THE BUDDHA’S CONCLUSION

The Buddha concluded that humans suffered from three frustrating conditions:  impermanence (annica); the ultimate unreality of the self (anatta); and suffering (dukka), the third following remorselessly upon the other two. 

Impermanence was the big one.  The Buddha saw that it was foolish for humans to cling with longing, as most people did, to sentient life and its pitifully few pleasures, when all through life the pain of change was so predominant.

At the same time, this will-to-live-and-to-have, this "thirst" for the world and its objects was by far the most striking of the characteristics that passed from one existence to another.  

If this clinging could be made to die away, then the chief cause of rebirth would be removed, the Buddha believed.  If it could be made to die away, then it should be made to do so.