This can be a subtle business, so be patient and persevere. Remember all three trainings. Following flickering sensations and understanding the other two characteristics of suffering and no-self that they manifest can be a powerful and direct cause for deep insights and awakenings.

For five years of my practice I was basically a One Technique Freak, and that technique was noticing how sensations flicker. I would do it as often as I could, i.e. basically whenever I didn’t have to be doing something that required concentration on the specifics of my life. I would be riding an elevator, just trying to see when I could feel each foot, or lying down to sleep and noticing how many times I could experience the sensations of my breath in each second. I also tried to notice this aspect of things for every single sensation that occurred during my formal practice. I used lots of objects, usually those that were presenting strongly at that time, and would use some variations on the above techniques as well as some others that I will mention shortly to keep me from getting stuck, but the aspect of my world that I tried to notice, things flickering, was always the same. I found that by making this sort of commitment to understanding one of the most basic 25

The Three Characteristics

assumptions of insight practices I was able to make fast progress and gain the ultimate insights I was looking for.

SUFFERING

The next characteristic is suff ering or un satisfactori nes s.

Sounds grim or pessimistic at first, and perhaps deservedly so in one sense, but it is also a powerful statement that our moment-to-moment experience will not permanently satisfy ever. It will never happen. Why?

Because everything is impermanent, that's one reason why! I just said that nothing lasts, meaning that you can actually experience everything that you normally think of as a solid world arising and passing instant to instant. So what could last for even the blink of an eye to satisfy?

Nothing!

The point is not to be a radical, pessimistic, nihilistic cynic. The point is that it is not a thing that will help, but an understanding of something in the relationship to things. There is no thought, mind state or whatever which will do it. This is not to say that conventional day-today wisdom, such as taking care of ourselves and others, isn't also quite important: it very much is. Remember that awakening is not a thing or a mind state or a thought, it is an understanding of perspective without some separate thing that perceives.

There is a great relieving honesty in the truth of suffering. It can be very validating of the actual experience of our life and also give us the strength to look into the aspects of life that we typically try to ignore and run from. Even some deep and useful insights can be distinctly unpleasant, contrary to popular belief!

There is more to this truth, and it relates to the third characteristic, no-self. We are caught up in this bizarre habit of assuming that there is an “I.” Yet the definition of this seemingly permanent thing has to keep constantly changing to keep up the illusion in an impermanent world.