Understanding Impermanence, Suffering, and Not-Self : หน้า 141/263

Impermanence [aniccān]: This is the built-in character of objects that are of a nature to change the whole of the time. Such things as the Five Aggregates of the Human Body are changing the whole of the time. Suffering [dukkham]: This is the characteristic of built-in hardship seen again with the Five Aggregates because of the constant stress of arising and decaying. Suffering is something that it is hard to tolerate — creating the feelings such as pain and suffering. Not-Self [anattā]: The changeability of the Five Aggregates makes them of the nature of suffering. When we try to relieve the suffering by trying to prevent the Aggregates from changing, we meet with no success because the Five Aggregates are not under our control. Furthermore, in these Five Aggregates there is no real ‘self’ because the Aggregates are just an assembly of decaying pieces none of which can be identified as ‘self’. These are the signs of the characteristic of ‘not-self’. All this is seen only by the eye of the Dhammakāya. All this is known only with the knowing [ñāṇa] of the Dhammakāya. The reason why the eight ‘mundane’ bodies cannot know their own nature is because their knowledge is only on the level of ‘consciousness’ or ‘cognition’ — unlike the Dhammakāya, these bodies have no access to ‘knowing’ [ñāṇa]. The Great Abbot of Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen, Phra-monkholtepmuni, explained the difference between cognition and ‘knowing’ as follows: “The knowledge arising from cognition depends upon the six senses [āyatana] rather than wisdom, therefore 139