Anicca - Anatta - Dukkha.

Impermanence, Substance less and Misery, these basic tenets were highlighted by Gautama Buddha to explain the natural rules of existence in Samsara (life in the time and space perspective) so as to inspire and guide his followers in their pursuit towards liberation. All phenomena in this world follow these principles and there is nothing that exists beyond or is not bound by them.

Life that is visibly apparent in this world in all its various forms like plants, animals, birds and humans follows a regular cyclic pattern. There is a symmetrical rise and fall which can be noticed both at the macro and micro levels. At the micro level every individual plant, animal, bird or human comes into existence, occupies its space and dies in its own time. At the macro level even the species rise and become extinct like the mammoths and dinosaurs. In the million year’s history of the planet, humans who currently appear as homo-sapiens were previously Neanderthal and something else previous to that. Life has been living on this planet since ages but its form and structure has been changing. Maybe even the planet has a life of its own. Therefore the difference is only the time and space criteria which keep changing from specie to specie. Everything is Anicca or impermanent. Even the thoughts of individual life forms have certain limitation of space and time within which it arises to soon pass away. In this ever changing and never resting world to cling on to anything whether a form or some abstract idea is an unprofitable effort.

Dileep Kulkarni a renowned environmentalist of Maharashtra quoted, “more amazing than the phenomenon of growth, is the cessation of growth”. Growth ceases after a point, always. To maintain equilibrium, nature has its own ways to curb the growth of every species, its own unquestionable methods and irreversible process. All life, grow to a permissible level where it balances the use of available resources like air and water with all other life forms and then ceases to grow only to wither and die. In this natural play of growth and cessation, we do not have any say; our opinion does not have any consequence. It is all anatta, impersonal and substance-less. From the words of Gautama Buddha we understand that existence is only a series of becoming. Each new arising is because of our desire our craving our reaction pattern to the world of change which we observe through the sense organs. When we continue to pamper ourselves we only choose to continue the process of becoming. Each becoming comes to an end and the new one arises. Humans would like to continue with innumerable desires but nature has to look after a balance. Therefore the process of becoming continues. A new life follows a death.

Human enterprise of greed of craving and aversion is therefore naturally fated to be dukkha oriented. Fear lurks behind every such desire because they have to end. When such an end comes it always lead to sufferings and misery. In the scheme of nature nothing is forever. Everything that grows has to die, where ever there is an excess activity nature forces a balance. Nature is impartial to all life forms and humans have no extra significance in its view.

Swami Vivekananda has said that the purpose of human life is to attain liberation. It is humans who have the ability to understand the laws of nature and work their own way out of this illusionary world. Liberation or ‘Nibbana’ was not meant to be an escape from life but it was a joyful existence without sufferings within the realms of Samsara.