Three Dharma Seals
삼법인

Every Buddhist teaching bears the Three Dharma Seals. Without all three seals the teaching is not a Buddhist teaching.

1. Impermanence: All composite things are impermanent. People and the things we love will not be with us forever. We will thus value them even more. Also, knowing that everything changes, including unhappiness, gives us the hope that unpleasant circumstances may improve for the better.

2. Non-self: Nothing has an independent, fixed self. It is just a temporary aggregate of the four great elements. When the causes and conditions cease, the temporary aggregates will be dispersed.  

3. Nirvana:

When the dual ideas of self and other, birth and death, gain and loss are extinguished, one becomes calm and clear. Then we will understand that genuine happiness is not to be found in a materialistic, self-centered existence.

​- excerpt from Buddhist English (Elementary 1) published in 2014 by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism​​​