Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
The first noble truth states that, in short, the five clinging-aggregate (panca-upadana-khandha) are dukkha (SN 56.11), i.e., it's the clinging in reference to the aggregates that's dukkha, not the aggregates themselves.
This is how it has been taught in our Sangha. In simple terms "There is suffering present" due to identification/attachment to "life" (aggregates). Life (aggregates) of its own accord is non-suffering.
I see where you are coming from. My view is that, given the emptiness of emptiness, the only identity we have is conventional. There is no transcendent one to grasp. So while it is unskillful to cling to convention, it is also off the mark to negate it, or not honour it.
Well from that point of view your absolutely right.
I agree with that, otherwise dukkha has to be taken dynamically as meaning both change and suffering for mind, and simply change for all other phenomena. The Buddha extolled that his teachings were of suffering and the cessation of suffering, and all aspects of those teachings involve mental processes; suffering of this kind can not arise without ignorance as a base, and ignorance is not an attribute of "all" reality in our understanding.
Ignorance that there is a path which leads to the cessation of suffering is true of all humanity unless they are taught otherwise. With the exception of Buddha of course. Although I wouldn't rule out some humans having intimations of dharma on their own.
Comments
My experience tells me it's not all suffering.
And I'm fairly sure that life is more dukkha than suffering; it's just not a good translation.
So cheer up, my friend. I'm having another good day!
Well from that point of view your absolutely right.
Without seeing the ultimate Dharma
Is one day lived
Seeing the ultimate Dharma.
- Dhammapada