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1 All composed phenomena are impermanent. This simply means that anything that has
causes will change moment by moment, even if that change is imperceptible.

2 All contaminated things are miserable. Everything in our experience is

�contaminated� because it is ultimately the product of our ignorance.
That is, intentional actions (karma) performed while misunderstanding the way
things exist are the forces that cause our own births and the formation of the
cosmos itself. All of these things are �miserable� in the sense that impermanence
itself is a kind of suffering.

3 All phenomena are selfless. �Self� refers to what non-Buddhist schools describe
as our true selves: a permanent (i.e., unchanging), unitary (i.e., indivisible),
independent entity at the core of our being. No such �self� exists and there are no
objects that are used by such a �self.�

4 Nirvana is peace. Nirvana is not a place or a kind of consciousness but the

absence of the afflictions of desire, hatred, and ignorance.

The Buddhist masters told us that the purpose of life is to attain enlightenment
for the sake of others. But ignorance�the misunderstanding of reality�stands in
the way of achieving that goal of enlightenment. One of the more urgent aims of
Buddhist practice, then, is to overcome ignorance by cultivating an understanding
of reality, the ultimate truth, the final nature of the self and the world.

The Mahayana sutras use a variety of terms to designate this pro-found truth: the
sphere of dharma (Skt. dharmadhatu), phenomena in themselves (dharmata), reality or
thusness (tathata), and of course emptiness (sunyata). The Madhyamaka, or �Middle
Way,� is the name of the Buddhist philosophical tradition whose chief concern is
the view or theory of that reality known as emptiness.

The Middle Way is so called because it is said to be a middle ground between two
false extremes�the extremes of eternalism and nihilism. Some of the greatest minds
in the history of Indian Buddhism have devoted a good deal of philosophical writing
to delineating this Middle Way.