By turning away from the people, the Buddhist establishments deprived themselves of wide popular support and made themselves especially vulnerable to the destructive raids of the Muslims. The Buddhist faith was gone; only monasteries and monks remained. When these were wiped out, Buddhism ceased to exist in India. The obliteration was complete by the year 1200.

In the first seal of the Law, all things are impermanent, “all things” means all physical and mental phenomena. Everything is constantly changing, and Shakyamuni made this statement of the ephemeral nature of all things first as a fact that people must experience in daily life. Clearly the operations of the mind are fluid, but even such apparently stable objects as rocks and trees are constantly undergoing change. From the minutest physical particles to the largest celestial bodies, nothing ceases to move for a moment. Modern scientific theories about this kind of flux make it easier than in the past to accept the idea that all things are impermanent.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Fundamental to the law of dependent origination are the seals (or marks) of the Law. Seal is used in the sense of a brand that guarantees the validity of a document and serves as a person’s mark. Thus the seals of the Law are simultaneously its characteristics and its proof. Any theory that conforms to these characteristics is true; any theory that fails to do so is false. The three seals state that all things are impermanent, nothing has a persisting self, and nirvana is tranquility. Sometimes a fourth, all existence is suffering, is added to make the four seals of the Law.

Since [reformists] believed that the Buddhist philosophy they advocated was capable of transporting the entire sentient world to Buddhahood, they called it Mahayana (the Great Vehicle) and disparagingly described Abhidharma Buddhism as Hinayana (the Small Vehicle).

The correct Buddhist view of the world and humankind is inseparable from the law of dependent origination. In symbolizing this relationship, primitive Buddhist texts describe an aspirant who has acquired proper understanding and has arrived at the first stage of enlightenment as having received the Eye of the Law, unblemished and unsoiled. Frequently, similar texts say that the Eye of the Law consists in being able to see that all things born of causes and conditions cease to exist when those causes and conditions are destroyed. In short, a person who has attained this stage of understanding perceives the principle of dependent origination, equated with the immutable Law.

No more permanent than any other aspect of the world, suffering can be converted into happiness. But seeking the reason for suffering’s existence is the necessary first step toward achieving this transformation. Only by examining the causal relationship giving rise to sorrows is it possible to discover a logical way to eliminate them. Shakyamuni did precisely this. The second of the Four Noble Truths gives the cause of suffering as craving. (The Twelve-linked Chain of Dependent Origination … is a more detailed explanation of the cause of suffering.) The third and fourth Noble Truths enunciate the way to eliminate suffering, testifying to a state in which suffering is extinct and teaching the Eightfold Path as the way to reach that state. Thus we see the close interrelation of the seals of the Law, the Four Noble Truths, and the law of dependent origination.

The Buddhist law of dependent origination is the logical integration of the first two seals of the Law. In simple terms, dependent origination means that every effect has a definite cause and every cause a definite effect. Nothing comes into being by accident. Actions do not occur in a haphazard fashion. Only when certain causes and conditions are present can a particular effect or result be achieved. This is by no means to imply an all-encompassing first cause like divine will or a foreordained plan for life. Causes and conditions vary in infinite ways to generate infinite kinds of results. But for any fixed set of causes and conditions, the result, too, is fixed.

A common-sense religion, Buddhism is concerned first not with abstracts beyond human ken but with the world of actual experience and with enabling human beings to live well in it. To this end the Buddha presented the teachings of the seals of the Law, dependent origination, and the Four Noble Truths.

The four indestructible objects of faith in which true believers put unshakable trust are the Three Treasures (Buddha, Law, and Order) and the precepts (not to kill, not to steal, not to indulge in wrong sexual activity, not to lie, not to drink intoxicants). The person who profoundly believes in the Three Treasures will abide absolutely by these moral rules. The aim of Buddhism is for believers of this kind to convert the world into a place of peace and happiness free of war, strife, antagonism, envy, injustice, and iniquity.

The Four Noble Truths, a kind of simplified law of causation, are perhaps the best known of all the Buddha’s teachings: all existence is suffering, the cause of suffering is craving and illusion, suffering can be eliminated, and the way to eliminate suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path (ashtangika-marga) consisting of right views, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. As if to indicate their importance, Shakyamuni took the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as the subjects of his very first sermon, celebrated as “setting the Wheel of the Law in motion,” delivered to five ascetics at Deer Park near Benares.