Nothing in Conditioned Experience is Permanent
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The first of the Three Reminders is that nothing happening in our conditioned experience is permanent (Pali anicca, pronounced "uh-nitch-uh"). As described earlier, the Three Reminders concern what it is we actually experience, namely the interpretations we manufacture in our minds from sensory information. This might be our experience of our phone, the smell of dinner from the kitchen or the person with whom we are shaking hands. Because we project the sense of "existence" onto all of it, it is as if they all were independent real “somethings” that we happen to come across and perceive. However, all we really have is a rather convincing representation of them displayed in our mind. Upon awakening, we realize that when we stop projecting "existence" or "somethingness" onto everything, it is obvious that neither what we perceive nor our underlying projections are inherent parts of our experience: we don't have to experience everything in that way.
While our phone and what's for dinner may be important to us, the most important experience we have is of ourselves. If we look closely, we see that what we experience as our mind, our body, and anything else we identify with such as space and consciousness, is conditioned to be interpreted as “ours”. Since we have likely always had the sense of having these, whatever we identify with comes to be seen as inherent or permanent aspects of experience.
The reminder of anicca tells us that what we identify with, and even as, is not a permanent part of our experience, but is a projection. Whether in a meditative state where the sense of space and consciousness temporarily disappear, or during something like the unfettering process where our "self" and everything else we identify with "in here" forever disappears, we can directly see this. Remarkably, the sense of having a "mind" drops away and, eventually, even the sense of there being an "in here" ceases.
It may not be surprising, then, that the term anicca (the simple negation of nicca) originally meant that nothing is internal, and by extension that nothing is “ours”. It was also seen as pointing to that which is unfamiliar or even dangerous. These connotations of anicca were a primary way the term was used in the Vedic period, which lasted until roughly 500 BCE, which just barely included the period of time in which (as many estimate, anyway) the Buddha lived. The scholar Minoru Hara determined that, at some point during the Vedic period, the word nicca came to mean not just what was internal or inside, but also what was regularly or even always inside. Hara noted that it is natural that things which are possessed are not seen as being possessed only for a specified length of time; by this, nicca eventually developed a connotation of something that is permanent. With this additional connotation, the term could then be applied to anything that is perceived to be permanent, or internal and owned, or both.
As a result, its opposite, a-nicca, came to mean impermanent or not permanent, rather than just that something was not internal or owned. Since both connotations for anicca were likely current at the time the historical Buddha is presumed to have lived, both connotations can often be used when translating traditional texts. For example, when the Buddha (as he so often did) stated that everything that we have conditioned (our experience of) is anicca, a helpful translation can be that it is not internal or owned by us, and also that it is not a permanent aspect of experience. And since everything we experience is actually a mental interpretation that happens in the space we presume is "in here", in the end these two connotations are essentially saying the same thing.
The history of the term anicca therefore corresponds with the fact we divide all that we perceive into an inner and outer portion, and come to identify with and even as the inner portion. It feels familiar and safe, and is always there: it seems permanent. As a result, we come to conclude that what we identify as “I” or “me” is a permanent aspect of experience. That permanent aspect is our core, soul or substance: it’s what makes “me”... “me”! It proves that I exist, that “I Am”. We then project that same sense of being and existence onto everything else, in part to continually reaffirm the conclusion that we too are beings that exist as well. By this, everything we experience is conditioned to have the same permanency and substance that we do.
This connection to our internal experience also helps clarify that we are not concerned here with the non-permanence (or impermanence) in conventional terms, where everything is "conditioned" and subject to change because it is made of component parts and eventual breaks down. While this is of course true in an everyday sense, and many approaches to Buddhism include this conventional version of "impermanence" as a central tenet, it is not the focus of the first of the Three Reminders. In other words, the Three Reminders are concerned with conditioned experience, rather than conditioned existence. A further exploration of this may be found here.
Applying This Reminder to Conditioned Experience
The most important application of the reminder that nothing in conditioned experience is permanent is, therefore, to the erroneous reasons we believe we exist as we believe we do. For example, if experience seems like it is owned, there must be an owner. If it seems like there is an innate or native quality we have, that must have a name or identity. If it seems like there is an interior aspect to experience, there must be a boundary that defines us. That these inferences or assumptions are not true is what anicca can remind us of, and invite us to look at how we rely upon what appears to be a permanent sense of internality, ownership and so much more in order to prop up the idea that we exist.
As it turns out, we also rely on the formless or “pre-form” aspects of experience in order to prove our existence. As described in the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, we are conditioned to believe that space, consciousness, “something-ness” and perception are permanent aspects of experience, by which the forms we perceive are as real as we are. By engaging with the formless layer meditations, we allow the mind to naturally settle down, until these supposedly inherent aspects of experiences are no longer experienced.
As with the other two reminders, anicca is therefore entirely experiential. During the meditations, no words or concepts are required to know that there is no such thing as space, consciousness, “something-ness” or perception, since they are temporarily absent. As the Shorter Discourse instructs us to see, experience is now empty of those aspects. Eventually, when the seventh fetter is broken, we will not experience them at all: experience is unconditioned, or no longer conditioned, in that way. Again, it's not that the (mental interpretation of) our phone or the smell coming from the kitchen is inherently conditioned: it is only our experience of it that is conditioned, by us.
Also, in terms of the process of awakening, that our experience of a phone or smell is not permanent is one thing: that there is nothing that we identify with, or as, that is permanent is quite another. By this, placing our focus on the things around us misses the point - we need to see that we don't exist, not only as we think we exist, but at all. The chance that our belief in our "selves" will dissipate by reflecting on how all else is not permanent, as if by inference, is likely very small. In other words, rather than looking around and trying to determine "the way things really are", awakening is a matter of seeing "the way I really am not".
When the eight fetter is gone, all sense of interiority and ownership evaporates, and there is nothing we can any longer identify with, or even as. This is therefore accompanied by the evaporation of the belief that we have some sort of essence or nature, by which the conclusion “I Am” is removed: this is the focus of the next of the Three Reminders. When this happens, it can at first be a rather scary experience, since a sense of interiority, control and identity are generally what we rely upon in order to feel safe. However, the fact that there is no “in here”, and therefore no boundaries or separation in experience, is eventually a profound relief. We can then look back and see how the lifelong struggle to claim and hold a certain portion of experience was a losing battle, and that life is much easier without that struggle. This also makes clear that what we need to see is not that the world around us is impermanent: we need to see that what we identify with is not a permanent aspect of experience.
We can therefore use this first Reminder that what we condition to be permanent, and permanently internal, owned, and thus familiar and safe, isn’t actually so. There is simply no aspect of experience with which we identify that is always there: it’s all just mental interpretations that come and go. Likewise, the conditioned experience of everything that is “not me” (i.e., the version of it that we experience in the mind) is also a mental creation, and ceases if we stop manufacturing it.
References:
While our phone and what's for dinner may be important to us, the most important experience we have is of ourselves. If we look closely, we see that what we experience as our mind, our body, and anything else we identify with such as space and consciousness, is conditioned to be interpreted as “ours”. Since we have likely always had the sense of having these, whatever we identify with comes to be seen as inherent or permanent aspects of experience.
The reminder of anicca tells us that what we identify with, and even as, is not a permanent part of our experience, but is a projection. Whether in a meditative state where the sense of space and consciousness temporarily disappear, or during something like the unfettering process where our "self" and everything else we identify with "in here" forever disappears, we can directly see this. Remarkably, the sense of having a "mind" drops away and, eventually, even the sense of there being an "in here" ceases.
It may not be surprising, then, that the term anicca (the simple negation of nicca) originally meant that nothing is internal, and by extension that nothing is “ours”. It was also seen as pointing to that which is unfamiliar or even dangerous. These connotations of anicca were a primary way the term was used in the Vedic period, which lasted until roughly 500 BCE, which just barely included the period of time in which (as many estimate, anyway) the Buddha lived. The scholar Minoru Hara determined that, at some point during the Vedic period, the word nicca came to mean not just what was internal or inside, but also what was regularly or even always inside. Hara noted that it is natural that things which are possessed are not seen as being possessed only for a specified length of time; by this, nicca eventually developed a connotation of something that is permanent. With this additional connotation, the term could then be applied to anything that is perceived to be permanent, or internal and owned, or both.
As a result, its opposite, a-nicca, came to mean impermanent or not permanent, rather than just that something was not internal or owned. Since both connotations for anicca were likely current at the time the historical Buddha is presumed to have lived, both connotations can often be used when translating traditional texts. For example, when the Buddha (as he so often did) stated that everything that we have conditioned (our experience of) is anicca, a helpful translation can be that it is not internal or owned by us, and also that it is not a permanent aspect of experience. And since everything we experience is actually a mental interpretation that happens in the space we presume is "in here", in the end these two connotations are essentially saying the same thing.
The history of the term anicca therefore corresponds with the fact we divide all that we perceive into an inner and outer portion, and come to identify with and even as the inner portion. It feels familiar and safe, and is always there: it seems permanent. As a result, we come to conclude that what we identify as “I” or “me” is a permanent aspect of experience. That permanent aspect is our core, soul or substance: it’s what makes “me”... “me”! It proves that I exist, that “I Am”. We then project that same sense of being and existence onto everything else, in part to continually reaffirm the conclusion that we too are beings that exist as well. By this, everything we experience is conditioned to have the same permanency and substance that we do.
This connection to our internal experience also helps clarify that we are not concerned here with the non-permanence (or impermanence) in conventional terms, where everything is "conditioned" and subject to change because it is made of component parts and eventual breaks down. While this is of course true in an everyday sense, and many approaches to Buddhism include this conventional version of "impermanence" as a central tenet, it is not the focus of the first of the Three Reminders. In other words, the Three Reminders are concerned with conditioned experience, rather than conditioned existence. A further exploration of this may be found here.
Applying This Reminder to Conditioned Experience
The most important application of the reminder that nothing in conditioned experience is permanent is, therefore, to the erroneous reasons we believe we exist as we believe we do. For example, if experience seems like it is owned, there must be an owner. If it seems like there is an innate or native quality we have, that must have a name or identity. If it seems like there is an interior aspect to experience, there must be a boundary that defines us. That these inferences or assumptions are not true is what anicca can remind us of, and invite us to look at how we rely upon what appears to be a permanent sense of internality, ownership and so much more in order to prop up the idea that we exist.
As it turns out, we also rely on the formless or “pre-form” aspects of experience in order to prove our existence. As described in the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, we are conditioned to believe that space, consciousness, “something-ness” and perception are permanent aspects of experience, by which the forms we perceive are as real as we are. By engaging with the formless layer meditations, we allow the mind to naturally settle down, until these supposedly inherent aspects of experiences are no longer experienced.
As with the other two reminders, anicca is therefore entirely experiential. During the meditations, no words or concepts are required to know that there is no such thing as space, consciousness, “something-ness” or perception, since they are temporarily absent. As the Shorter Discourse instructs us to see, experience is now empty of those aspects. Eventually, when the seventh fetter is broken, we will not experience them at all: experience is unconditioned, or no longer conditioned, in that way. Again, it's not that the (mental interpretation of) our phone or the smell coming from the kitchen is inherently conditioned: it is only our experience of it that is conditioned, by us.
Also, in terms of the process of awakening, that our experience of a phone or smell is not permanent is one thing: that there is nothing that we identify with, or as, that is permanent is quite another. By this, placing our focus on the things around us misses the point - we need to see that we don't exist, not only as we think we exist, but at all. The chance that our belief in our "selves" will dissipate by reflecting on how all else is not permanent, as if by inference, is likely very small. In other words, rather than looking around and trying to determine "the way things really are", awakening is a matter of seeing "the way I really am not".
When the eight fetter is gone, all sense of interiority and ownership evaporates, and there is nothing we can any longer identify with, or even as. This is therefore accompanied by the evaporation of the belief that we have some sort of essence or nature, by which the conclusion “I Am” is removed: this is the focus of the next of the Three Reminders. When this happens, it can at first be a rather scary experience, since a sense of interiority, control and identity are generally what we rely upon in order to feel safe. However, the fact that there is no “in here”, and therefore no boundaries or separation in experience, is eventually a profound relief. We can then look back and see how the lifelong struggle to claim and hold a certain portion of experience was a losing battle, and that life is much easier without that struggle. This also makes clear that what we need to see is not that the world around us is impermanent: we need to see that what we identify with is not a permanent aspect of experience.
We can therefore use this first Reminder that what we condition to be permanent, and permanently internal, owned, and thus familiar and safe, isn’t actually so. There is simply no aspect of experience with which we identify that is always there: it’s all just mental interpretations that come and go. Likewise, the conditioned experience of everything that is “not me” (i.e., the version of it that we experience in the mind) is also a mental creation, and ceases if we stop manufacturing it.
References:
- Brough, J. (1952). Audumbarayana’s Theory of Language. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 14, pp. 73-7.
- Hara, M. (1959). A note on the Sanskrit word ni-tya. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 79, pp. 90-95.
- Muller, F. (1891). Vedic Hymns / Translated by F. Max Muller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 209-16.