From: v111q3r9@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Yi L Chiang)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Blue Print of Happiness --- part 4 of 7  (long)
Date: 7 Apr 92 08:05:29 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo



           T H E   B L U E P R I N T   O F   H A P P I N E S S    
           ===================================================

                          BY VEN. ANOMA MAHINDA


	                    [ PART 4 OF 7 ]




THE SIGNS OF LIFE


	The Signs of life, sometimes known as the Three Characteristics, are
the immutable laws which conditions all beings.  These three Signs, or laws,
are, ANICCA, DUKKHA, ANATTA.  These mean Impermanence, Suffering, Without Self
or Soul.  All living beings, without exception, are subject to these three
characteristics.  They constitute the natural laws of the physical world and
are scientific in all their aspects.

	Anicca, or impermanence, goes beyond the scope of living beings and
applies to everything in the universe.  Nothing which takes form can endure for
eternity.  Sooner or later it will be worn away, broken, destroyed or
disintegrated, providing the material from which new forms come into being.
This law operates without limit, from the tiniest grain of dust to the largest
star in the universe.  Everything is in a constant state of flux, coming into
being and passing away.  Nothing is still for a moment and therefore nothing
can be enduring or permanent.  Only in the mind's eye do we conceive things as
still or stationary.  All phenomena and all natural laws are the result of this
flux or movement.

	Dukkha, or suffering, has already been discussed under the Four Noble
Truths.  It will, however, be of value to consider why suffering is not always
so obvious to all human beings.  People whom we know have been through
'living-hell' in the manifold aspects of life, often astound us when we hear
them say that life is not so bad after all.  To understand this strange
attitude, and also the incongruity that those who suffer most are seldom the
ones who are seeking an escape from suffering, we must consider the delusive
instrument that the mind can be.

	There is a very interesting mechanism in the mind which makes us forget
unpleasant things and experiences.  Let us take any single individual at the
moment of great suffering or sorrow and compare them in a later period.

	Young Mr. A has just had a quarrel with his girl friend.  He makes
himself unbearable to everybody by his misery.  When his friends tell him he
will soon recover from his sorrow, he responds with a desire for death.  He
alone knows, in that moment of anguish, that he will never, never, recover from
his grief.

	A few weeks later we meet Mr. A but he no longer presents the sad and
abject figure of a few weeks ago.  He is now smiling and is anything but a
picture of unhappiness.  He has a new girl on his arm.  Let us turn to Mrs. B.
Her face is red, her eyes are swollen and every few moments she gives vent to a
pitiful howl.  The mother of Mrs. B, subject to the law of impermanence, has
just died.  Her loving daughter has often been unhappy, but never quite like
this.  "You can bury me too," she tells her audience, "I don't want to live
without mother."  Fortunately they do not concede to her request and she lives
to recover.

	Six months later she is cracking jokes about the funeral and even about
the 'old lady.'

	Ah!  Here is another unfortunate case, hurrying along the road.  This
is Mr. C, who, caught up in the wheel of life finds himself late for work.
Since his employer keeps a well-oiled clock to check his coming and going, it
becomes necessary to move beyond the normal hurried pace and try to make up the
lost time.  In a desperate hurry to cross the road, he meets another gentleman
who also is caught up in the wheel of life but has the advantage of driving a
small car.  Though the meeting is very brief, it ends badly for Mr. C, whose
total gains are, one broken arm, one broken leg and several crushed ribs,
without mentioning numerous cuts and bruises to add color to an otherwise
dismal scene.

	The driver of the car, realizing that his vehicle of rapid transport is
also a lethal weapon, vows he will never drive again.  He is convinced that Mr.
C, is dead and that he himself is a murderer of a married man with a large
family.

	Months later Mr. C, has been discharged from hospital and has
recovered, in part, his financial losses through insurance claims.  He is
laughing and joking about the fools that thought that he would not live, but
has quite forgotten that, at the time, he also thought so too.  The weeping and
wailing has died away and laughter reigns supreme.

	The driver of the car, also presents a different aspect to the one on
the way of the accident.  Here he is now, laughing and drinking with his
friends (also car drivers) and relating to them the story of 'the pedestrian
who got away.'
	
	One moment tragedy, next moment laughter.  What has happened to these
people?  Why is it that the disaster of today can become the jest of tomorrow?
The answer is, of course, this mysterious mechanism of the mind which makes us
forget.  If it were not for its ability to do this, we would either lose our
life or reason because the human mind could not stand such suffering, week
after week and month after month.  Yet this faculty of the mind which preserves
our health and sanity, also deludes us into thinking that life is much happier
than it actually is.  At the height of a tragedy, people are quite willing to
acknowledge the futility and uselessness of life, but when the sorrow is passed
and almost forgotten, then living and all its delusions present a very
different picture.

	Meditation awakens the mind to the realities of life and clears away
these delusions.

	Suffering, in this life, comes from three main causes:

	a)	man in conflict with nature;

	b)	man in conflict with other human beings; and

	c)	man in conflict with himself.

	A huge percentage of the suffering we experience is brought about
through man's inhumanity to man.  It can manifest itself as the antics of the
practical joker, who under the cloak of good clean honest fun, makes the lives
of his friends and family miserable.  Or we find it in the surly individual who
wishes to share his unhappiness with others.  At the extreme end of the chain
are men in conflict with men they have never known or met, raining death and
destruction on a world-wide scale.  Such is the nature of things.  Yet this war
among humans has gone on for thousands of years and even has its counterpart in
the animal kingdom.  The solution is not in reforming the world at large, but
in reforming ourselves.  The Dharma will place us in a better relationship with
things as they exist and will guide us along the road until suffering ceases.
The Buddha has shown us that although we should help others to find the path, we
cannot earn or give salvation to others.  In this sense, Buddhism is a very
personal religion or philosophy because each must walk this path for himself
and win his own Nibbana.

	Anatta, or soullessness, applies to everything that exists but we are
concerned with it mainly in relation to living beings.  All things that live
are without a soul or self, without a permanent and enduring ego or personality.
Soul or self is philosophical conception of an immaterial part of man which
survives and endures death and destruction of the body.  Science today does not
support this legendary belief but recognizes the existence of the human ego or
personality, as an aspect of the mind.  It is astounding how close Buddhism is
running with the scientific thinking of today.  This ego or personality is often
confused by unenlightened people, with a soul or spirit.  This individual
character has nothing to do with soul-theory for while we can recognize the
versatile and changing character of the personality, a permanent soul or spirit
cannot exist in nature.  Western people generally begin an investigation into
the Buddha's Doctrine of Anatta, at a great disadvantage.  From childhood they
have been raised and taught to accept this soul-teaching and some do not find it
easy to reject.  Those who experience any difficulty with this or any other
aspect of the Dharma, should not worry because everything will unfold itself as
they progress.

	Whereas the soul is supposed to be capable of separate existence, we
know that the Dharma clearly reveals that the ego or personality can have no
existence apart from the functioning of the mind and body.  It is in fact only
a function of the mind and not an entity.  This ego may play a great part in
making kamma (good or bad), but it cannot pass beyond death and therefore into a
new birth.

	Its greatest importance is that it gives rise to the delusion of 'I',
'me' and 'mine'.  In our relationships with others beings, this is one of the
factors which matters most.

	Modern psychology has made some wonderful discoveries over the past few
years and yet they are old by Buddhist standards.

	Let us quote from Dr. Graham Howe, one of Britain's top-ranking
Psychiatrists and a Harley Street Specialist:

	"To read a little of Buddhism is to realize that the Buddhists knew, two
thousand five hundred years ago, far more about our modern problems of
psychology than they have been given credit for.  They studied these problems
long ago and found the answers also.  We are now rediscovering the Ancient
Wisdom of the East."

	The Buddha was the first to throw intelligent light on the mind process.
The important thing for us to remember is that the mind controls the speech and
body action, so that the nature of the mind determines what we say and do.

	This mind process, being a constant feature of our lives, is often
interpreted as a soul or spirit.  It is now known that the soul illusion grew
out of primitive man's dream experiences.  Seeing departed friends and
relatives, in the mind's eye during sleep, must have suggested to him that they
were living a spirit existence in a spirit land.  However primitive this belief
is and though science has discarded it, we still find many people hanging on to
their souls and selves with even more tenacity that their primitive ancestors.

	The Dharma and modern science, both teach the same fundamental; that
man is composed of MIND and BODY; nothing else.  These two are interrelated and
one does not survive the other at death.  Both are one complete unit which we
call a human being and sooner or later will yield to the law of impermanence.