These three marks are like three poles of a tent tied together that support and firm up each other.  To know them in this mutually supportive roles or functions is to really know Buddhism in its true form.  But for many of us, even to know just one of them is a huge task and thus to know all three at once in the interconnected sense is quite a monumental task.  Moreover, the mutually supportive function means that they define each other’s role or status.  Yet, the further implication here is that in the supportive and defining function, they are dynamically involved in ways that defy our imagination and, much more, our understanding.

　　The universal nature of suffering is unique to Buddhism.  It specifically refers to the uncommon fact that just to be born is the beginning of all kinds of suffering.  Why?  It is because the creature born is already engaged in a phenomenon of grasping after things, i.e., the function of the sense faculties, in order to sustain itself or the life process.  In Buddhism, the concept of the ordinary self is generally referred to in terms of the five aggregates of being (pa~nca-skandha).  The term, skandha, refers to the aggregating phenomenon, a notion that exhibits the dynamic and continuing nature of a being.[1]　At any rate, the grasping phenomenon (t.r.s.naa) is

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the initial or first aspect of a being, but there is a second aspect that germinates directly from the first.  That is to say, in the grasping phenomenon there resides innately, but in a damaging way, another phenomenon known as attachment (upaadaana).  In brief, each grasping entails an attachment to the thing grasped.[2]

　　So now, it can be seen that the creature born is a bundle of grasping-attachment or a series thereof.  The normally acceptable life sustaining process has now been shown to have the subtle, invisible origin or “cause” of suffering.  Naturally, it can be argued that without grasping and attachment there will be no organism or creature to speak of.  This is true on the biological level, but human beings must be considered to be more than biological beings since they are distinguished from other beings by the unique function of the mind.  I firmly believe that the Buddha’s enlightenment revealed the difference between mere biological creatures and creatures that could rise above the physical nature.  At the same time, it revealed the continuity that exists from the biological to the so-called higher realm of the mind and its function.  Thus it can be deduced that the grasping-attachment phenomenon continues to function from the biological to the conscious realm.[3]

　　The second mark is impermanence.  It flows directly from the discussion we have just gone through on suffering.  The

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phenomenon of grasping-attachment reveals that it impedes the flow of existence in the sense that each instance of the phenomenon exhibits a holding pattern, however small or short.  This occurs regardless of whether one is conscious of it or not, but in most cases it is too subtle and invisible for the average mind to contend with it.  It can be said that the holding pattern is the initial stage wherein the notion of a graspable entity occurs and from which a more refined idea of an object becomes a reality.  This initial pattern or patterning is, to be sure, a boon for the mind and its function.  It is now able to go further in its objectification or substantialization process.  But the truth of the matter is that no object or substance exists in and of itself.  It comes into being and goes out of being perpetually and does not stand still for any moment of time. It cannot be manipulated so as to serve the mind at its command, except in abstraction and in terms of subsequent abstract understanding of things in process.   Thus as the nature of things is in process at all times, the notion of an object or substance is never permanent but always impermanent.  And, the connection between suffering and impermanence is that suffering occurs each time treating things as permanent disturbs the impermanent nature of things.   Put another way, Attachment is a form of permanence in that attachment to a thing is a form of permanence and this phenomenon, in turn, hinders or obstructs the natural flow of existence.  In brief, then, rather than attachment, the desideratum is non-attachment at all times.  This is, however, an unachievable task by the average person and this opens up the discussion of the next and final mark of nonself.

　　It can be said that the concept of nonself is not in the vocabulary of the average person.  It is more than an anomaly since the average mind cannot accept it however hard the mind tries to cope with it.  However, by the discussion so far on the marks of suffering and impermanence it should suggest to us that the notion of a self in and of itself is impossible.  Since everything is on the