Impermanence, dependent on transformation, is the property of compounded phenomena. Be diligent ”. That is the last reminder of the Buddha of Cajuput to his disciples.

And when the Buddha entered Nirvana, God liked that:

"The act is impermanent, There must be destruction. Born, they have to kill, Photography is peaceful. "

To this day, at every funeral for Buddhists in Theravada Buddhism, the same verse is still recited in Pali by monks presiding over the ceremony, to remind the community of the village. ephemeral substances of life. In Buddhist lands, people often see Buddhists offering flowers and oil lamps to Buddha images. It is not that they are praying to the Buddha or any "mighty god". The flowers will die and the lamp will die, reminding them of the impermanence of everything that is predestined.

This simple and simple impermanence is at the core of the Buddha's teachings, and also the basis for the other two characteristics of being, suffering and non-self.

The truth of impermanence means that reality is never static but always dynamic; and that has been perceived by scientists to be the nature of the world, without exception. In the teachings on that dynamic reality, Buddha gives us a master key to open any door we want. The modern world is using the same master key, but only for material achievements, and is opening door after door with miraculous success.

Change or impermanence are the essential characteristics of all phenomenal existence. We cannot talk about anything, sentient or inadvertent, organic or inorganic, that "this lasts forever", because as soon as we say so, it is undergoing transformation. Everything is disappearing; the beauty of the flowers, the cymbals of the birds, the hum of the bees, and the splendor of the late afternoon.

“Suppose you are watching the splendid sunset. The whole sky in the West was glowing with dark pink colors; but you also realize that in just over half an hour, all those gorgeous shades will fade and become gray. You see them right when they are disappearing before your eyes, even though your eyes cannot put before you the conclusion your mind has just drawn. And what is that conclusion? The conclusion is that even in the shortest possible moment of being called or aware, you never see any color completely existing, any color as it is. Within a millionth of a second, the entire splendor of the colored sky has suffered countless chains of transformations. One shade is replaced by another with a quick challenge to all measurements; but because it is a process that does not have any measure applicable ... reason refuses to offer a hold of any stage of the occasional spectacle, or claims that it is so; because within that existence, it did not exist; it gave way to something else. It is a series of colors that pass through without any of the colors in that series, because each color in that sequence is mutually exclusive. ”Ferrier's Lectures and Remains Book I, p. 119, quoted again in Sarva-dorsana-Sangraha, London, p. 15. or claim that it is so; because within that existence, it did not exist; it gave way to something else. It is a series of colors that pass through without any of the colors in that series, because each color in that sequence is mutually exclusive. ”Ferrier's Lectures and Remains Book I, p. 119, quoted again in Sarva-dorsana-Sangraha, London, p. 15. or claim that it is so; because within that existence, it did not exist; it gave way to something else. It is a series of colors that pass through without any of the colors in that series, because each color in that sequence is mutually exclusive. ”Ferrier's Lectures and Remains Book I, p. 119, quoted again in Sarva-dorsana-Sangraha, London, p. 15.

Everything that constitutes - that is, all things which arise as a result of causes, and which in turn give rise to other consequences - can be summed up in one word, from which impermanence (anicca). Because impermanence should cause suffering and because suffering should be non-self.

Disguised, these three characteristics of life spread throughout the world until an Enlightened One realized their true nature. It is to make a declaration of these three characteristics - and how through a thorough awareness of them, a person attains the liberation of the mind - that a Buddha was born. That is the most essential, the most general content of the Buddha's teachings.

Although impermanence applies to all compounded dharmas, all things that are conditioned, the Buddha is more concerned with what is called sentient beings; because the problem is with people, not things that are stationary. Like an anatomist splitting an arm into tissues and then separating tissues into cells, Buddha, the Worldly One, analyzed what is called being, sankhāra puñja, a jumbled collection of advances. In the process, the five aggregates always change, which the Buddha calls the five aggregates, and makes it clear that nothing lasts forever, nothing is permanently preserved, in the flow of the aggregates. They are materiality (physical or physical form), feeling (or sensation), perception (or perception), action (motivating psychological factors, such as will), and consciousness (or cognitive discrimination).

Duc Enlightenment explained:

"Hey monks, the five aggregates are impermanent; whatever is impermanent, that is misery, (unsatisfactory); whatsoever is misery, that is no self. What is not self, that is not mine, that is not me, that is not my self. What is non-self, needs to be as true as the true mind (sammappaññāya). Those who see with the right wisdom, seeing such truths, that their minds are no longer attached to it, are liberated from pollution; he was freed "Sutta Samyutta (SN 22.45).

The Bodhisattva Long Tho (Nāgarjuna), recalling the Buddha's intention, said, "When the concept of self (ātman) is gone, the concept of 'mine' is gone and that person is liberated from the mind. The concept of me and mine. ”(Ma Quanhyabharma. - Maadhyamika-Kaarikaa, xviii.2).

Buddha gave five impressive metaphors to illustrate the fleeting nature of the five aggregates. He compares colors with piles of foam, senses life with water bubbles, thinks of sunshades, onions with banana trunks (without the trunk of the tree, wood core), and awakens with magic; and asked, O bhikkhus, what is the core that can be in the bubble, in the bubbles of water, in the sun, in a banana trunk, in a magic trick? ”

The Buddha taught:

"Likewise, monks, what are the qualities of the past, the future, the present, or the inner or the outer, or gross or subtle, or paralysis or victory, or far or near; the Male-stilts see colors, attention, as Ly contemplating identity. Because the Male-stilts looked at the monogram, as the contemplation of observing identity, it clearly appears to be empty, appears to be empty, and obviously doesn't have a hard core. How, the Male-stilts, have a hard core in the color? ”.

Buddha taught in the same way about the remaining aggregates and asked:

"How, monks, is there a hard core in feeling, in thought, in onion, in consciousness?" - The Samyutta Nikāya, HT. Thich Minh Chau translated.

With the analysis of such five aggregates, a more advanced range of ideas appears. It is at this stage that true knowledge called insight or vipassaana begins to work. Through insight by this insight the true nature of the five aggregates is grasped and seen in the light of the three Dharma Seals (tilakkhana): impermanence, suffering, and non-self.

It is not only the five aggregates that are impermanent, suffering and non-self, that causes and conditions that form the five aggregates are also impermanent, suffering and non-self. This point the Buddha taught clearly:

Identity, feeling, thought, action and consciousness, monks, are impermanent. What is the cause, what is the condition for the five aggregates arise; that is impermanent. The five aggregates have been made impermanent, being born, monks, how can it be possible?

Sac, feeling, thought, action and consciousness, monks, are suffering. What is the cause, what is the condition for the five aggregates arise; that is also suffering. The five aggregates have been miserable for the arising of bhikkhu, bhikkhus, how can one be satisfied or satisfied?

Identity, feeling, thought, action and consciousness, monks, are non-self. What is the cause, what is the condition for the five aggregates arise; that is also selfless. The five aggregates have been made selfless being arise, the Male-stilts, how can there be falls?

Seeing this, the Male-stilts, the Holy Multi-disciple disciple bibs against identity, bibs for life, bibs for thought, bibs for thought, bibs for onions, bibs for wake. Do bibs, he ly take part. Due to the greed, he freed. In liberation, the mind arose: "I am liberated." He knows: "Born to be finished, Pham Hanh has done, what to do, did not return to this state anymore" Samyutta 22.7-9, summarized.

When the error in seeing the true nature of things is always explained, our interpretation is obscured; with the perceptions gained by prejudice, greed, and love, we cannot see sensory organs and sensory objects according to their respective and objective nature, so we chase follow illusions and lies. The sensory organ deceives and distracts us so we cannot see everything in their true light, so much so that our way of knowing things is crazy.

The Buddha taught three types of crazy delusion that still cling to the human mind; that is crazy thinking, crazy mind and crazy ants. When surrounded by these delusions, people perceive, think, and see wrong. He thinks that impermanence is ordinary, suffering is fun, selflessness is self, ugliness is beautiful. He also thought and saw the wrong way like that. Thus, each of the delusions works in four ways1 (the Fascinating Idea in the Sangha 4.49), leads the person astray, blurs his vision, and confuses him. It is the fault of not thinking wisely, of not observing systematically. Only the Chief Justice (or Insight) can eradicate these crazy islands and help people to realize the true nature underlying all appearances.

The aggregates form the mind and body of sentient beings, forever dependent on the causes and conditions as we have seen above, through the unnoticeable, rapid moments of the process of arising, existing, and turning. lost, not unlike the constant waves of the sea or like a river in a flood that culminates and recedes. Indeed, human life is compared to the stream that originates from a mountain flowing downwards, changing endlessly, like a stream.

Heraclitus, the famous Greek philosopher, was the first Westerner to talk about the volatile nature of things. He lectured on the theory of "all things smoothly" (Panta Rhei) in Athens, and people still doubted whether the theory had been transmitted to him from India.

Heraclitus said, "There is no static nature, there is no unchanging background. Transformation, movement, is the lord of the universe. Everything is in a state of becoming, of a continuous flow ”.

He continued, “One cannot go twice into the same river; because new water always flows at my feet. " However, one person who understood the roots of the Fa went even further than that and said, "The same person cannot step twice into the same river; because the so-called human being is just a flow of body and mind, never the same in two consecutive moments. "

Now we should be aware, the entity, which for practical purposes makes us called a man, a woman, or an individual, is not something static, but a dynamic, is inside a state of constant and constant transformation. Now, when one sees life and everything related to life in the light of this truth, and fully understands that the so-called sentient being is just a series of psychology and colors. aggregates, he sees things as they are. He no longer holds the wrong view of "personality beliefs", beliefs in a soul or a self; because through Right Understanding he knows that all phenomenal existence is conditioned, that every thing depends on other things, and that the existence of that thing is related to that condition. . Result, he knows that there is no "I", no spiritual existence forever, no principle of self, no self or anything related to an ego in the course of this life. . Thus, he is liberated from the idea of ​​a small self or great self.

Through Vipassana meditation, one sees things as they are, not as they appear to be. Observing things as they really are, as we discussed earlier, involves seeing impermanence , suffering and non-self of all compounded and conditioned conditions. For such a disciple of the Buddha's meditation, this "world" is not an external world or a world known by experience, but rather the human body and its consciousness. That is the world of the five aggregates of grasping. That is the world one tries to understand with impermanence, suffering, and without self or soul. Buddha spoke of the very world of body and mind when he told Mogharaaja, "Hey Mogharaaja, keep alert, observe this world as empty; renouncing the concept of self, a practitioner can overcome death.

The general content of the philosophy of transformation declared in Buddhism says that all compounded phenomena that exist due to dependent origination are just a process, not a solid group of entities, but that transformation takes place. comes out in such a rapid succession that people consider body and mind to be static entities. People do not see their arising and dissolution, but only see them as a unity, seeing them as a whole or a whole.

Of course, it is very difficult for people, with projections of the mind, to be constantly thinking of their own bodies and minds and the external world as a whole, as inseparable units. , shaking off the false appearance of that "wholeness". As long as people do not see everything as processes, as movements, people will never understand the theory of the selflessness of Buddha. That is why impertinent and impulsive people ask the question, "If there is not a fixed entity, there is no unchanging law, such as self or soul, then what experiences the results? of behavior in this life and the afterlife? "

This burning question was mentioned by two different texts, one in Central 109 and the other in Tuong Sa 22.82. Just when Buddha had just explained his disciple to the impermanent nature of the five aggregates, how the five aggregates don't have self, and how the arrogant attitude is hidden. " I am "and" mine "have ceased to exist, so it has arisen in the mind of a bhikkhu who is present among the assemblies, saying," This form is not self, feeling is not self, Thought is not self, action is not self, consciousness is not self. So which self does affect the acts of non-self? "

Reading the mind of the bhikkhu, the Buddha said, "This question does not raise the right question", and further explained so that the monk correctly understood the impermanence, suffering, non-self of the five aggregates. .

“It is a mistake to say that the person who practices the act is the same as the one who experiences the result. It is also wrong to say that the one who performs the act with the one who experiences the result of the act is two different people, "for a simple reason that what we call life is in fact just one stream. flow of mental processes - physical or energy, continuous arising and falling away; It cannot be said that the one who is performing the act experiences the result, because he himself is transforming in every moment of his life; but at the same time, we are not allowed to forget the fact that the continuation of life is a continuation of feeling. The course of events is not lost; It serial no distance. The child is not the same as a young man, the young man is not the same as an adult, they are not the same person but they are not different people. There is only one flow of mental and physical processes.

There are three levels of teaching, the first level teaches that the self or the true self is present in both the present and the future (this life and the afterlife); the second level teaches that the self is only true in this life, but not in the afterlife; the third level teaches that the concept of self is an illusion: it is not real in this life and in the afterlife.

The first order is usually accept (sassatavādi); second order is accept paragraph (ucchedavādi); and the third is the Buddha; He taught the middle way to stay away from the two extremes of extremity and paragraph. (Here, the middle way is the theory of dependent origination or causalism - Paticca Samuppāda).

All theistic religions teach that after death, in one way or another, the self exists, not disappears. Materialism assumes that the self dies when it dies. The Buddha contends that there is no self or any certainty or permanence, but everything is predestined, dependent on change, they change and cannot keep the same in two successive moments. ; they are only continuous but not uniform.

As long as one is engrossed with the notion of self or eternal self, one will not be able to realize that everything is impermanent; that in reality, there is the arising and falling of all things. Understanding the impermanence doctrine, the specific theory of Buddhism, is indispensable in understanding the teachings of the Four Noble Truths and other basic teachings of Buddhism.

Mankind in today's world sees the transformation of life. However, they do not keep that in mind to act with unbiased insight. Although the strawberry fields informed them time and time again and made them miserable, they still pursued their crazy careers in the wheel of the cycle of reincarnation, entangled in painful spokes. . They cherish the belief that it is possible to discover a way of happiness even in that transformation, finding a safe center in the impermanent cycle. They imagine that even though the world is uncertain, they can make that world certain and give it a fixed foundation, and thus the relentless struggle for life improvement. the secular process continues with persistent efforts and futile enthusiasm.

History has proven many times and will continue to prove that nothing in this world is eternal. Everything is clung to failure. Nations and civilizations appear, flourish, and fade away like waves in the ocean; make room for new ones; and just like that, the scrolls of time perceiving historical animation pass, the unfounded vision, and the fading flow, are the history of mankind. END=NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).GOLDEN AMITABHA MONASTERY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.14/3/2020.VIETNAMESE TRANSLATE ENGLISH BY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.