In normal life, are there every times without dukkha?

Simplify

or are we just distracted from it?

RichardH

There are times of more or less acuteness, but basically "I" = dukkha. Even when things are "going my way" and I'm happy, there is an underlying insecurity, a subtle wanting and holding. Once you know non-dukkha the pervasiveness of Dukkha in our ordinary way of being pops out, and the old compensations just don't work anymore.

IMO people shouldn't push themselves into Buddhist practice until their current way of being has really hit the wall. There shouldn't be a compulsion.

Simplify

What about a mother for the first few months after having a child, or the first few months of falling in love or other experiences where one devotes their self to something or someone else?

federica

Simplify wrote: »

What about a mother for the first few months after having a child,

When you create a new being you also condemn it to death. That is the dukkha of being a parent of a new-born. A mother is aware of this. And a mother is aware of dukkha at 3am, when the child has just fed, has wind, is crying, and won't settle!

or the first few months of falling in love

Within the thrill of the first hello, dwell the echoes of the last goodbye....

or other experiences where one devotes their self to something or someone else?

if you can do this, with absolutely no mental process or commentary, no evaluation or assessment, no perception or opinion, no thought except to do what you are doing in as mindful a way as possible - then, maybe, there is no room for situation-specific dukkha.

jinzang

There are certainly times when we are free of gross suffering and also times when joy and other positive emotions predominate. But for the average person, there's always a subtle suffering in the background, which manifests itself as a sense of restlessness or unease.