- It’s not completely wrong to view them this way. However, this way of looking at tilakkhana is superficial. Yes, these are aspects of Tilakkhana but they are not the deep aspects. For example, Annica’s “inability not to maintain things to our satisfaction” suggests a certain impermanence. However, suffering is also impermanent! Even though we spend the majority of our time in the Apayas, sooner or later we end up leaving them. We are happy to come out of these states of suffering. Impermanence here is rather beneficial! The problem is that most Buddhists these days associate impermanence with suffering. Yes, all phenomena are impermanent. What Annica means is that we will be unable to permanently maintain phenomena to our liking. Let us admit that a bhikkhu says “The eye and visual consciousness is Annica”. Of course, the eye is impermanent at the end of the body it will disintegrate and lose its functions. No need for Ariyas to remind us. What it says is that the eye will not be to our liking in the long term. In our quest for happiness through the eye and visual consciousness, we will suffer and we will never reach our goal. Certainly, we will have small moments of pleasure but it is nothing compared to the infinity of suffering that we suffered in Samsarā and that we will encounter in an immeasurable future. This is valid for the other 5 senses.
- Anatta means non-control. Yes, the idea of the absence of a permanent entity in each of us that is always in control is compatible with the Dhamma. However, there is someone who acts and undergoes the Vipāka of a past Kamma. It is therefore false to say that there is no one. There is a male human named Gad who comes from Cameroon and who speaks to another male human named Tobi who comes from Germany. In the ultimate sense, there are only the 5 aggregates that interact. The conditions of the past have shaped these two people. These 2 people are two distinct lifestreams and suffer positive or negative consequences from their respective Karmas. Of course, they will change and be able to be free, if in one of their lives they become arahants. There is a self but it constantly changes without a fixed identity according to the conditions of the current of life. However, we agree that no fixed and eternal self goes from life to life without ever changing. Anatta tells us that we are unable to control these changes and that the vast majority of the time they happen without our knowledge. The vast majority of the time this change leads one to the Apayas. Let us assume that a non-Buddhist person commits anantariya bad Kamma at the age of 20 and he will live to the age of 100 in this jati and his human bhava has 3000 years left. From the moment the act is committed, there is a change in that person. He will be able to perform positive actions for the rest of her remaining 80 years but whatever the action his mind will grasp the gati of a being from Niraya at the cuti patisandhi moment. His human bhava will be destroyed even if there are still 3000 years left. For 80 years, the person has not been aware that he has committed an act that will automatically land him in an Apaya upon his death. These changes are out of control (Anatta) however, there is a niraya being who is born spontaneously as a result of the actions of a human. They are two different people but they are the same lifestream. I specified non-Buddhist because the vast majority of them do not have the concept of anantariya Kamma.
A Quest to Recover Buddha's True Teachings
