Understanding deeply the truth of impermanence—not as a concept, but in direct experience—opens the doorway to ever-deepening insight. In the Buddha’s first teaching on selflessness to the group of five ascetics, he goes through each of the five aggregates — material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness — pointing out the impermanence of each and how that which is impermanent is inherently unreliable and unsatisfying. And that which is unreliable and unsatisfying cannot truly be considered to be “I” or “mine.” In just hearing this teaching, all five ascetics became
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