[9] In the Pali tradition of the Theravada school, the three marks are:[4][9][10][11] The northern Buddhist Sarvāstivāda tradition meanwhile has the following in their Samyukta Agama:[9][12] In the Ekottarika-āgama and in Mahayana sources like the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra and The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara (Sāgaranāgarājaparipṛcchā) however, four characteristics or “four seals of the Dharma” (Sanskrit: dharmoddāna-catuṣṭayaṃ or catvāri dharmapadāni, Chinese: 四法印) are described instead of three:[9][13][14] Impermanence (Pali: anicca, Sanskrit: anitya) means that all things (saṅkhāra) are in a constant state of flux.
[15] Human life embodies this flux in the aging process and the cycle of repeated birth and death (Samsara); nothing lasts, and everything decays.
As the First Noble Truth, dukkha is explicated as the physical and mental dissatisfaction of changing conditions as in birth, aging, illness, death; getting what one wishes to avoid or not getting what one wants; and "in short, the five aggregates of clinging and grasping" (skandha).
[27] The anattā doctrine of Buddhism denies that there is anything permanent in any person to call one's Self, and that a belief in a Self is a source of dukkha.
[28][29] Some Buddhist traditions and scholars, however, interpret the anatta doctrine to be strictly in regard to the five aggregates rather than a universal truth, despite the Buddha affirming so in his first sermon.