for a few seconds only. But in every case as soon as
there is a beginning, there begins also at that moment to be an ending.2
The ethical significance of this law of impermanence is well brought out in the Mahā-
Sudassana Suttanta (DN 17). There the Buddha tells Ānanda, his favourite disciple, about
the glories of the famous king of the past, Mahā Sudassana; about his cities, treasures,
palaces, elephants, horses, carriages, women, and so on, in the possession of which he led a
wonderful life; about his great regal achievements; and finally his death; only to draw the
moral conclusion: “Behold, Ānanda, how all these things are now dead and gone, have
passed and vanished away. Thus, impermanent, Ānanda, are the saṅkhāras; thus
untrustworthy, Ānanda, are the saṅkhāras. And this, Ānanda, is enough to be weary of, to
be disgusted with and be completely free of such saṅkhāras.”
When the Buddha characterized all compounded things and conditioned processes as
impermanent and unstable, it must be understood that, before all else, stood out that
particular heap of processes that is called man; for at bottom it was with man chiefly that
Buddha had to do, in so far as it was to man primarily that he showed the way to
emancipation. Thus the chief problem was to find out the real nature of man, and it is
precisely in this great discovery that the uniqueness of the Dhamma is visible. The Buddha’s
conclusion regarding man’s nature is in perfect agreement with his general concept of
impermanence: Man himself is a compound of several factors and his supposedly persistent
personality is in truth nothing more than a collection of ceaselessly changing processes; in
fact, a continuous becoming or bhava. The Buddha analysed man into five aggregates: rūpa,
vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra, and viññāṇa, that is to say, material form, sensations, perceptions,
dynamic processes and consciousness. In discourse after discourse, the Master has
emphatically asserted that each of these aggregates is impermanent and unstable. In the
famous discourse of the Dīgha Nikāya (DN 22/D II 301) entitled “The Discourse on the
Establishment of Mindfulness” (Mahā Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta) the Master teaches the disciple to
1
See The Wheel, No. 15, Dependent Origination, by Piyadassi Thera.
2
American Lectures.

4
view all these categories as being of the nature of arising and of passing away : “Such is
material form, such is its genesis, such its passing away; and so on with the other three
groups: perceptions, dynamic processes and consciousness.” In fact, the highest
consummation of spiritual life is said to result from the true perception of the evanescent
nature of the six spheres of sense contact. The 102nd discourse of the Majjhima Nikāya ends
with the words: “This, indeed, monks, is the perfect way of utter peace into which the
Tathāgata has won full Enlightenment, that is to say, the understanding, as they really are,
of the six spheres of sense-contact, of their arising and passing away, their comfort and
misery, and the way of escape from them free of grasping” (M II 237). It is these six spheres
of sense-contact that cause the continuity of saṃsāra, in other words, bhava or becoming, and
thus they are to be understood as involving the most important saṅkhāras. Hence the oft
repeated stanza in the Pali Canon: “All compounded things indeed are subject to arising and
passing away; what is born comes to an end; blessed is the end of becoming; it is peace.”

II. Dukkha
The fact of impermanence as the leading characteristic of all compounded things and
processes of the phenomenal world has been dealt with above. The next, according to the
concept of the three signata , is the fact of dukkha which signifies the universal characteristic
of all saṃsāric existence, viz. its general unsatisfactoriness. It must be admitted that this Pali
word “dukkha” is one of the most difficult terms to translate. Writers in English very often
use as its equivalent the English word “sorrow” or “ill” and some even translate it as “pain,”
“suffering” and so on. But none of these English words covers the same ground as the Pali
dukkha, they are too specialized, too limited and usually too strong. The difficulty is
increased by the fact that the Pali word itself is used in the Canon in several senses.
There is what one may call the general philosophical sense, then a narrower psychological
sense, and a still narrower physical sense. It is as indicating the general philosophical sense
of dukkha that the word un-satisfactoriness has been selected. This is perhaps the best
English term, at least in this particular context of the “three signata.”
Whatever some writers of Buddhism may have said, the recognition of the fact of dukkha
stands out as the most essential concept of Buddhism. In the very first discourse after
attaining Enlightenment the Master formulated this concept in the following terms:
This, indeed, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha, namely the fact that birth itself is
dukkha, disease is dukkha, death is dukkha; to be joined with what is unpleasant is
dukkha, to be separated from what is pleasant is dukkha, failure in getting what one
wants is dukkha, in short the five groups of physical and mental qualities making up
the individual due to grasping are themselves dukkha. (Vin I 10; cp. S V 421)
This observation of the universal fact of unsatisfactoriness is, as any unbiased student of
Buddhism will soon realize, the central pivot of the whole system of spiritual and moral
progress discovered and proclaimed by the Buddha.
According to the Buddha, the beginning, continuity and ending of all experience (i.e. the
whole world ) for a sentient being, are centred in its own individuality , that is to say, the
five groups of grasping that constitute the individual (the pañcupadānakkhandhā viz. material
form, sensations and feelings, perceptions (physical and mental), dynamic processes, and
consciousness (rūpa, vedanā saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa). Now, the physical form or the body
of the individual is the visible basis of this individuality, and this body, as every one knows,
is a product of material components derived from the four great elements, viz. the watery,
the fiery, the airy and the earthy . It is said to be built up of these four chief elements and

5
therefore, it is conditioned by these. As was explained in the previous article, the universal
characteristic of the four great elements is their impermanence , and not much science is
needed to understand this fact which is self-evident to the thoughtful person. The Buddha
says:
“A time will come when the watery element will rise in fury, and when that happens,
the earthy element will disappear, unmistakably revealing itself as transient and subject
to ruin, destruction and vicissitude… There may also come a time when the watery
element will dry up and no more water is left in the great ocean than will cover one
joint of a finger. On that day this great watery element will unmistakably reveal itself as
transient and subject to ruin, destruction and vicissitude. A time will come when the
fiery element will rage furiously and devour the whole surface of the earth, ceasing
only when there is nothing more to devour. On that day this great fiery element will
unmistakably reveal itself as transient and subject to destruction. A time will come
when the airy element will rage in fury and carry away village and town and
everything upon the earth … till it exhausts itself completely. On that day this great
airy element will unmistakably reveal itself as transient and itself subject to ruin,
destruction and all vicissitude.” (MN 28/M I 187)
Thus everything that is comprised within the four great elements shows itself subject to the
universal law of transitoriness, and it is not a difficult inference to conclude that this fathom-
long body which is a derivative of these four elements will itself go the way of its elemental
source.
Now the Buddha goes on to show the impermanence or transitoriness of the remaining
components of our individuality which are based upon the body and its organs:
The corporeal form, monks, is transient, and what underlies the arising of corporeal
form, that too is transient. As it is arisen from what is transient, how could corporeal
form be permanent? Sensations and feelings are transient; what underlies the arising of
these (viz. the sense organs, depending on the body) is also transient. Arisen from what
is transient, how could sensations and feelings be permanent? Similarly, perceptions,
dynamic processes of the mind, and consciousness: all these, arising from the transient,
cannot but be transient. (SN 22:15/S III 23)
In all these are observed arising, vicissitude and passing away. This real, impermanent
nature of everything constituting the individual can only lead to one conclusion: that as they
are transitory and by nature unabiding, they cannot be the basis for a satisfactory experience
dependent on them. In short, whatever is transient, is (by that very fact) unsatisfactory (yad-
aniccaṃ taṃ dukkhaṃ, SN 22:15). Hence is established the great Truth of Buddhism that the
whole personality or individuality (wherever that may take shape, whether in this world or
in another, as is possible in saṃsāra) and therefore the whole world of experience which
simply depends on this individuality, all this is unsatisfactory or dukkha.
What do you think, monks; is the body permanent or is it transient?
It is transient, Sir.
Now, that which is transient: is it satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
It is unsatisfactory, Sir.
What do you think, monks, sensation, perception, mental processes and
consciousness: are all these permanent or transient?
They are transient, Sir.
Now, what is transient: is it satisfactory or unsatisfactory?

6
 It is unsatisfactory, Sir. (SN 22:57).
Thus this general unsatisfactoriness is to be regarded as the universal characteristic of all
saṃsāric experience, and this fact constitutes the Noble Truth of dukkha. To the intelligent
person all this must sound axiomatic. But, then, why are the large majority of people
unconvinced of, or unconcerned with, this great Truth which forms the bed-rock of the
Buddha Dhamma? To answer this we have to probe into the working of man’s own mind
which alone can realize this conception of the universality of dukkha.
The Master has said that the sentient being is psychologically so constituted that he seeks
what is pleasurable and shuns what is non-pleasurable ; to use the above employed
terminology, he hankers after what is satisfactory for himself and recoils from what is
unsatisfactory. Critics of Buddhism may wonder whether it is justifiable to regard the whole
psychology of the sentient being as being so strongly ruled by this principle of hankering for
the pleasurable and shunning what is unpleasant. That a similar conclusion was arrived at
by Freud, the founder of the modem school of psychoanalysis, should cause such critics or
sceptics to pause and reflect upon the scientific validity of such an observation. Freud begins
his famous dissertation on “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” with the following significant
words: “In the theory of psychoanalysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course
taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that
is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable
tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of
that tension, that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure.” Freud
thus introduces what he calls an “economic” principle into his study of mental processes,
and is it not a noteworthy fact in the history of human ideas that the Buddha had nearly
twenty five centuries earlier formulated the same principle in practically the same terms?
Now, if man by nature is driven by his own unconscious processes to seek for the pleasant
and avoid what is unpleasant, it stands to reason that he would be unwilling to accept a
philosophy whose basic idea is the characterization of all his experiences as impermanent
and therefore liable to bring unhappiness or dukkha. That is why the Buddha soon after his
Enlightenment considered that only a very few in the world had their vision sufficiently
clear to grasp this great Truth of the universality of dukkha.
Before concluding this brief exposition of dukkha a doubt should be cleared which is
often seen to cloud this conception and erroneously leads certain people to conclude that if
the fact of dukkha is such a universal characteristic of experience, Buddhism must be
regarded as a profession of pessimism. That such a view is totally wrong is seen clearly from
certain passages of the Canon itself. According to Buddhism there is a point of view from
which experiences, that is to say, sensations and feelings can be considered to be threefold:
they can be pleasant or happy , or they can be unpleasant or unhappy , or they can be
neutral, i.e. neither pleasant nor unpleasant . From this lower or relative point of view
which holds good for all individual experience, there is what may be called happiness in the
world just as much as unhappiness, the degree of predominance of the one over the other
varying according to personal and environmental conditions prevailing at a given moment.
But further contemplation of such happiness and unhappiness and neutral feelings shows
unmistakably that there is a common denominator between all these three types of
experiences, namely, the fact that all three are subject to the universal property of
impermanence or transience. Thus the Venerable Sāriputta assures the Master that if
questioned on the real nature of sensations and feelings, he would reply: “Threefold, indeed,
friend, are those feelings and sensations: pleasant, unpleasant and neither-pleasant-nor-
unpleasant; but, friend, [all] these three [experiences] are transient, and when one realizes

7
that whatever is transient [and fleeting] must give rise to dukkha (in other words, is
unsatisfactory), no hankering after them arises.”
It can easily be seen that in the last sentence, dukkha is used in the wider philosophical
sense, as referred to at the beginning of this article. Hence is the Master’s joyful approval of
Sāriputta’s words: “Well said, well said, Sāriputta, this exactly is the manner in which one
should summarily dispose of such a question: Whatever experience there is, such [being
transitory]must fall within the category of dukkha” (yaṃ kiñci vedayitaṃ tam dukkhasmiṃ; SN
12:32/S II 53). All saṃsāric experience is in this sense vedayita and thus arises the
incontrovertible proposition that all becoming in saṃsāra is dukkha or unsatisfactory from
the highest point of view . Herein is also based that absolutely certain optimism of
Buddhism, viz. that there is a way out of this saṃsāric dukkha, a haven of utter peace and
tranquillity, which is the absolute happiness of Nibbāna. Nibbānaṃ paramaṃ sukhaṃ.

III. Anattā
The above discussion of the two signata of impermanence and unsatisfactoriness naturally
leads to the basic Buddhist concept of anattā, non-self or insubstantiality.3
Every student of Buddhism knows that this concept is the most controversial of all the
basic ideas of the system, and that a hundred and one interpretations have been suggested
by commentators, scholars and critics. To the Western student of Buddhism the so-called
“anattā-doctrine” has been the hunting-ground, not always a happy one, for the display of
personal ingenuity and dialectical jumbling, and it is significant that this idea has been the
cause of the most glaring contradictions among themselves, and even within the writings of
the same authority. Even our own historical schools of Buddhist interpretation have found
this concept the most difficult. The main difficulty confronting the interpreters has, in my
opinion, been the lack of a clear definition of the term attā. It is curious how writers,
particularly those of the West, have plunged into discussions of this doctrine equipped with
no other definition of it than the ideas of Soul or Ego borrowed from theistic and pantheistic
systems of philosophy or religion, as they were accustomed to before taking up the study of
Buddhism. It is not intended to pursue the criticism of such interpretation in this article, but
to emphasize the important fact that by the word attā or atta books of the Pali Canon refer to
a number of historical concepts that prevailed in India about the sixth century before Christ,
and, therefore, the term must be defined accordingly in relation to the particular context
under review. Here then we shall confine ourselves to those contexts where the adjective
anattā is used as the universal characteristic of all dhammas which is the third of the three
signata or tilakkhaṇa.4
The two previous articles dealt with the facts of the impermanence of all compounded
things and processes, and of the general unsatisfactoriness of all states derived from these,
namely, the five groups of physical and mental properties dependent on grasping ; in
particular those feelings and sensations that go to make up individual experience which
could be classified as pleasant, unpleasant, and neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. The
relevant texts were cited to show that the latter characteristic of general unsatisfactoriness is
derived directly from the first characteristic of impermanence. It is now opportune to show
how as a necessary corollary of this general unsatisfactoriness of all experience arises the
3
See Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta in Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Ñāṇamoli Thera
(The Wheel, No. 17).
4
See Vedanta and Buddhism by H. von Glasenapp (The Wheel, No. 2) pp, 6ff and Anattā and
Nibbāna by Nyanāponika Thera (The Wheel, No. 11).

8
realization of the third and last verity included in the three signata, viz. the universal
characteristic of all physical and mental states and phenomena as anattā.
In the words of the Master himself: “Physical form, monks, is transient , and whatever is
transient is unsatisfactory whatever is unsatisfactory, that is anattā (non-self); and whatever
is non-self, that is not of me, that I am not, that is not my self.” This same rigorous logic is in
turn applied to the four other groups constituting individuality viz. the feelings and
sensations , perception and cognitions , mental processes and reflexes and finally, the
individual’s consciousness itself . This last application of the universal characteristic of non-
self to consciousness is in several ways the most significant act in this statement, and when
we remind ourselves that the Pali word viññāṇa includes even the innermost mental
experiences of the. sentient being, we can see clearly the exact force of the anattā
characteristic as conceived by the Buddha. The most rarified concept of Self or Ego that any
philosopher, before or after the Buddha, ever conceived was somehow or somewhere
concerned with a state of self-consciousness, the consciousness that “I am I.”
To the Buddha, even this self-consciousness or “I-ness” is subject to the inexorable
characteristics of impermanence and unsatisfactoriness, and since whatever is subject to
these characteristics is non-self, this I-consciousness must be regarded as an illusion or an
error. This is, in short, the significance of the adjective anattā as used in the above mentioned
doctrine. In the Cha-chakka Sutta (MN 148) a detailed analysis of this concept occurs:
“If any one regards the eye (i.e. seeing) as the self, that does not hold, for the arising
and the passing away of the eye is (clear from experience). With regard to that which
arises and passes away, if anyone were to think, ’myself is arising and passing away’
(such a thought) would be controverted by the person himself. Therefore, it does not
hold to regard the eye as the self. Thus the eye (or seeing) is (proved to be) non-self.
Similarly if anyone says that the forms (rūpā or visual objects) are the self, that too does
not hold.”
So both the eye and the visual objects (cognized by it) are non-self. The same argument
applies to visual perception or the eye-consciousness if one were to consider this as self.
Similarly, it applies to visual sense-contact , so that the eye, its sense objects, visual
consciousness and visual sense-contact are all four non-self . It applies also to feelings (that
arise due to the above four), so that the eye, its sense-objects, visual consciousness, visual
sense-contact, and the resultant feelings, are all five non-self. It applies lastly to the
(instinctual) craving that is associated with above five, so that the eye, its sense objects,
visual consciousness, visual contact, the resultant feelings, and the craving behind them all,
these six are non-self. And, what thus applies to the eye or the sense of sight, applies equally
to the other five senses (the last being the mind—mano—as an organ of sense). Thus, if it be
said that the mind is self , that too does not hold. Similarly, it is inadmissible to assert that
the mind, or its sense-objects or mental-consciousness , or mental contact , or the feelings
that result from all the craving , that is associated with all these, are the self. They are non-
self, all of them. The way that leads to the origination of the (concept of) permanent
individuality or personality is to regard as mine, or as “I am this,” or as “This is my self”
either the sense of seeing, or the visual data, or visual consciousness, or visual contact, its
feelings or its craving or similarly, to regard hearing and the four other senses (including
mind) with their adjuncts. The way that leads to the cessation of the (view of) permanent
personality is to cease regarding as mine and so forth, either (the functions of) seeing, or
hearing, or smelling, or tasting, or touching, or thinking, or their adjuncts.”
Now, the Buddha goes on to discuss the ethical implications of this view of self or
permanent personality:

9
 “From sight and visual objects arises visual consciousness and the meeting of all three
is contact, from which contact come feelings which may be pleasant, or unpleasant, or
neither. When experiencing a pleasant feeling, a man rejoices in it, hails it and clings
tight to it, and a trend to passion (attachment) ensues. When experiencing an
unpleasant feeling a man sorrows, feels miserable, wails, beats his breast and goes
distraught, and a trend of repugnance ensues. When experiencing a feeling that is
neither pleasant nor unpleasant he has no true and causal comprehension of that
feeling’s origin, disappearance, agreeableness, perils and outcome, and a trend of
ignorance ensues. It can never possibly result that, without first discarding the pleasant
feeling’s trend to passion, without first discarding the unpleasant feeling’s trend to
repugnance, and without getting rid of the neutral feeling’s trend to ignorance, without
discarding ignorance, and stopping it from arising, he will put an end, here and now, to
dukkha. And what is true of sight, is equally true of the other five senses.”
Thus the Buddha admonishes his disciples to analyse the whole conception of self or
abiding personality and thereby the whole of experience along with every single
component of the process, whereby the fallacy of Self or abiding personality arises, viewing
this whole process of the arising of individuality in a perfectly objective manner.
From all this it becomes clear that the three concepts of anicca, dukkha and anattā, the three
signata or tilakkhaṇa, are the three corner-stones of the whole edifice of Buddhism. To be
convinced of their validity is to accept the Dhamma in its entirety and therefore there can be
no half-way house in this process of conviction. It behoves each one of us, who call ourselves
Buddhists, to contemplate these three permanent characteristics of the world as we
experience it, both objectively and subjectively, and apply in our individual and social lives
the ethical principles that, as the Master pointed out, derive from such conviction and lead
us to that state free from these three signata, viz. the eternal bliss of Nibbāna.

10
 Gleanings from the Pali Scriptures
These texts have been selected by the editors of this series and partly adapted from various
translations.

Abbreviations
AN—Aṅguttara Nikāya
MN—Majjhima Nikāya
DN—Dīgha Nikāya
SN—Saṃyutta Nikāya
Dhp—Dhammapada
Sn—Suttanipāta
Ud—Udāna
Vism—Visuddhi Magga

Anicca—Impermanence
Whatever has origination, all that is subject to cessation. (MN 56)
“There is no materiality whatever, O monks, no feelings no perception, no formations, 5 no
consciousness whatever that is permanent, everlasting, eternal, changeless, identically
abiding for ever.” Then the Blessed One took a bit of cow-dung in his hand and he spoke to
the monks. ”Monks if even that much of permanent, everlasting, eternal, changeless
individual Selfhood , identically abiding for ever, could be found, then this living of a life of
purity for the complete eradication of ill would not be feasible.” (SN 22:96)
Here a monk abides contemplating rise and fall in the five categories affected by clinging
thus: “Such is materiality, such its origin, such its disappearance, (and so with the other
four).” Cultivating this kind of concentration conduces to the eradication of taints . (DN 33)
Monks, formations are impermanent; they are not lasting; they provide no real comfort; so
that that is enough for a man to become dispassionate, for his lust to fade out, and for him to
be liberated. (AN 7:62)
Here, monks, feelings, perceptions and thoughts are known to him as they arise, known
as they appear present, known as they disappear. Cultivating this kind of concentration
conduces to mindfulness and full awareness. (DN 33)
When a man abides thus mindful and fully aware, diligent, ardent and self-controlled,
then, if pleasant feeling arises in him, he understands, “This pleasant feeling has arisen in
me; but that is dependent, not independent. Dependent on what? Dependent on this body.
But this body is impermanent, formed and dependently originated. Now how could
pleasant feeling, arisen dependent on an impermanent, formed, dependently arisen body, be
permanent?” In the body and in feeling he abides contemplating impermanence and fall and
fading and cessation and relinquishment. As he does so, his underlying tendency to lust for
the body and for pleasant feeling is abandoned. Similarly when he contemplates unpleasant
feeling his underlying tendency to resistance to the body and unpleasant feelings is
abandoned; and when he contemplates neither-unpleasant-nor-pleasant feeling his
underlying tendency to ignorance of the body and of that feeling is abandoned. (SN 36:7)
5
Saṅkhāra is rendered on p. 5 and elsewhere in this essay as “dynamic processes.” It means
“Kamma formations.”

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 Monks, when a man sees as impermanent the eye (and the rest), which is impermanent,
then he has right view. (SN 35:155)
Consciousness comes into being by dependence on a duality. What is that duality? It is
the eye, which is impermanent, changing, becoming-other, and visible objects, which are
impermanent, changing and becoming-other; such is the transient, fugitive duality (of eye-
cum-visible objects), which is impermanent, changing and becoming-other. Eye-
consciousness is impermanent, changing and becoming-other; for this cause and condition
(namely eye cum-visible objects) for the arising of eye-consciousness being impermanent,
changing and becoming-other, how could eye-consciousness, arisen by depending on an
impermanent condition, be permanent? Then the coincidence, concurrence and confluence
of these three impermanent dhammas is called contact ; but eye-contact too is impermanent,
changing becoming-other; for how could eye-contact arisen by depending on an
impermanent condition, be permanent? It is one touched by contact who feels , likewise
who perceives ; so these transient, fugitive dhammas too (namely, feeling, choice and
perception) are impermanent, changing and becoming, other. (And so with ear-cum-sounds,
nose-cum-odours, tongue-cum-flavours, body-cum-tangibles, mind-cum-ideas.) (SN 35:93)
When a monk abides much with his mind fortified by perception of impermanence, his
mind retreats, retracts and recoils from gain, honour and renown, and does not reach out to
it just as a cock’s feather or a strip of sinew thrown on a fire retreats, retracts and recoils and
does not reach out to it. (AN 7:46)
Perception of impermanence should be cultivated for the elimination of the conceit “I
am,” since perception of not-self becomes established in one who perceives impermanence;
and it is perception of not-self that arrives at the elimination of the conceit “I am,” which is
extinction here and now. (Ud 4.1)
Fruitful as an act of (lavish) giving is, yet it is still more fruitful to go with confident heart
for refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha and undertake the five precepts of
virtue … Fruitful as this is, yet it is still more fruitful to cultivate even as little as a whiff of
fragrance of loving-kindness. Fruitful as that is, still more fruitful it is to cultivate the
perception of impermanence even for only as long as the snapping of a finger. (AN 9:20)
Better a single day of life perceiving how things rise and fall than to live out a century yet
not perceive their rise and fall. (Dhp 14)
When a monk sees six rewards it should be enough for him to establish unlimitedly
perception of impermanence in all formations. What six? “All formations will seem to me
insubstantial. My mind will find no relish in all the world. My mind will emerge from all the
world. My mind will incline towards Nibbāna. My fetters will come to be abandoned. And I
shall be endowed with the highest in monkhood.” (AN 6:102)
All life and all existence here
With all its joys and all its woe,
Rests on a single state of mind,
And quick passes that moment by.
Nay, even gods whose life does last
For four and eighty thousand kalpas,
Do not remain one and the same,
Not even for two single thoughts.

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 Those groups that passed away just now,
Those groups that will pass later on,
Those groups just passing in between,
They’re not in nature different.
Not in the future moment does one live,
One now lives in the present moment.
”When consciousness dissolves, the world is dead“;
This utterance is true in the highest sense.
No hoarding up of things passed by,
No heaping up in future time!
And things arisen are all like
The mustard seed on pointed awl.
The groups of life that disappeared
At death, as well as during life,
Have all alike become extinct,
And never will they rise again.
Out of the unseen did they rise,
Into the unseen do they pass.
Just as the lightning flashes forth,
So do they flash and pass away.
(Vism Ch. 20)
The monk in deepest solitude,
Grown still and tranquil in his heart,
Feels superhuman happiness
Whilst clearly he perceives the truth.
Whenever he reflects upon
The rise and passing of the groups,
He’s filled with rapture and with bliss
Whilst he beholds the Deathless Realm.
(Dhp 373f.)
Transient are formations all.
Their law it is to rise and fall.
Arisen - soon they disappear.
To make them cease is happiness.
(SN 6:15, DN 16)

Dukkha—Suffering or Unsatisfactoriness
This only do I teach: suffering, and its end. (MN 22)
Suffering only arises when anything arises; suffering only ceases when anything ceases.
(SN 12:15)
Suffering is threefold: intrinsic suffering , suffering in change and suffering due to
formations . Bodily and mental painful feeling are called intrinsic suffering because
suffering is their very nature, their common designation and because they are in themselves
suffering… . Bodily and mental pleasant feeling are called suffering in change because they

13
are a cause for the arising of pain when they change. Neutral feeling and the remaining
formations of the three planes of existence are called suffering due to formations because
they are oppressed by rise and fall. (Vism Ch. 16)
Pleasant feeling is agreeable while it lasts and is disagreeable when it changes; painful
feeling is disagreeable while it lasts and is agreeable when it changes; the neither pleasant-
nor unpleasant feeling is agreeable when there is knowledge and disagreeable when there is
no knowledge. (MN 44)
A heedless man is vanquished by the disagreeable in the guise of the agreeable, by the
unloved in the guise of the loved, by suffering in the guise of happiness. (Ud 2.8)
In the past, sense-pleasures were a painful experience, intensely burning and searing; in
the future too, sense-pleasures will be a painful experience, intensely burning and searing;
and also now in the present, sense-pleasures are a painful experience, intensely burning and
searing. But these beings have not yet lost their greed for sense-pleasures, are consumed by
craving for sense-pleasures, burning in feverish passion for sense-pleasures; and with their
faculties clouded, they have, in spite of that painful experience, the illusion of happiness.
(MN 75)
Whoso delights in materiality, in feeling, in perception, in formations, and in
consciousness, he delights in suffering; and whoso delights in suffering, will not be freed
from suffering. Thus I say. (SN 22:29)
The arising, presence and manifestation of materiality, feeling, perception, formations,
and consciousness is but the arising of suffering, the presence of maladies, the manifestation
of decay and death. The cessation, the stilling, the ending of materiality, feeling, perception,
formations and consciousness is but the cessation of suffering, the stilling of maladies, the
ending of decay and death. (SN 22:30)
Inconceivable is the beginning of this saṃsāra; not to be discovered is a first beginning of
beings who, obstructed by ignorance and ensnared by craving, are hurrying and hastening
through this round of rebirths. Which do you think, O monks, is more: the flood of tears
which, weeping and wailing, you have shed upon this long way, hurrying and hastening
through this round of rebirths, united with the undesired, separated from the desired; this or
the waters of the four great oceans? Long have you suffered the death of father and mother,
of sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. And whilst you were thus suffering you have,
indeed, shed more tears upon this long way than there is water in the four great oceans. And
thus, O monks, have you long undergone torment, undergone misfortune, filled the
graveyards full; verily, long enough to be dissatisfied with all forms of existence, long
enough to turn away and free yourselves from them all. (SN 15:3 )
How can you find delight and mirth
Where there is burning without end?
In deepest darkness you are wrapped!
Why do you not aspire for light?
Look at this puppet here, well rigged,
A heap of many sores, piled up,
Diseased and full of greediness,
Unstable and impermanent!

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 Devoured by old age is this frame,
A prey to sickness, weak and frail;
To pieces breaks this putrid body,
All life must truly end in death!
(Dhp 146–48)
For those who know not Ill and how Ill grows,
who neither know how Ill is stilled and quenched
nor know the Way to lay Ill to rest,
—those miss Release, alike of heart and mind;
they cannot end it all and reach the goal;
they tramp the round of birth, decay and death.
But they who know both Ill and how Ill grows,
and also know how Ill is stilled and quenched
and know the Way that lays all Ill to rest;
—these win Release of heart, Release of mind;
these surely end it all and reach the goal;
these nevermore shall know decay and birth.
(Sn 724–727)
When a monk sees six rewards it should be enough for him to establish unlimited
perception of suffering in all formations. What six? “The thought of turning away from all
formations will be established in me, like unto a murderer with drawn sword. My mind will
emerge from all the world. I shall see peace in Nibbāna. The underlying [evil] tendencies
will be eliminated in me. Dutiful shall I be. And l shall have well attended upon the Master,
with a loving heart.” (AN 6:103)

Anattā: Not-self or Egolessness

Give up what does not belong to you! Such giving-up will long conduce to your weal and
happiness. And what is it that does not belong to you? Materiality, feelings, perception,
formations and consciousness; these do not belong to you and these you should give up.
Such giving-up will long conduce to your weal and happiness. (SN 22:33)
All ascetics and brahmins who conceive a self in various ways, all those conceive the five
groups [as the self] or one or another of them. Which are the five? Herein an ignorant
worldling conceives materiality, feeling, perception, formations or consciousness as the self;
or the self as the owner of any of these groups; or that group as included in the self; or the
self as included in that group. (SN 22:47)
It is impossible that anyone with right view should see anything (or idea, dhamma) as self.
(MN 115)
The learned and noble disciple does not consider materiality, feeling, perception,
formations, or consciousness as self; nor the self as the owner of these groups; nor these
groups as included within the self; nor the self as included within the groups. Of such a
learned and noble disciple it is said that he is no longer fettered by any group of existence,
[his] own or external. Thus I say. (SN 22:117)
It is possible that a virtuous man while contemplating the five groups as impermanent,
woeful . . , empty, not-self may realize the Fruit of Stream-entrance. (SN 22:122)

15
 One should not imagine oneself as being identical with the eye, should not imagine
oneself as being included within the eye, should not imagine oneself as being outside the
eye, should not imagine: “The eye belongs to me.” And so with ear, nose, tongue, body and
mind. One should not imagine oneself as being identical with visual objects, sounds, odours,
tactile and mental objects. One should not imagine oneself as being included in them or
outside of them; one should not imagine: “They belong to me.” One should not imagine
oneself as being identical with eye-consciousness… ear-consciousness… nose-
consciousness… body-consciousness… mind-consciousness; should not imagine oneself as
being included within mind-consciousness; should not imagine oneself as being outside of
mind-consciousness, should not imagine: “Mind-consciousness belongs to me.” One should
not imagine oneself as being identical with the totality of things (the All, sabbaṃ) should not
imagine oneself as being included in the totality of things; should not imagine oneself as
being outside the totality of things; should not imagine: “The totality of things belongs to
me.” Thus not imagining any more, the wise disciple clings no longer to anything in the
world. Clinging no longer to anything, he trembles not. Trembling no longer, he reaches in
his own person the extinction of all vanity: “Exhausted is rebirth, lived the holy life, the task
is done, and nothing further remains after this.” Thus he knows. (SN 35:90)
It would be better for an untaught ordinary man to treat as self this body, which is
constructed upon the four great primaries of matter , than mind. Why? Because the body can
last one year, two years … even a hundred years: but what is called “mind” and “thinking”
and “consciousness” arises and ceases differently through night and day. (SN 12:61)
Consciousness is not-self. Also the causes and conditions of the arising of consciousness,
they likewise are not-self. Hence, how could it be possible that consciousness, having arisen
through something which is not-self, could ever be a self? (SN 35:141)
When a monk sees six rewards it should be enough for him to establish unlimited
perception of not-self concerning all things . What six? “I shall be aloof from all the world.
No impulses of ’I’ (egotism) will assail me. No impulses of ’mine’ will assail me. With
extraordinary insight shall I be endowed. I shall clearly see causes and the causally-arisen
phenomena.” (AN 6:104)

16
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