Opening the 3 Dharma Seals

Suffering is central to Buddhism, but it is not everything. 

Last week I shared my favorite teaching with the sangha. I read excerpts of Chapter 5 (“Is everything suffering?”) and Chapter 18 (“The 3 Dharma Seals”) from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thích Nhất Hạnh.

I love this teaching because it turns conventional wisdom on its head. It exhorts us to think logically and examine reality directly. The way Thích Nhất Hạnh explains suffering and the way out is beautiful and multilayered. 

And it’s encouraging! This teaching emphasizes the good news of Buddhism — the 3^rd Noble Truth. 

Is everything unsatisfactory?

Thích Nhất Hạnh tells how from the earliest days of Buddhism some monastics became obsessed with finding suffering everywhere. The Buddha’s teachings were meant as a guide, a lifeboat, or a light. They got turned into doctrine.

Buddhist orthodoxy says there are 3 marks of existence. It claims that every conditioned thing is impermanent, not self and unsatisfactory.* 

*For the third mark, the Pali word dukkha and Sanskrit word duḥkha are usually translated into English as “suffering”, but refer also to lesser forms of unease or dissatisfaction. I like to use the Pali word dukkha to tap into this richer palette of meaning.

This teaching is so central to Buddhism that these 3 marks of everything are also known as the 3 dharma seals.

My teachers taught these 3 marks of existence. Norbu AI repeats this orthodoxy, even when challenged. Everything else I’ve ever read says the same. But Thích Nhất Hạnh has the beautiful audacity to say it’s wrong:

“To put suffering on the same level as impermanence and nonself is an error. Impermanence and nonself are ‘universal’. They are a ‘mark’ of all things. Suffering is not.”

He was a deeply knowledgeable Buddhist scholar, so we should listen up. And see for ourselves.

Looking for suffering everywhere

When I first read this teaching, I was immediately on board. I like to see myself as a skeptic, rebel and logical thinker. I like to challenge orthodoxy. 

But I also don’t like to believe something blindly. So when my teacher repeated the orthodoxy, I realized my folly in believing something just because it’s logical and contradictory to the mainstream. 

I tested it out. I tried looking deeply in my daily life. Not that I’ve reached true realisation, but even in my state of relative delusion I can clearly see indications of impermanence and nonself all around me every day.

But when jogging in Mauerpark, for instance, I could not detect any dukkha in the asphalt under my feet. I can reason that the production process behind it might have caused harm to the environment and stress for the workers. I understand that if I expect the path in the park to be permanent, I might suffer when cracks appear. Sometimes I might not like the color or the smell or the feel of the asphalt. 

But I cannot detect any inherent dukkha.

The same goes for the dining room table, my bicycle, or the rock in my shoe. They are only unsatisfactory in contact with my aversive or clinging mind. 

When I challenged the orthodoxy, Norbu AI acknowledged:

“The term dukkha as a mark of existence doesn’t exactly mean that objects themselves contain or emit suffering. Rather, it points to the unsatisfactory and unreliable nature of all conditioned phenomena. Even that table, while seemingly solid and dependable, is subject to decay, will eventually break down, and cannot provide lasting satisfaction if we try to find refuge in it.”

There is an important “if” there! If I do not take refuge in the table, bicycle or rock — if I don’t project human concepts onto conditioned things or expect them to be different than they are — where’s the suffering? Where’s the slightest dissatisfaction? 

There is only suchness. 

Suffering vanishes. 

Glimpsing liberation

Instead of dukkha, Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches nirvana as a dharma seal.

“Nirvana, the Third Dharma Seal, is the ground of being, the substance of all that is. A wave does not have to die in order to become water. Water is the substance of the wave. The wave is already water. We are also like that. We carry in us the ground of interbeing, nirvana, the world of no-birth and no-death, no permanence and no impermanence, no self and no nonself. Nirvana is the complete silencing of concepts.”

Although I am more rooted in the Theravada tradition, I love how Zen teachers use seeming contradictions to try to wake us up. I appreciate that it’s a helpful practice to look for nirvana as a mark of existence — to notice the nonconceptual ground of being in the flower, table or pavement.

I can see the suchness of the asphalt under my feet when I jog. I understand at that moment that there is a realm of “things as they are”, before they come into contact with my senses. But I must admit: I have a hard time sensing nirvana. I sense something more like a quiet distant echo of something like the potential to relax into suchness. 

Thích Nhất Hạnh writes: “If you know how to use the tools of impermanence and nonself to touch reality, you touch nirvana in the here and now”. It feels a bit conceptual to me, still, but I trust that if I continue to look deeper and deeper into impermanence and nonself that reality will reveal itself with more and more clarity.

For myself, I have a validated belief in the 2 marks of existence and an open mind to see if something else emerges when I practice seeing impermanence and nonself. And regardless of whether dukkha or nirvana are present in everything, I have faith in the 3rd noble truth — that suffering can be transformed into liberation.

Returning to orthodoxy

Thích Nhất Hạnh quotes a variety of Buddhist scriptures to make the case for impermanence, nonself and nirvana as the authentic 3 dharma seals. He points out that the teachings on the one, two and four dharma seals arose after the Buddha passed away. Since the teachings were passed down orally for hundreds of years, I find it self-evident that an incorrect transmission could have occurred due to human error.

For myself, I reframe the traditional “3 Dharma Seals” — the orthodox ones — as 3 cornerstones of Buddhist practice. Suffering is indeed central; the existence of dukkha is the First Noble Truth. Suffering is a motivation to practice. Dissatisfaction is a wake-up call!

So suffering is a seal on the teaching. Every Buddhist teaching must address suffering.

But still: Every authentic teaching also shows the way out!

I hope this essay motivates you to check out Thích Nhất Hạnh’s book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. I recommend reading Chapters 1-5, skipping to Chapter 18 and then going back to chapter 6 onward.

But don’t just read and think about it.

“If you memorize a 5,000-page book on the Three Dharma Seals but do not apply the teachings during your daily life, that book is of no use. Only by using your intelligence and putting the teachings into practice can they bring you happiness. Please base your practice on your own life and your own experience,” says Thích Nhất Hạnh.

Try it out for yourself and see:

• Is everything really suffering? When I sense suffering, can I trace the cause? Is the unsatisfactoriness in the object or event or in a mental formation — or in the collision of the two?
• Can I see suchness in everything? When I encounter any object today, can I notice the difference between the bare experience and my tendency to name it, cling to it or tell stories about it?
• What is here now when I drop all concepts?