How to live the three dhamma seals?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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nichiren-123
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How to live the three dhamma seals?

Post by nichiren-123 »

So I've always found the three dhamma seals to be more useful and more profound than the four noble truths.
I mean that:
1) conditioned phenomena are impermenant
2) conditioned phenomena have no independent existence
3) Nirvana is peace obtained through understanding the first two dhamma seals.

Nichiko niwano, founder of the Rissho Kosei Kai organization, in his book 'cultivating the buddhist heart', condenses the first two truths into one truth, which he calls 'the law of transience', because impermanence and non-self are two sides of the same coin

So my question is how do you go about living/realising/subsuming/accepting the truth of selflessness and impermenance?

I'd like to use this thread to pick peoples brains on the 3 dhamma seals
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DooDoot
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Re: How to live the three dhamma seals?

Post by DooDoot »

In the Pali suttas, the Buddha's 1st sermon was about the four noble truths and the Buddha's 2nd sermon was about the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness & not-self. I think the 2nd sermon was more profound than the 1st sermon, which is probably why the 2nd sermon resulted in the five listeners attaining full-enlightenment. So I also think dhamma seals are more useful and more profound than the four noble truths.
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BasementBuddhist
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Re: How to live the three dhamma seals?

Post by BasementBuddhist »

I've always preferred to think of Not-self as interdependence. When you look at everything as a great chain of causes and conditions, impermanence follows naturally. Curiosity is a HUGE asset when it comes to practice. When you look closely at things blades of grass, rivers, the way trees move in the wind. You see how they are all connected, how this cannot be without that. How air cannot be without trees, how we cannot be without air. How wtrees cannot be without animals. How all of nature cannot be without each other. Then you see how air and heat and water and earth are here and there, how they fade and grow. How they are in us and around us and how all of this makes up nature, so that we are nature, nature is us, and how the idea of nature doesn't actually exist. You need curiosity and compassion to discover these things. These are the things that can help to teach you about Impermanence, not-self, and suffering. The whole world teaches you about these things if you develop a mind and heart to read it. Everything speaks the dhamma.
santa100
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Re: How to live the three dhamma seals?

Post by santa100 »

nichiren-123 wrote:I've always found the three dhamma seals to be more useful and more profound than the four noble truths...

...So my question is how do you go about living/realising/subsuming/accepting the truth of selflessness and impermenance?
3-C and 4-NT are equally important and vital to the cultivation of the Dhamma. While 3-C describes the nature of all conditioned existence, 4-NT describes the how and what we're gonna do about it. Without 4-NT which instructed to cultivate the 8-fold Noble Path, we'd all be clueless on how to go about living/realising/subsuming the truth of 3-C, exactly as you've asked in the OP.
Spiny Norman
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Re: How to live the three dhamma seals?

Post by Spiny Norman »

nichiren-123 wrote: Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:15 pm So I've always found the three dhamma seals to be more useful and more profound than the four noble truths.
I mean that:
1) conditioned phenomena are impermenant
2) conditioned phenomena have no independent existence
3) Nirvana is peace obtained through understanding the first two dhamma seals.

Nichiko niwano, founder of the Rissho Kosei Kai organization, in his book 'cultivating the buddhist heart', condenses the first two truths into one truth, which he calls 'the law of transience', because impermanence and non-self are two sides of the same coin

So my question is how do you go about living/realising/subsuming/accepting the truth of selflessness and impermenance?

I'd like to use this thread to pick peoples brains on the 3 dhamma seals
Aren't there four dharma seals?
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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