Zen & Buddhism

Three Marks of Existence

Impermanence, suffering, and no-self - the three characteristics of all phenomena.

All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things involve suffering when grasped. All phenomena are empty of separate self. Understanding these three marks leads to liberation from delusion and the end of suffering.

Written about in

• What Zen says about death

  Impermanence, suffering when things are grasped, and no fixed self. Death is not an exception to the three; it is the plainest case of all of them.