Dukkha

Categories: Three Dharma Seals | Four Noble Truths

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Pali :  dukkha
• Sanskrit :  duhkha

Dukkha is a central concept in Buddhism, the word roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including imperfection, frustration, sorrow, suffering, affliction, pain, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and aversion.

In classic Sanskrit, dukkha was often compared to a large potter's wheel that would screech as it was spun around, and did not turn smoothly. The opposite of dukkha was sukkha which brought to mind a potter's wheel that turned smoothly and noiselessly. In other Buddhist-influenced cultures, similar imagery was used to describe dukkha. An example from China is a cart with one wheel that is slightly broken, so that the rider is jolted now and again as the wheel rolls over the broken spot.

Dukkha is the the first of the Four Noble Truths and is also listed among the Three Dharma Seals.

The translation into "suffering" gives the impression that the buddhist view is a pessimistic view. Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. In the same manner Buddhists believe that life isn't constant suffering, but rather that suffering is unavoidable. A person could have a good life when some unexpected tragedy could occur to jar that person, or dukkha could arise simply because one isn't satisfied with one's life.

The other three Noble Truths explain the source of dukkha, the means of transforming it, and the method of executing its cessation. This method is known as the Noble Eightfold Path. The Buddha repeatedly stated that the only purpose of Buddhism is to seek the cessation of dukkha, by understanding the Four Noble Truths and acting accordingly.

The Buddha discussed three kinds of dukkha :

• Pain of pain (Pali: dukkha dukkha) is the obvious sufferings of physical pain, illness, old age, death, and the loss of a loved one.
• Pain of alretion (Pali: viparinama dukkha) is suffering caused by change, violated expectations

and the failure of happy moments to last.

• Pain of Formation (Pali: sankhara dukkha) is a subtle form of suffering inherent in the nature of conditioned things, including the skandhas - the factors constituting the human mind.

It denotes the experience that all formations, are impermanent - thus it explains the qualities which make the mind as fluctuating and impermanent entities. It is therefore also a gateway to selflessness.