Suffering

Dukkha is the second of the “three characteristics” (ti-lakkhana). It is sometimes treated in its own right, though more usually based upon the first (anicca) as a consequence of that. [49]

There is no single completely adequate or even generally accepted English rendering of dukkha (adj. and n.). The most usual are “pain” (mostly for painful feeling), and “suffering” (in the wider sense of what is described by the first Noble Truth, covering potential as well as actual pain). Other alternatives are “ill,” “unsatisfactoriness,” “insecurity,” “anguish,” “unpleasantness,” and so on.
Derivations

In modern etymology dukkha is derived either from the prefix du(r) plus the termination -ka (cf. derivation of Sanskrit equivalent duhka from duh plus -ka) or on the analogy of its opposite sukha (cf. Vedic Sanskrit). Acariya Buddhaghosa gives two alternative derivations. (1) An etymological one for the Truth of dukkha: “The word du (“difficult”) is met with in the sense of vile (kucchita); for they call a vile child a “dupputta” (difficult child); the word kham (“-ness”) is met with in the sense of “empty” (tuccha), since they call empty space “kham”; and the (material of the) first Truth is “vile” because it is the haunt of many dangers, and it is “empty” because it is devoid of the lastingness, beauty, pleasure, and self, conceived of it by uncritical people.” [50] As one of the kinds of feeling he derives it semantically: “It gives suffering (dukkhayati), thus it is suffering (dukkha); or else it consumes (khanati) in two ways (dvedha; by means of the two sub-moments (khana) of arising and presence), thus it is suffering.” [51] This is a play on the words khanati glossed by avadariyati, to break down or dig, and khana, the moment which possesses the three sub-moments (khana) of arising, presence and dissolution. The Vibhavini-tika (One of the commentaries to the Abhidhammatthasangaha) puts forward the last-mentioned derivation and also another semantic derivation: “It is difficult to bear (dukkhamam), thus it is suffering; but others say also “It makes difficulty, in the giving of an opportunity, thus it is suffering: dukkharam okasadane etassa ti dukkham).”
Various kinds of dukkha

The concern of the Buddha’s teaching is with the problem of dukkha and its purpose is the ending of dukkha. “Formerly, Anuradha, as now, what I describe is suffering and the cessation of suffering.” [52] If aniccata (impermanence) is taken as the radical characteristic upon which the Buddha bases his liberating doctrine, still it is dukkhata, as insecurity from actual pain, that he takes for the measure in developing that doctrine; for pain, unlike pleasure, is always and unfailingly ready to hand. The commentary discriminates as follows: “There are many kinds of suffering, namely, intrinsic suffering (dukkha-dukkha), suffering in change (viparinama-dukkha), and suffering in formations (sankhara-dukkha); [53] and also concealed suffering, exposed suffering, indirect suffering, and direct suffering. Herein, bodily and mental unpleasant feelings are called intrinsic suffering because of their individual essence (sabhava), their name, and their unpleasantness. Bodily and mental pleasant feeling are called “suffering in change” because they are a cause for the arising of suffering when they change. [54] The (neutral) feeling of onlooking-equanimity (upekkha) and (all) remaining formations belonging to the three planes are called “suffering in formations” because they are oppressed by rise and fall. Such … affliction as earache … is called “concealed suffering” because it can be known (in another) only by questioning, the affliction not being openly evident. Affliction produced by … torture, for example, is called exposed suffering because it can be known without questioning, the affliction being openly evident; it is also called “evident suffering.“ Except for what is “intrinsic suffering” all given under the Truth of Suffering beginning with “birth” (see below) is also called indirect suffering because it is the basis for one or other kind of suffering. What is called direct suffering is “intrinsic suffering.” [55]

Now all these kinds of suffering fall under two main heads: “suffering in formations” (the general “unsatisfactoriness” of existence stated as the “characteristic of suffering” and as the “Truth of Suffering”) and “unpleasant feeling” (the particular kind of feeling that is bodily or mental pain, unpleasant affect). In what follows we shall first define the characteristic and then see how this is handled descriptively in the Tipitaka and its commentaries, after which we shall touch upon the general aspect of suffering as a Noble Truth and its relation to the particular mode of unpleasant feeling. However, the subjects of Truth and feeling (sacca and vedana) are properly outside the scope of this article: suffering is only one of the four truths and one of the three principal divisions of feeling. Lastly, we shall see how suffering is treated as a basis for meditation and judgment. As in the case of anicca we shall be concerned mainly with quotations, leaving discussion to the article on Tilakkhana. [56]
Definitions of the Characteristic of Dukkha

The general characteristic of suffering is most usually based on that of impermanence: “What is impermanent is suffering” [57] or “Is what is impermanent pleasant or unpleasant?Unpleasant, Lord.” [58] Or else it is defined in its own right: “’Suffering, suffering’ is said, Lord; what is suffering?Materiality (rûpa) is suffering, Radha, and so are feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness,” [59] and “all is suffering. And what is the all that is suffering? The eye is suffering …” [60] or more summarily “All formations are suffering” [61] To these the Canonical commentary, the Patisambhidamagga, adds: “Materiality (etc.) is suffering in the sense of fear (that its impermanence inspires).” [62]

This general characteristic, like those of impermanence and not-self, is not a part of the Abhidhamma system proper, but is rather a summary statement of that. The strict Abhidhamma treatment, in fact, forms the detailed “analysis and synthesis” of the whole process of existence, which the three characteristics sum up. In the Abhidhamma, however, it should be noted that unpleasant bodily feeling (dukkha) is regarded as only associated with body-consciousness (kâya-viññana) and unpleasant mental feeling (domanassa) only with mind-consciousness (mano-viññana). The impermanence of all possible heavenly existences stated in the Dhammahadaya-Vibhanga brings these within the range of “suffering in formations” without exception.

Âcariya Buddhaghosa distinguishes between “The suffering and the characteristic of suffering … (The) five categories (khandha) are suffering because of the words ’What is impermanent is suffering.’ [63] Why? Because of continuous oppression. The mode of being continuously oppressed is the characteristic of suffering.” [64] Again “The eye (etc., while impermanent,) can (also) be known as suffering in the sense of oppression; and it is suffering for four reasons as well; for since it reaches presence when arisen and in presence is undermined by ageing and on arrival at ageing must inevitably dissolve, it is therefore suffering because it is continuously oppressed, because (the oppression is) difficult to bear, because it is the basis for (intrinsic) suffering, and because it denies pleasure.” [65]
Treatment in Suttas and Commentaries

“The eye is suffering. The cause and condition for the arising of the eye are suffering, so how could the eye, which is brought to being by what is suffering, be pleasure? The ear … nose … tongue … body … mind [66] … and the five categories affected by clinging (upâdânakkhandha) are treated analogously.” [67] “Whoever relishes the eye (etc.) relishes suffering, and he will not be freed from suffering, I say,” [68] and “I see no single kind of materiality, Ananda, which will not cause, with the change and alteration of that materiality, the arising of sorrow and lamentation, suffering, grief and despair in him who relishes it.” [69] In ignorance of this “gods and human beings love visible objects and enjoy them, but with the change, fading and ceasing of those objects they abide in suffering. They love sounds … odours … flavours … tangibles … ideas.” [70] “What is the ripening of suffering? When someone is overcome, and his mind obsessed, by suffering, either he sorrows, grieves and laments, and beating his breast, he weeps and becomes distraught, or else he undertakes a search externally: ’Who is there that knows one word, two words, for the cessation of this suffering?’ I say that suffering either ripens as confusion or ripens as search.” [71] In the Canonical commentary suffering is equated with “arising (of categories at rebirth), occurrence (of them during life), accumulation (of action due to ripen), relinking (of death with birth in the renewal of being)” and with ten other synonyms for these five. [72]

Philosophical thought mostly does not escape bias a priori by craving and preoccupation with ideas of the value of being versus non-being as intrinsically good, and to some extent it therefore tends to neglect mindful observation of what actually happens in favour of pure logical deduction. In a Sutta (difficult to translate) containing an utterance of the Buddha’s made soon after his enlightenment we find this: “This world suffers (santâpajâta), being exposed to contact. Even what the world calls self (atta) is in fact ill; for no matter upon what it conceives its conceits (maññati see the article on Anatta), the fact is ever other than that (which it conceives). The world whose being is to become other (aññathabhavi), is committed to being, has exposed itself to being; it relishes only being, yet what it relishes brings fear, and what it fears is pain (suffering).” [73] Later, in answer to a question “What is right view?” the Buddha said “Usually, Kaccayana, this world depends upon the dualism of existence and non-existence (atthita, natthita). But when a man sees the world’s origin as it actually is with right understanding there is for him none of (what is called) in the world “non-existence”; and when he sees the world’s cessation as it actually is with right understanding, there is for him none of (what is called) in the world “existence.” Usually the world is shackled by bias, clinging and insistence; but one such as this (who has right view,) instead of allowing bias, instead of clinging, instead of deciding about “my self” with such bias, such clinging, and such mental decision in the guise of underlying tendency to insist, has no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is only arising of suffering, and that what ceases is only ceasing of suffering; and his knowledge herein is independent of others. “Right view” refers to this. “(An) all exists” (sabbam atthi) is one extreme; “(An) all does not exist” (sabbam natthi) is the other extreme. Instead of resorting to either extreme, a Tathagata expounds the Teaching (dhamma) by the middle way (of dependent origination).” [74]

Now, as in the case of impermanence, so too the characteristic of suffering is not always evident unless looked for. “The characteristic of suffering does not become apparent because, when continuous oppression (by rise and fall) is not given attention it is concealed by the postures … However, when the postures are exposed by attention to continuous oppression, the characteristic of suffering becomes apparent in its true nature; [75] “When the postures are exposed” means when the concealment of the suffering that is actually inherent in the (four) postures (of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down) is exposed. For when suffering (pain) arises in a posture, the next posture adopted removes the suffering, as it were, concealing it. But once it is known, according as it actually is, how the suffering in any posture is shifted by substituting another posture for that one, then the concealment of the suffering that is in them is exposed because it has become evident that formations are being incessantly crushed out by suffering.” [76]

Whether this general state, defined as suffering here, is taken as suffering per se, or conceived as being (bhava), or equated with some other generalisation, it has always to be regarded as destitute of aseity; for nothing, general or particular, can arise without an origin and it ceases with the cessation of its origin. A number of origins of suffering are given in one Sutta, namely, the “essentials of existence” (upadhi; i.e. craving and what is craved for), ignorance (avijjâ; particularly of the four Truths), formations, consciousness, contact (phassa), feeling, craving (tanha), clinging (as a condition for being), “initiative” (ârambha; i.e. if misdirected), nutriment (âhâra), and perturbation (iñjita). [77]
Suffering as a Noble Truth

The general aspect of suffering (insecurity, threat of pain) is otherwise described by the Buddha in his first discourse, given at Benares, as the first of the four Noble Truths (ariyasacca). “The Noble Truth of Suffering is this: birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering, association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in brief the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.” [78] Elsewhere it is described as follows: “What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? It can be termed the five categories affected by clinging, namely, the materiality category affected by clinging, the feeling … perception … formations … consciousness category affected by clinging” [79] and “What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? It can be termed the six bases in oneself for contact (ajjhattikâni âyatanâni). What six? The eye-base, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-base.” [80] More details are given at DN 22 and in the Sacca-Vibhanga. That this Truth is at the same time profound and comprehensive is stated in another Sutta: “In this Noble Truth of Suffering described by me immeasurable are the shades and details, immeasurable the implications, of this term “Noble Truth of Suffering,” [81] and “It is impossible that anyone should say “I shall completely make an end to suffering without penetrating to the Noble Truth of Suffering according as it actually is,” [82] and again “It is impossible that any samana or brahmana should say thus: “That is not the first Noble Truth of Suffering taught by the samana Gotama; ignoring that first Noble Truth of Suffering, I shall describe another first Noble Truth of Suffering.” [83] To this the Patisambhidamagga adds “Suffering has for its meanings of reality (tathatta: “undeceptiveness,“ or “suchness”) the meaning of oppressing, meaning of being formed, meaning of burning (tormenting), meaning of changing.” [84] Acariya Buddhaghosa states it formalistically thus: “(The Truth of Suffering) has the characteristic of afflicting. Its nature is to burn (torment). It is manifested as occurrence … It also has the characteristic of occurrence … and of being formed.” [85]
Unpleasant Feeling (Pain)

General suffering, stated as the characteristic or as the Truth, is approachable also from the empirical subjective fact of pain, as in the case of a boil on the body or the pricking of a thorn. [86] Feeling is divided into the three main classes of pleasure (sukha), suffering (dukkha) and neither-suffering-nor-pleasure (adukkhamasukha or “neutral feeling”), though it is also classed and subdivided in many other ways too. [87] In one mode or another it is inseparable from all perception and consciousness, being the way in which consciousness perceives its object affectively. It has contact for its principal condition and is itself the principal condition for craving (ignorance of the four truths being present). Craving may be regarded as the dynamic element that, when supported by ignorance, resists suffering and lusts after pleasure. But all feeling is impermanent, and so craving has constantly to renew its search for pleasure and flight from suffering. “Pleasant feeling is pleasant in virtue of presence and unpleasant in virtue of change; unpleasant feeling is unpleasant in virtue of presence and pleasant in virtue of change; neutral feeling is pleasant in virtue of knowledge and unpleasant in virtue of non-knowledge …” [88] In order to understand this passage we must have recourse to the subcommentary. “Pleasant feeling is pleasant owing to presence as persistence, not merely owing to the presence-sub-moment (thiti-kkhana) … and it is unpleasant owing to its change as its having gone away, not merely owing to the cessation-sub-moment (nirodha-kkhana); … for the stopping of pleasant feeling seems unpleasant to those who do not fully know the facts … Similarly with the change of unpleasant feeling; … for the stopping of unpleasant feeling seems pleasant to creatures since they say “What a pleasure to be cured of that sickness!” Then “knowledge” (in the case of neutral feeling) is awareness (avabodha) according to true individual essence; for when someone knows neutral feeling he has pleasure because of its subtleness, just as awareness, according to specific and general characteristics, of Dhammas other than this is the highest form of pleasure, of which it is said “Whenever a man comprehends the categories rise and fall, he finds there happiness and bliss: that knowledge is of deathlessness.” [89] The “non-knowledge” should be understood in the opposite sense; for abiding in confusion is suffering. An alternative explanation is that “knowledge” means the knowledge’s actual presence (sabhâva); for the neutral (subjective conascent) feeling associated with the knowledge, and that which is the knowledge’s supporting object (which the knowledge of neutral feeling is considering), is pleasant in its agreeable mode, according as it is called “agreeable and giving agreeable fruit.“ “Non-knowledge” can then be understood in the opposite sense.” [90]
Pleasure as gratification or as relief from pain is real while it lasts

“Were there no gratification in the case of the eye (etc.), creatures would not lust in connection with the eye: it is because there is gratification in the case of the eye (etc.), that creatures lust in connection with the eye (etc.). Were there no inadequacy in the case of the eye, creatures would not become dispassionate (disgusted) in connection with the eye … Were there no escape in the case of the eye, creatures would not find an escape in connection with the eye …” [91] “It is any pleasure or joy (somanassa) that arises dependent on feeling that is the gratification in the case of feeling. That this feeling is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change is the inadequacy (danger) in the case of feeling. The disciplining and abandoning of desire and lust for feeling is the escape in the case of feeling.” [92] But neutral feeling is ignored while the pleasure accompanying knowledge is lacking, and so “the untaught ordinary man understands no escape from unpleasant feeling other than sensual pleasure (kama-sukha).” [93]

The impermanence of all feeling makes it impossible to find any enduring refuge from the undesirable unpleasant feeling within the range of feeling, and so ultimately “pleasant feeling has to be seen as suffering, unpleasant feeling as a dart, and neutral feeling as impermanent;” [94] for “while three kinds of feeling have been stated by me, namely, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, still it has been also said by me that ’Whatever is felt, all comes under suffering.’ That, however, was spoken by me with reference to the impermanence of formations.” [95]

Now, while “Gratification in the case of feeling is, in its highest aspect, freedom from affliction,” [96] nevertheless, since feeling of some sort accompanies all experience whatever as one of its necessary components, if that freedom is to be lasting it has to be sought not in feeling, not even in formations, which are inseparable from feeling, but rather in the exhaustion of craving (tanhakkhaya) and the stilling of all formations (sabbasankharasamatha). And just as the onlooking-equanimity of the fourth jhana is called a “pleasant abiding” [97] so too Nibbana (extinction of craving) is called the “ultimate pleasure.” [98] While “suffering” is thus extended beyond feeling to all that is formed (sankhata), “pleasure” in the highest mode—that “beyond spiritual bliss” (niramisa niramisataram sukham)—is withdrawn from the formed, including feeling, and equated with the unformed (asankhata), which is Nibbana. “The Blessed One describes pleasure with reference not only to pleasant feeling; rather, friends, a Tathagata describes as pleasure any kind of pleasure wherever it is found.” [99] It is from this standpoint that the formula of the Four Noble Truths is propounded.

Before leaving the subject of feeling, however, Acariya Buddhaghosa’s definition of unpleasant feeling must be noted. Under the feeling category he says: “(Bodily) suffering (dukkha) has the characteristic of experiencing an undesirable tangible (photthabba). Its nature is to wither associated dhammas. It is manifested as bodily affliction. Its footing is the body faculty. (Mental) grief (domanassa) has the characteristic of experiencing an undesirable object of consciousness (ârammana). Its nature is to exploit in one way or another the undesirable aspect. It is manifested as mental affliction. Its footing is invariably the heartbase (hadaya-vatthu).” [100] But in his exegesis of the “pain” and “grief” in the statement of the First Truth (see above) he says “pain is bodily suffering. Its characteristic is oppression of the body. Its nature is to cause grief in the foolish. It is manifested as bodily affliction. It is suffering because of its intrinsic suffering and because it induces mental suffering. Grief is mental suffering. Its characteristic is mental oppression. Its nature is to distress the mind. It is manifested as mental affliction. It is suffering because it is intrinsic suffering and because it induces bodily suffering (through self-torture provoked by grief).” [101]
Relation to Action

Another subject, action (kamma), is directly associated with dukkha. [102] Though action is a subject properly outside the scope of this article, too, nevertheless some mention of it can hardly be avoided here. First, present action is one of the influences which, as action’s ripening (kamma-vipaka), affect subsequent experience, and past action is, in its ripening, affecting experience now; in other words, all action, according to its kind, is experienceable later as pleasure or suffering or neither-suffering-nor-pleasure, and that may be in the same life, the life immediately next, or some life beyond, [103] though certain kinds lapse without ripening (Patis: Kammakatha). However, not all feeling is due to past action’s ripening, which is only one of eight influences, including sorts of sickness, over-exertion, and climate, mentioned as sources of unpleasant feeling: [104] the pool of suffering has action as one of its affluents. But action is also more broadly regardable as the manifestation of craving’s work on the five categories, and, in that capacity, it is the Truth of the Origin of Suffering.

Action’s ripening was denied outright by several of the teachers contemporary with the Buddha, though not by the orthodox Brahmans. Its relation in ripening to what is felt was one of the principal points of difference between the Buddha and the Niganthas, whose views on this subject seem to have been rather rigid. [105] They hold that past evil actions constituted a debt which could be paid off by present pain inflicted through self-torture, and that purification consisted in paying off old evil actions in this way while doing no new evil. The Buddha rejected this theory. In the pattern of the four Noble Truths, action (in the form of dependent origination) provides the movement and direction of suffering in all its forms. [106] But evil action cannot be calculated and amortised like a loan or a fine, and suffering in general can be ended only by the removal of the craving which originates it. Self-mortification, being an indulgence that tends to displace and foster rather than remove craving, is condemned, along with indulgence in sensuality, as productive of a state of conflict (sa-rana), [107] The pretence of craving, whether for sensuality (kama) or for being (bhava as eternal permanence) or for non-being (vibhava as annihilation of the existent), produces always some kind of renewal of being (punabbhava). [108] The ending of craving is the ending of action and of suffering (the Third Truth), while the way leading to that is the control of action (the Eight-fold Path or Fourth Truth).

In the Suttas the Buddha describes how he had himself tried out before his enlightenment the extremes of self-mortification [109] and found them fruitless. When Mâra tried to tempt him after his enlightenment with the suggestion that he had forsaken the true ascetic path, he replied “I know these penances to gain the Deathless—whatever kind they are—to be as vain as a ship’s oars and rudder on dry land.” [110]
Suffering as a subject for Contemplation and Basis for Judgment.

“In creatures subject to birth, sickness, ageing and death, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair there arises the wish ’Oh that we were not subject to these things! And that these things might never overtake us!’ But that is not to be had by wishing.” [111]

Suffering, as intended here, must be kept distinct from unpleasant feeling, which is part of the contemplation of feeling (vedanânupassanâ), [112] and also from contemplation of the four Truths. [113] It is properly the contemplation in all formations, of the unsatisfactoriness due to their universal impermanence, which makes them a source of fear and anxiety. Inseparable from impermanence, it also implies not-self. How is it practised? “A Bhikkhu understands as it actually is that ’Such is suffering, such its origin, such its cessation, such the way leading to its cessation.’” [114] “When a Bhikkhu abides much with his mind fortified by perception of suffering in what is impermanent, there is established in him keen perception of fear of laxity, idleness, indolence, negligence, non-devotion and non-reviewing, as though of a murderer with raised weapon,” [115] and “when a Bhikkhu sees six rewards, it should be enough for him to establish unlimitedly perception of suffering in all formations. What six? ’Keen perception of fear of formations will be established in me, as of a murderer with raised weapon; my mind will emerge from the world of all (from all the world); and I shall come to see peace in extinction (Nibbâna); and my underlying tendencies will come to be abolished; and I shall perform my task; and I shall repay the teacher with loving kindness.’” [116] “That anyone should see any formation as pleasure … or extinction as suffering, and have a liking that is in conformity (with truth) is not possible. (But the opposite) is possible.” [117]

Suffering arises through failure to guard the doors of the faculties: “These six bases for contact, when uncontrolled, unguarded, unprotected and unrestrained, give admission to suffering.” [118] “When a Bhikkhu lives with the eye faculty … ear … nose … tongue … body … mind faculty unrestrained, his consciousness gets dissipated among visible objects … sounds … odours … flavours … tangibles … ideas. When his consciousness is dissipated he has no gladness; without gladness he has no happiness (piti); without happiness he has no tranquillity; without tranquillity he abides in suffering; and consciousness affected by suffering does not become concentrated; when that is so, true ideas (dhamma) remain unclear; and with that he is reckoned as one who abides in negligence.” [119] “An untaught ordinary man, when touched by (bodily) unpleasant feeling, sorrows and laments, beating his breast, he weeps and becomes distraught. He thus feels two kinds of (unpleasant) feeling: the bodily and the mental as well … But a well-taught disciple of the Ariyas, when touched by (bodily) unpleasant feeling, does not sorrow … and become distraught. He thus feels only the bodily (unpleasant) feeling, not the mental.” [120]

Not all grief is unprofitable (akusala), however, since “here a Bhikkhu considers thus ’When shall I enter upon and abide in that base which the Ariyas enter upon and abide in?’ and as he builds up love for the supreme liberation in this way, grief arises in him with that love as condition; yet through that he comes to abandon resistance (patigha) and no tendency to resistance underlies that.” [121] Such grief, like the desire (chanda) to terminate it, is a spur to progress; but the actual perfection of understanding has no grief at all. “I do not say of the four Noble Truths that there is penetration to them together with suffering and grief; on the contrary I say that there is penetration to them together with pleasure and joy.” [122]

The perception of suffering is the second of the “eighteen principal insights (maha-vipassana: see the article on Anicca). According to the Visuddhimagga “One who maintains the contemplation of suffering abandons perception of pleasure (in what is unpleasant)” and “contemplation of suffering and contemplation of the desireless (appanihitanupassana) are “one in meaning and different only in the letter,” [123] since “one who maintains in being the contemplation of the desireless abandons desire (panidhi).” The development of contemplation of suffering based on rise and fall is given in the Visuddhimagga. [124]

In the Canonical commentary, the Patisambhidamagga, suffering appears as specially connected with concentration, and as the second of the three alternative “gateways to liberation.” “When one gives attention to suffering the concentration faculty is outstanding just as in the cases of attention given to impermanence and not-self the respective faculties of faith and understanding are outstanding.” [125]