suffering

Suffering is the first of the Four Holy Truths (see listing). Shouldering the burden of existence on our 'self' is suffering in a comprehensive and all-inclusive way that goes beyond our ordinary ideas about pain. The Sanskrit word duhkha originally meant the friction caused by turning a wheel on its axle. And so it is that there is a basic friction underlying all the activities of our lives. The lists explained below are an aid to understanding some of the important aspects of suffering as it is understood in the light of the Buddha's teachings.

'In this world everything is suffering, and even happiness is not real happiness, but is the cause of suffering. All the dharmas in this world are defiled and without purity; the world is all bitter suffering.' (UW 87)

EIGHT KINDS OF SUFFERING

"1) The Suffering of Birth. The experience of birth is like the experience of a turtle when its shell is ripped off. If you had a live turtle and ripped its shell right off, now what do you think, wouldn't the turtle experience a lot of suffering? That's what being born is like. At the moment of birth when one's skin comes in contact with the air for the first time, it is as painful as if being cut by a sharp knife. That's why babies cry.

2) The Suffering of Old Age. What's the suffering of being old? One's eyes get blurry, one's ears become deaf, one's teeth fall out, and one's hands and feet can't function properly anymore. And so there is a saying:

Don't wait until you are old to cultivate the Way.

The lonely graves are those of young people.

"When you get old, the things you eat don't seem to have any flavor. When you try to walk, your legs don't want to cooperate. You try to pick up things and your hands don't listen to you. You are tottering and in the decline of old age. The ancients had a poem about old age:

Your skin is wrinkled up like a chicken's,

and your hair has turned crane-white.

See how you limp and hobble along?

Gold and jade fill your entire house,

And yet you can't put off the ailments of old age which make you decrepit.

Despite thousands upon thousands of pleasures,

Impermanence finally arrives.

Therefore, the only path of cultivation

Is to recite 'Amitabha Buddha!' all the time! . . .

3) The Suffering of Sickness. Being sick is even more suffering! There are many kinds of sickness, but no matter what kind of sickness it is, it is difficult to endure. Even heaven and earth get sick. For instance, when there is a very heavy rainstorm, or lightning and thunder, that's heaven and earth getting angry. Heaven and earth get angry too, and sometimes as a result, humankind is destroyed in the process.

"Sometimes there are earthquakes, which means that the planet is sick. Sometimes there are huge typhoon and tornadoes, which indicate that there is too much hatred around. The ancients said that hurricanes are the result of too much anger and hatred. Now scientists have their own explanation for the existence of hurricanes. But if you have your eyes open, you can see that in the center of a hurricane there are ghosts or spirits or demons who are whipping up the wind. They are whipping up the wind to such velocities that it kills people and in the process destroys trees, homes, and buildings. And all the while, these ghosts are having a grand old time. 'Wow, is this a riot! This is a fantastic amusement!' They kill people as casually as people would kill a mosquito or a fly. For those malevolent beings it seems there's no problem at all, nothing wrong about it. That's because these strange demons and weird ghosts like to harm people and tear them apart. But up to the present, people haven't believed these kinds of principles. They have said it isn't true that malevolent beings instigate storms. Instead they say that hurricanes are precipitated due to a special kind of atmospheric inversion. How often does this sudden atmospheric inversion happen? Out of nowhere, all of a sudden there are clouds and stormy weather. And although science has its own explanation, it is not complete or fully substantiated.

"Suffering in sickness is still not the utmost suffering. The most extreme suffering is the suffering of death.

4) The Suffering of Death. When it comes time to die, you'll feel like a calf whose skin is being ripped off. Think about it, if there's a cow and you flay it while it is still alive, how much would it hurt? And so it is very difficult to die. If you don't believe it, you can try it out yourself. You can die and see what it is like. But if you believe it, then don't try it out. It isn't like science where they run experiments on everything. You won't want to experiment with dying. To this day, nobody has yet come up with a method that delivers us from sickness and death and ensures us eternal life.

"Even the Buddha did not invent such a method, but out of great compassion he left us with eighty-four thousand Dharma-doors to teach us how to cultivate. But if you don't cultivate, even the Buddha will have no way to help you.

5) The Suffering of Being Apart from Those You Love. Love is the feeling you have toward someone or something you like. When you love someone or something, you want to be together with that person or object all the time. You never want to part from them. However, sometimes circumstances arise in which people must be parted from those that they love and this brings on an acute kind of suffering.

6) The Suffering of Being Together with Those You Hate. For example, there is a person whom you absolutely can't stand; you find it so hard to be around such a person that you want to leave him. However, when you deliberately go to another place to be away from him, you run into another person who is exactly like the person whom you couldn't stand. And so that's the suffering of being together with those you hate.

7) The Suffering of Not Obtaining What You Seek. Suppose there is something you really want, but circumstances prevent you from getting it for your own. You want it, but you don't get it. No matter what you do, there is no way to fulfill you own wishes. That is the suffering of not obtaining what you seek.

8) The Suffering of the Scorching Blaze of the Five Skandhas. The skandhas are form, feeling, cognition, formations, and consciousness. They tie you up so you have no freedom. The Five Skandhas are as severe as a huge blaze. They consume you to the point that you burn to death. And so this is also suffering.

"Now everyone should 'know suffering'. If you know suffering, you can bring forth the resolve for Bodhi, and end birth and death." (FAS Ch8 11-13)

The Yogacarabhumi-sastra also lists 110 kinds of suffering. They are explained briefly in the commentary to the "Four Holy Truths" Chapter of the Flower Adornment Sutra (see FAS Ch8 3-5).

(Source: Epstein, 2003: pp. 189 - 191)

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1) Chinese Mandarin: ku ; 2) Sanskrit: duhkha; 3) Pali: dukkha, 4) Alternate Translations: ill, pain, misery.

See also: impermanence, karma, causation, Four Holy Truths.

Buddhist Text Translation Society (http://www.BTTSonline.org) References: UW 87-88; FAS-PII(1) 99-101; FAS Ch8 3-13; FAS Ch15 36-37; VBS #206, p. 6.
 

(NOTE: Numerous corrections and enhancements have been made under Shastra tradition and "Fair Use" by an Anonymous Buddhist Monk Redactor (Compiler) of this Online Buddhist Encyclopedia Compilation)