I think, the common base of the three contemplations on anicca, dukkha and anatta is that they all three, in their own way, deal with a app/depreciation proces (a getting wiser proces). Due to these three contemplations one starts to see more and more clear what is really fruitful, i.e. what is really in ones own interest and what is not. Each in their own way.
All three kinds of contemplations are meant, do you agree Lal??, to turn the mind away from it’s usual longing and craving for the conditioned.
I do not think the sutta’s instruct that one must first use anicca and then dukkha and then anatta. What is your opinion on this Lal?
It seems like the sutta’s teach (Patisambhidamagga, Treatise on Liberations, §54-58) that people have a natural preference for some kind of contemplation dependend on their gati and abilities.
People with great determination have a dominant faith faculty and they have a preference for anicca contemplation.
People with great natural calm have a dominant concentration faculty and they have a natural preference for dukkha contemplation.
People with natural great wisdom have a dominant wisdom faculty and they tend to contemplate on anatta or voidness.
But i think the common base is seeing the unfruitfulness in grasping, in craving, in the desire and forming of the conditioned. I remember a sutta that this is also said of the jhana’s. Someone who really sees that they are conditioned states, gets a sense of the unfruitfulness of pursuing such temporary states. In fact this is true for all conditioned states, right?
In this we can see, i belief, the Buddha-Dhamma in the core aims at letting go, at giving up, not striving, not accumulating, not constructing, not producing, not forming, because it cannot be of real help.
I feel this is some kind of stress field with all those sutta’s which keep going on about the worth of accumulating, constructing, producing, forming of all kinds of states, thoughts etc.
siebe