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OK. 
So let's have a little bit of a 

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discussion about the three marks
of existence. 

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So just very briefly, we'll just
talk about those 3 marks that 

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that are characteristics of 
conditioned existence, 

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impermanence, suffering or 
unsatisfactoriness and not self.

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So is there does anyone have one
of those that are your like, 

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favorite go to one of those ones
that you really want to talk 

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about? 
Give us a couple minutes maybe. 

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So when I look at them, it 
wasn't so much an individual 

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mark of existence that caught my
attention. 

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It's that when I look at them 
collectively, they say emptiness

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to me. 
So that is a Direct Line to 

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every empty because if it 
exists, if it has a, if it has 

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the, the capacity to exist, it 
has one, one of the three 

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remarks of existence are all the
three marks of existence, which 

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means it's empty. 
So that's that's just where my 

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head was when I was really 
thinking about this. 

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I think that's a really good 
point. 

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And I think that the concept of 
emptiness is one of the most 

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difficult concepts in Buddhism. 
I think especially, you know, 

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when I'm trying to teach and 
talk to people because they, 

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because it's kind of like 
emptiness means like not empty 

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of anything. 
It's, it's full of everything 

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else. 
It's empty only of, of itself. 

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And so I think you're right that
thinking through the three marks

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can help us understand like, 
what do you mean it's full of 

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everything because it's empty of
its own existence. 

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And so impermanence really helps
with that because we can think 

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about like everything being in a
dynamic flux and changing. 

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Overall, I think that the the 
concept of not self is, is 

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really perfect for emptiness 
because that is another one of 

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those. 
I think emptiness and not self 

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are two of the most complicated 
concepts in Buddhism. 

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And they both relate to the idea
of like, mostly like it's just 

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not what you think and and that 
it's full of everything else so 

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that it's not like independent 
without interacting with all the

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other things that gave rise to 
those conditions. 

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I think part of that is the 
cultural context too, and I know

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Glenn has talked about this, 
where in the Western world is so

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focused on individualism and 
defining yourself and. 

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Who are you? 
What are you? 

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Doing What's your 32nd spiel? 
If you talk to a person, it's so

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like self-centered that the idea
of not self or emptiness or not 

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having something like mind with.
That. 

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Self oriented and the capitalism
instead of what it's meant as in

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a more collective society it 
comes across as. 

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Mealism. 
So it's more the connotations of

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the word once you put it in the 
cultural context, and that that 

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translation hasn't fully come 
over yet. 

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Those words don't work the same 
way over here as they did in 

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their original context. 
You know, that's kind of my hang

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up too, where it seems as though
sometimes we just don't have the

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proper language and or cultural 
backing of the language to have 

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a discussion in the in the way 
that these topics need to be 

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discussed or need to be thought 
of. 

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Because like, for example, like 
I study philosophy and John 

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Locke roots his idea of ethics 
in the self, right or in the 

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personhood, right. 
So he actually has two distinct 

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differences. 
There's a self which is like 

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animals have selves. 
There are things that kind of 

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have like process information 
they can react to, excuse me, 

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pleasure and pain, but then 
there's a personality that can 

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actually make like take 
accountability and take 

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responsibility for those things.
Like with animals, we don't 

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really see having personhood in 
that way. 

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And so so too, like some kids 
and some people with 

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neurodivergent developmental 
disabilities also are kind of 

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vary according to Locke anyway, 
as to how we can perceive. 

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And I think that's kind of where
I get kind of hung up because a 

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lot of the pragmatic negotiation
seems to suggest that there is 

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something by which we are being 
appropriate in the situation. 

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So responding in a, in a 
accepting way versus a suffering

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way. 
There's some kind of, and I know

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like sometimes maybe I'm, I'm, 
I'm, I make it too much, but it 

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could be just as simple as the 
algorithm. 

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As we practice this information 
gets a little bit more refined 

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as we don't need the language as
much. 

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We get a better algorithm for 
processing pain and suffering 

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and the things that distress us.
But on the other hand, it seems 

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as though when you think about 
how to not how the self or the 

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no self is interacting with the 
community at large, and we're 

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trying to determine what is that
appropriate response. 

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There seems to be some kind of 
other mechanism at play and I 

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have a hard time really identify
what that might be to refine so 

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but. 
One of the phrases that I was 

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recently introduced to that 
really has has helped me a lot 

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is if it arises from causes and 
conditions and it's empty. 

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And that translates to not self 
too, because myself, my, you 

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know, the, the, the thing I am 
has arisen from causes and 

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conditions and those causes and 
conditions continue and they 

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shift who I am. 
You know, I'm not the same 

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person I was 30 years ago. 
And since that's true, I have no

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fixed, distinct, never changing 
self. 

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So I I about the vocabulary and 
and this sort of addition to my 

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vocabulary helped me a lot. 
Yeah. 

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Joe, do you have anything that 
you wanted to comment on about 

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the three marks of existence? 
You know, I, I agree with a lot 

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of what everybody is saying. 
I think when I was reviewing 

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them, Sidis, my dog is being an 
idiot. 

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Hi, I was amazed at how I, I 
guess I hadn't really thought 

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about it. 
The deeper is how much they are 

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all kind of connected to each 
other, that's they almost build 

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on one another to change the 
conceptual framework from which 

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we view the world. 
I think the three marks of 

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existence for me are simply a 
way of saying that, you know, 

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the way you think the world 
works is not how it works. 

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Look at these things that you 
think are hallmarks of what 

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existence is, like permanence, a
self, these kinds of things. 

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And they are not that when you 
look a little bit deeper, and 

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here's why. 
But that's not the end of the 

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story. 
Once you to go along with your 

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kind of it doesn't lead to 
nihilism. 

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It's like once you are able to 
let go of these things, 

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something magical happens, 
right? 

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Once you understand these things
on a embody level, it's not just

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a an intellectual understanding.
Once these things you understand

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to the point where they become 
your outlook in life, they 

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change the way the world works 
for you. 

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And in that way, something 
altogether different happens 

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with your life. 
You exist in a different way 

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than you did before. 
And so I think for me, that was 

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AI mean. 
That was a cool reminder when I 

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was reviewing this was like, Oh 
yeah, like well, look at the 

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world is right. 
There's a better way of doing 

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it. 
And when I do do that, I'm more 

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in like the way, you know, with 
an outlook that is to suits to 

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and like or what it like to 
this. 

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So that's what that's what I 
have here. 

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You know, I agree with that. 
I think that one of the things I

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find most helpful about this 
idea of the three marks of 

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existence is to think about what
we assume to be true about our 

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lives and about the world and 
how we can question that. 

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I think one of the most 
beneficial things about Buddhism

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is that it gives us a direction 
to question what we assumed to 

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be true, unreal about the world.
And I think that it is hard 

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living in this human body and 
seeing the world through our own

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perception influences the way 
that we understand. 

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And so the the way that we 
understand the world and 

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interact with the world. 
So I think that, you know, 

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thinking about these marks of 
existence as about ways of, of 

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being in the world and if we can
understand them, it it's really 

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quite, I think it's really quite
liberating, right? 

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So we're afraid of impermanence 
where we want things to stay 

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exactly the same or we want them
to change in a particular way. 

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And that causes us a lot of, of 
suffering because we're afraid 

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about what we're going to lose. 
And instead, it can be really 

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helpful to think about like 
embracing the experience that 

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we're having, knowing that this 
moment is the only moment that 

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is going to exist right now. 
It was all of these kinds of 

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variables and it's going to 
change in another moment. 

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And so it's thinking about 
impermanence that way has really

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helped me to try to embrace the,
the all the experiences that I'm

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00:10:03,560 --> 00:10:05,760
having because it's the only 
experience that I'm going to 

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have that's exactly like that. 
And it's going to change into 

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something else. 
And then, I mean, the hardest 

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00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:13,880
part about that, honestly, is 
mapping that to the concept of 

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the self. 
Because, you know, I think we 

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00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:19,160
all want to think of ourselves 
as like we have a history, we 

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have an existence. 
We we think of of ourselves. 

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And, and we tend to look back on
our past and see it through the 

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lens of our present and say, 
like, see, I've always been that

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way. 
And it's really helpful to be 

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like, yeah, but look, how much 
we have changed. 

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I mean, I doubt that any of us 
today like built a literal pie 

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out of mud and ate it, but I 
sure as hell did that, you know,

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when I was a child, right? 
That is, that's something that 

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00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:46,960
has changed. 
And I think that is like a 

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00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:50,800
really it's, it's helpful to 
think of it that way, the way 

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that things are so dynamic. 
And then the, the last one, the 

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idea of this suffering or 
unsatisfactoriness, it helps me 

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to think of this being a 
characteristic of human 

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00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:05,920
existence, how we see the world 
suffering. 

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00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,240
Unsatisfactoriness is a part of 
that, and it's a necessary part 

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00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:11,200
of that. 
Because if I don't know what 

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unsatisfactoriness feels like, 
how am I going to know what 

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00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:18,600
satisfactoriness feels like? 
If I'm always in the place of 

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what I say is happy, then it 
just means that it's shifting 

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that it means that there's a, 
you know, a, a smaller band of 

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what's unhappy and happy, but 
it's still going to be in there 

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because otherwise let's how are 
we going to how else do we 

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experience that if we don't know
that there is this whole 

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00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:39,640
spectrum of experiences and one 
side helps define the other side

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00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:42,080
because they're all kind of 
connected. 

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So I know we're about out of 
time but does anyone have like a

185
00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:51,280
take home thought that we want 
to leave each other with before 

186
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:59,560
we close on this topic? 
I, I think we've been talking a 

187
00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:06,720
lot retrospectively about how we
interpret past and current 

188
00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:08,840
events. 
But as it occurs to me, as we're

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closing that I kind of do a 
little bit of that sometimes now

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where I tried to like boss hands
me something at, you know, 435 

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00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:22,480
on a Friday and I say, oh, 
that's a future Joss issue, you 

192
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:27,680
know, but I mean like jokingly, 
but I mean, the idea there is 

193
00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:34,680
that, you know, to the extent 
that we can recognize that 

194
00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:38,800
things are impermanent, that we 
can change is implicitly telling

195
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:42,960
us that that should be give us 
hope, right? 

196
00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:47,400
That if we're if we can identify
that we can be a better person, 

197
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that's like the first step in 
becoming the person that we want

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00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:52,240
to be. 
And that we can change our 

199
00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:57,320
current aid situation in ways 
that makes us more of the person

200
00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:00,160
we want to be, that our 
community more in the way that 

201
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:03,640
we like our community to be. 
And I I just thought that was a 

202
00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:07,000
whole full message. 
That sounds awesome. 

203
00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:09,200
Thanks. 
That's that's I think good for 

204
00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:12,400
us to end on. 
And I'd like to when we close, 

205
00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:14,920
though I feel like this is part 
of our Dahmer practice. 

206
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,480
So I'd still like to do the 
dedication of merit. 

207
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:21,040
And then at the center in Saint 
Louis, when we close, we always 

208
00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:24,520
say, may the fruit of our 
practice extend to all living 

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00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,440
beings. 
Spaha.