the four noble truths and the three characteristics

There is some disagreement between what the early teachings say and the later tradition says for what paññā means, what it is you see when you develop insight. In the early tradition, it invariably refers to seeing the four noble truths. In the later tradition, it refers to seeing the three characteristics of impermanence, difficulty, and impersonality. I’ve seen some authors set these in opposition to each other, as if doing one somehow precludes the other, but I see them as interlocked.

The four noble truths—-or true realities of the noble ones, as a more modern translation would have it—-are seeing that difficulty exists, that its origin is in craving, that with the cessation of craving comes the cessation of difficulty, and how that can be accomplished by the noble eightfold path. It is when we see our difficulties—-our stress, our suffering—-and we see how we create them for ourselves in the way we cling to ideas or objects. Seeing this leads naturally to seeing the way to be free: Simply stop clinging and let go. And we see how the noble eightfold path supports this process.

But this simultaneously means recognizing the three characteristics. In order to let go, we need to see that what we are clinging to is simply not worth the trouble. That it is unstable, transient, impermanent, and any amount of clinging or wanting won’t change that. We see that doing so makes things difficult. And at the subtler level, we come to see the ways we identify with or appropriate things, investing impersonal processes with some kind of identity or as some kind of property, are the root of the problem.

So there isn’t really a dramatic difference between these ideas. Like many things in Buddhism, they’re really just two ways of getting at the same basic activity of letting-go, and working with either (or both) will do the yogi just fine.