A Formula Shared Across Buddhist Schools

The three marks of existence stated in this sequence of verses became a shared reference point across Buddhist schools that otherwise diverge widely in doctrine and practice. Theravada exegesis treats the three verses as a summary of insight meditation's own goal, since seeing impermanence, suffering and not self directly, rather than merely accepting them as propositions, is what the tradition holds actually produces release. Mahayana traditions inherited the same three marks while developing further doctrines built on the third, the absence of a fixed self, extending it into more elaborate accounts of emptiness that go beyond what the Dhammapada verses themselves state. Comparative readers have also noted that the sequence's refrain, seeing this with wisdom turns one away from suffering, ties all three marks to a single practical outcome rather than treating them as separate metaphysical claims of independent interest, a structure that reflects the Dhammapada's general character as a text organized around what leads to liberation rather than around doctrine argued for its own sake in the manner of a philosophical treatise, a difference commentators regularly point to when explaining why the verses read as instruction for practice rather than as premises in an argument.