First Hallmark – Impermanence
Investigating Change as the Gateway to Buddhist Analysis
First Floor - Small Vehicle • Module 1
Estimated time to complete: 90 minutes
Entering the Small Vehicle
The Foundation Floor introduced meditation as an investigative method. We learned a basic meditation technique and established a daily practice. We also saw how the Buddha awakened through meditation, taught the Dharma, which became the different forms of Buddhism that spread across Asia.
But what exactly are we investigating and why? How does understanding Buddhist philosophy frame what we need to investigate? How does Buddhist meditation theory help us do the investigation? What is the result we are aiming at?
The Small Vehicle floor addresses these questions through a progressive exploration of what is traditionally known as the “ground, path, and fruition” of the Small Vehicle.
Ground — The Terrain of our Present Experience
The ground is where we find ourselves now, what we’re going to explore further, and what we will become deeply familiar with. The Buddhist map of this territory is called the Four Hallmarks—statements about the nature of our present reality that every Buddhist school accepts. These statements aren’t abstract doctrines to memorize, but rather prompts or research questions to help us observe our experience more closely—to see what is really going on underneath the surface—so that we can actually address the real problems we face in life.
Path — The Road to the Summit
The path is the way to address those problems, like a road that gradually stretches from the flat ground uphill toward the fruition. The “Small Vehicle” is what we drive on this road to reach the summit—a vehicle consisting of theoretical understanding (lta ba), meditative practices (sgom pa), and post-meditative practices (spyod pa). But no vehicle drives itself. Meditation theory encompasses all the driving instructions to be understood and applied in practice in order to arrive at the final destination.
Fruition — The Top of the Mountain
The fruition is what we reach at the summit—the peaceful end to our personal dissatisfaction—through our efforts along the path. From the vantage point of the summit, we are also supposed to discover what was always true about the ground but we couldn’t see from below.
In the beginning, we may not immediately see how the Small Vehicle’s ground, path, and fruition connects directly to meditation practice. But if we continue to meditate while going through the modules, we will see how it provides a necessary map and compass to help us know where we are headed with meditation, what we are seeing along the way, what is worth investigating more thoroughly, and where we need to go next.
This Module
We begin on the ground, with a brief overview of the four hallmarks themselves. What are they? How do they encapsulate the Buddha’s entire teaching? And what happens when you actually investigate them directly rather than just accepting them intellectually?
What to watch for: What makes these “hallmarks” rather than ordinary philosophical claims. The distinction between two types of reality and two types of perception. How the four statements relate to each other.
Video 1: The Four Hallmarks of Buddhist Philosophy
Duration: 11 minutes
From Framework to First Investigation
The framework raises an immediate question: what does it actually mean to say that all conditioned things are impermanent? Why is this important? Everyone knows things change eventually. But Buddhist philosophy means something more specific—and more radical—than that.
What to watch for: The precise meaning of “conditioned.” What counts as conditioned and what doesn’t. Why impermanence means something different from “things eventually end.” The river question: if all the water has changed, what makes it the “same” river?
Video 2: First Hallmark — Impermanence
Duration: 37 minutes
From Understanding to Contemplation
The First Hallmark speaks of “conditioned things”—but what does conditioned actually mean? In Buddhist terminology, to be conditioned means to arise from causes and conditions. This is the principle of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda). Things come into being through a web of causes and conditions, persist as long as those conditions support them, and cease when conditions change. This might seem to be a dry point about causality. But according to Buddhists, when we truly “see” dependent arising, we witness the amazing and magical quality of this paradoxical world, where every dependent thing matters relatively because no independent thing matters absolutely.
A note on terminology: some translations render pratītyasamutpāda as “interdependence,” but this can be misleading, especially in the Small Vehicle context. “Interdependence” suggests a static web of mutual relationships, whereas “dependent arising” points to the dynamic process of causality—things actually arising in dependence upon causes and conditions. The emphasis is on the causal process itself, not just the resulting network.
The Seed Analogy
Buddhist texts often use a seed to illustrate how dependent arising works in the observable world. Consider what happens when a seed becomes a sprout. The seed itself is what Buddhists refer to the substantial cause—not because it contains some unchanging “seed-substance” that transforms (like clay being reshaped), but because the seed is what actually becomes the sprout. When the seed disappears, it has become a sprout; when the sprout disappears, it has become a stem; the stem becomes a stalk, the stalk a bud, the bud a flower, and so on. Each stage is both an effect of what came before and a cause of what follows.
But the seed alone cannot produce a sprout. It also requires cooperative causes—conditions that support the process from outside. The seed must be planted in earth that stabilizes and nourishes it. Water coaxes the seed into growth. Heat from the sun helps the plant mature. Air allows it to expand. Space accommodates the growth, and time allows it to unfold gradually.
What makes this example so useful is that we can see how the seed contains its own qualities—hardness, cohesion, warmth, the potential for growth—but these inner qualities can only actualize when they meet with supporting conditions from elsewhere. Change any of those cooperative conditions—too much water, too little sun, frozen earth—and the process unfolds differently or not at all.
This is what dependent arising means at the most basic level: nothing arises from a single isolated cause or a metaphysical singularity. Everything comes into being through the meeting of substantial causes and cooperative conditions—which themselves come into being from prior substantial causes and cooperative conditions. And since all those causes and conditions are themselves changing moment to moment, what depends on them must also change moment to moment. In this way, dependent arising also describes the universal web of interrelated causes and conditions—even though a butterfly flapping its wings may not literally cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, we can be sure it has some effect or influence on the entire system as a whole.
From Concept to Experience
The next video offers a contemplation to help us see the connection. Rather than analyzing moment-to-moment change directly—a practice we will develop more systematically in the next module—this meditation traces the causes and conditions that make our present existence possible. Starting with the immediate feeling of aliveness in your chest, it expands outward through the network of causes and conditions that sustain you: breath, food, other people, society, the environment, the planet, the cosmos, and the entire unfolding of time from the Big Bang until now.
But this contemplation goes further. Having felt the thoroughly dependent nature of our existence, it poses a question that will become increasingly important as we proceed: Is there any point in clinging to an identity that is itself dependent? We don’t need to answer this question yet—simply letting it arise in the context of contemplation plants a seed for what follows.
What to watch for: How the contemplation begins with the immediate feeling of aliveness in your chest, then traces causes outward in expanding circles—from breath and food, through social networks and government, to environment, planet, and cosmos. Notice the shift when the contemplation moves from outer conditions to inner questions: Is there a single cause that is independent? Do you feel your aliveness is somehow autonomous? Permanent? Within your control? Notice especially the question about clinging to identity—and the invitation to rest in awareness of the dependent nature of everything.
Video 3: Guided Meditation – Dependent Arising
Duration: 19 minutes
A few Insights:
When I first encountered the First Hallmark, I thought it was stating the obvious—all things eventually end. But I came to realize this hallmark points to the nature of causality itself. Newton’s laws and thermodynamics refer to the physical world. The Buddhist notion of conditioned things includes physical, mental, and all other phenomena—causally connected and in constant flux, like water droplets in a river flowing, leaning on each other, bouncing off banks, and shifting with climate and atmosphere.
In the stream of our own experience, we can observe this same meeting of substantial cause and cooperative conditions—how thoughts arise not just from prior thoughts but from our body’s state, what we’ve eaten, how we’ve slept, and what’s happening around us. But we often miss this. We treat fleeting experiences as lasting things, like someone compulsively redecorating a hotel room they’re staying in for a single night—making our problems and reactions more painful than they need to be.
When the First Hallmark sinks in—not just intellectually but through meditative investigation—the world takes on a dream-like lightness. We go more with the flow rather than fighting change. Problems that once irked us pass by like clouds that don’t even need our attention.
We can have some influence over some things, but we are not entirely in control in this life, or even this body—imagine if an earthquake suddenly hits? We would see instantly through our illusion of autonomy. The reality didn’t change—our control was always partial at best, always dependent on conditions external to ourselves.
The question about clinging to identity is perhaps the most important seed planted by this contemplation. If everything we are—body, thoughts, feelings, even our sense of self—is thoroughly dependent on conditions and circumstances, what exactly are we holding onto when we cling to “me” and “mine”?
These contemplations aren’t meant to produce passive resignation. They help us see the bigger picture clearly—and paradoxically, loosening our grip on the illusion of control makes it easier to be kinder to ourselves and to move more gracefully through whatever we encounter.
Questions for Reflection
These questions are designed as ongoing investigations, not one-time exercises. Let them inform your meditation sessions and your daily observation of experience.
1. The River Question If all the water in a river has changed from yesterday to today, what makes it the “same river”? Apply this to yourself: what makes you the “same person” you were ten years ago, when your body, thoughts, and feelings have all changed?
2. Where Does the Body End? In the dependent arising contemplation, we trace the causes of our aliveness outward—from breath and food to social systems, environment, planet, and cosmos. If our body depends continuously on all these factors, where exactly does “our body” end and the world begin? Is there a clear boundary, or does investigation reveal something more fluid?
3. Substantial and Cooperative Causes Choose something in your experience—a thought, a feeling, a physical sensation. What is its “substantial cause” (what it arose directly from)? What are its “cooperative conditions” (the supporting factors that allowed it to arise)? How many cooperative conditions can you identify?
4. Control and Conditions Notice moments in daily life when you assume you’re in control—of your body, your circumstances, your plans. What conditions are you depending on without noticing? What would it feel like to act with full engagement while knowing that control is always partial?
5. Change and Resistance Notice moments when you resist change—wanting something to stay the same, wishing something hadn’t ended, hoping something won’t start. What does that resistance feel like? What assumption underlies it?
If You Want to Practice
The guided meditation offers a contemplation on dependent arising—tracing the causes and conditions that make our existence possible, then investigating the nature of identity itself. To review:
Dependent Arising Contemplation
Settle the Mind — Sit with a straight back, close your eyes, and let your mind relax.
Feel Your Aliveness — Bring attention to your chest. Feel your beating heart. Get a good sense of what it feels like to be alive right now.
Contemplate Immediate Causes — Ask: What causes me to be alive right now? Breath—without it, you’d be gone in minutes. Food. Water. Clothes and shelter. Go through the immediate things on which your life depends.
Expand Through the Network — Now trace what those depend on. The vast systems producing food, water, medicine. Your parents, without whom you wouldn’t exist. Friends. Society. Government. Roads plowed in winter. Feel how your aliveness connects to countless people and systems.
Expand to Environment and Cosmos — Weather—if extreme year-round, we’d be gone. The atmosphere. This planet positioned just right in the solar system. The solar system within the galaxy. The galaxy within the universe.
Contemplate Through Time — All the causes from the Big Bang until now that had to occur for this moment to exist. The future when Earth will no longer be. This small window when human life is even possible.
Ask the Investigation Questions — Is there a single cause that is independent? Do you feel your aliveness is autonomous? Permanent? Within your control? If not, how will your actions matter? Is there any point in clinging to identity?
Rest in Recognition — Can you feel connected to the dependent nature of everything? Let go of self-importance and storylines. Rest in awareness of dependence—your aliveness open and connected to past, present, and future.
Daily Practice Suggestion
Continue your regular meditation, but add a few minutes of this contemplation. See whether it helps you consider your place in the larger scheme of things and loosens the assumption that you’re an entirely “independent” individual. Notice what happens when the question about clinging arises—not as a problem to solve but as something to sit with.
In the next module, we introduce a systematic method for investigating impermanence directly—examining body, feelings, mind, and phenomena moment to moment with specific research questions.
This module is part of Tarpa's Palace of Learning curriculum, a secular educational program exploring Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and contemplative practice. All content © 2025