lakkhaṇa
Three characteristics
[ LUCK-kuh-na ]
Seeing it in life
The three marks of all conditioned phenomena. Insight into them is the heart of vipassanā.
In short
Anicca, dukkha, anattā — impermanence, suffering, not-self.
The analysis
The three characteristics — anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), anattā (not-self) — are read as a set because each implies the next. Because phenomena are anicca, clinging to them as if they were stable produces dukkha; because no phenomenon persists unchanged and every phenomenon leads to affliction when clung to, none qualifies as an independent, controlling self — anattā. Insight meditation (vipassanā) is oriented toward direct perception of these three marks in present experience, not as three separate exercises but as three angles on the same seeing.
Where it sits
Lakkhaṇa is the analytical lens applied across every other paramattha in this dictionary — every citta, every cetasika, every rūpa carries all three marks. It's also the structural bridge between the four noble truths (dukkha is one of the three) and the wider doctrine of not-self.
Watching a single wave of anxiety — noticing it arise (anicca), noticing the discomfort in resisting its arising (dukkha), and noticing that no fixed 'anxious self' can actually be located inside the wave, only the wave itself, changing — is lakkhaṇa applied to one ordinary moment rather than to doctrine in the abstract.
Commonly mistaken for
Three separate teachings to study individually. They're presented as a set precisely because they interlock; seeing one clearly tends to open onto the others.
A pessimistic worldview. The three marks are offered as an accurate description of conditioned phenomena, aimed at loosening clinging — not as a verdict meant to discourage.
Visuddhimagga XX–XXI; Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (SN 22.59).
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