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Suffering, Dukkha
shanyin
Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
in Philosophy
Apparently the Buddha spoke the ancient Indian language called Pali. Also, there is no one word equivalent for 'dukkha'.
What does Dukkha mean? Is there a Pali word for suffering and did he use it?
What does Dukkha mean? Is there a Pali word for suffering and did he use it?
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so - Thus, something beautiful and pleasant is dukkha, because it will end. - this is not the case. it is the craving and clinging which leads to suffering. there is no problem with a thing if it is beautiful or pleasant. the problem arises when we want that beautifulness or pleasantness to everlast, so because of our this wanting, we suffer, when that beautiful thing( because it is conditioned, so impermanent) changes to a not beautiful thing.
The Five Skandhas(Aggregates) are not dukkha in themselves because they are conditioned. Rather it is the craving and clinging to these five aggregates, which causes dukkha to arise, because since these Five Skandhas(Aggregates) are conditioned, so they are impermanent, so they change.
Dukkha may include suffering, but it is not identical to only suffering. It encompasses a wider range --things in life are incapable of bringing any final satisfaction. So even pleasant things in life falls under dukkha. Because of impermanence and the perpetual changes that necessarily occur in life, there is no stability in life to be found anywhere that resolves anything. Whatever one clings to will change (and the one who does the clinging changes likewise). Because we believe things actually exist in some essential, stable, unchanging way (including, most of all, our sense of self) we fall under the spell of delusion.
Glenn Wallis has translated the word as 'unease' which is pervasive in life which captures the broader range of dukkha. Thich Nhat Hanh sometimes says 'ill-being.'
So the solution in Buddha Dharma is to make sure you don't take birth again.
Imagine being stuck in paradise with the coolest everything and everyone you could conceive. After a few billion years or maybe as soon as next Thursday, you would get bored and start watching the reruns or wishing for a bit of boring monotony to take away the excitement. Why? Because that is the nature of ducks.
Now I have heard that this temporary and fluctuating universe, once accepted is also quite a nirvana. So 'suffering' and not minding is part of the same raft of duck.
Well I have been reading about Buddhism lately. A monk at a monastery I went on retreat at said somewhere on his website that there is no english translation for dukkha. I'm interested to learn a word so central in what the Buddha taught.
Also, as illustrated in this thread, there is alot of non-understanding about what it means. You find it all over the place. So I am intrigued to learn 100% perfectly what the word means. However I have a hard time absorbing reading material that takes alot of intellegence lately but the replies have been thoughtful and are much appreciated.
People struggle over 'suffering' versus 'unsatisfactory' or whatever, but in the end, it's all just words. If you want to learn 100% perfectly, you have to be still and let go in your meditation. Whatever you let go, will give higher peace. So that which you let go, was surely dukkha. First of all, let thoughts go.
With metta,
Sabre
You ought to know there is many kind of dukkha in the language of the Pali. Dukkha is the painful feeling called the vedana in Pali. Dukkha is the unsatisfactory condition in the Pali called the lakkhana like the computer operation only for 3 year 4 year 5 year. Unsatisfactory impermanent plastic computer. Dukkha is the mental suffering of the "I am" self called the sankhara mental concoction. Buddha have the dukkha pain. Buddha experience with vipassana the unsatisfactory dukkha object of world. But Buddha not have the sankhara dukkha of self attachment.
As far as the literal meaning of dukkha and sukkha is concerned, in Hindi, dukkha means feeling of pain (or sorrow) and sukkha means feeling of pleasure (or happiness).
So instead of one specific word that fits, we need to look for words that have a much broader, general meaning. That isn't "stress" or even "suffering" which are much too specific. Suffering in particular denotes an intensity. Torture is designed to produce suffering. Suffering is certainly Dukkha, but so is that feeling when you look around at everything you have and realize it's not enough. Are you suffering? No. But you're not happy.
I don't know why people resist the simple translation of "unhappiness" or "unsatisfying". That's general enough to mean everything Dukkha means. Maybe people think that minimizes the profound observation. We are not satisfied and not happy, no matter what is happening in our lives. Sometimes it's because we have real problems and we're really suffering, and sometimes it's because what we have is never enough or meets our expectations.
That when a being is enlightened, they are on one side, that of Nirvana. The rest of us are on the other side, stuck in Dukkha. Dukkha reminds me much of dookie, or poop, which is pretty accurate, LOL. We're all stuck in the poopy. Unsatisfactory is a good way to describe it, that is another word we used a lot tonight. He asked us if any of us had a satisfactory day. One lady answered that she had. Except she had had a headache, and a splinter that she removed because it hurt and so on. Lots of dukkha in our lives.
Anyhow, the discussion we had tonight made more sense to me than most other descriptions I've heard, and I found it ironic to run into it here just now.