Zen Teaching:

Insight into the Three I’s (the three characteristics) by Zen Master Tan Gong (José Ramírez) The Buddha said that our six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) and the six sense objects (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas), are impermanent (Aniccā). What’s impermanent is suffering (Dukkhā). What’s suffering is not-self (Anattā).” (1) Aniccā, Dukkhā, and Anattā are the three characteristics of our existence, of our experiences; that is, our experiences are Impermanent, Imperfect, Impersonal.

When we look in the mirror, or see an old photograph of ourselves, we realize we are aging, that we are changing, that somehow our life is impermanent. The seasons, the weather, our possessions, our friends, everything is changing! To a degree, we understand impermanence but we have not attained it, we have not digested it 100%. And this is because we do not like change. If things are the way we like them, especially if we have put a lot of effort into “getting things right”, we get annoyed, frustrated, and even angry, if they change. And if things we do not like do not change fast enough, we also get annoyed, frustrated, angry. What is impermanent is imperfect.

Life is not only impermanent, but that impermanence makes life imperfect, not quite right, and that generates suffering. And we suffer because we take things personally, because our strong belief in a separate “I”, because we tend to infuse life with a constant barrage of “I, My, Me”. We do not fully understand, we do not believe, that our life, that our experiences, are impersonal; that is, that they are conditioned. But if life, if our experiences, are impermanent and imperfect, it is hard to justify an unconditional self. What is imperfect is impersonal.

As we gain insight into the three I’s, we realize that we are just energy flowing, without an unchanging subject of experience, just a focal point of fleeting moments of existence.

(1) Saṁyutta Nikāya 35.1 and 35.4