Gotama’s complete understanding of the nature of human experience is based on how three characteristics affect it: that everything we experience arises & passes away continuously (impermanence); that no matter how closely we look at our experience, there is nothing unchanging that is a solid “self” (not self); & that our need to escape from these feelings causes us to suffer (dukkha): to feel stress & dissatisfaction, to feel unbalanced & wary at all times. All the practices described in the teachings are designed to train us to see these characteristics at work, in each subtle fleeting moment of experience. The correct way to understand our experience, & thus relieve dukkha, is to train the mind to see this. The “right view” (in the sense of “correct”) is to see experience arising as the interactions of many, many mental forms, sensations, perceptions, habits, & thoughts, in each moment. The more clearly we see this, the better we can wield our simple free will, to disenchant the mind from the causes of suffering & stress.