Dukkha

What is Dukkha?

Dukkha (One of the Three marks)
Suffering
(Skt duhukha; Pali dukkha; Jpn ku ) Buddhism describes various categories of suffering, such as the four sufferings and the eight sufferings. The Sanskrit term duhukha (duhkha according to standard alphabetization) is rendered as suffering. It also means uneasiness, pain, sorrow, trouble, or difficulty. Shakyamuni’s renunciation of the world and quest for enlightenment was motivated by a desire to find a solution to the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death. The first of the four noble truths, which Shakyamuni is said to have taught in his first sermon after attaining enlightenment, is the truth of suffering, i.e., the truth that all existence is suffering. Thus, the seeking and attaining of the way of release from suffering became the object of Buddhist practice. The doctrine that all existence is suffering constitutes one of the four Dharma seals, the four basic identifying principles of Buddhism; the other three are that all existence is impermanent, that nothing has an independent existence of its own, and that nirvana, enlightenment, is tranquil and quiet. See also four sufferings; eight sufferings.

To me dukkha is more than just a definition, its a life long journey of obtaining sukha. For me the journey started when I was born and the first dukkha in my life was introduced, but when I found out about dukkha was much later in life. In August of 2009 I decided to take part in a philosophy class at the University of Idaho which is based on the teachings of ending dukkha. The class had a great impact on my life because for years I have had this never ending anger inside of me, this disappointment of everything that has caused me so much pain, that for once has begun to subside. It is not because the class gave me some great promise, some type of acknowledge that I had to by into. No, all it gave me was the moment, the moment of the current time, this reality to look at and watch that moment.

Since then I have begun to watch my moments more, to learn more about myself than I have ever before and in result is has given me the ability to love every thing. I hope to continue my journey and improve my life through the experiences of dukkha and the ultimate goal of ending it. Everyones life journey is different and so is their way of ending dukkha. I hope that this blog might help someone out there find their own way.

I would like to define my dukkha in a paper I wrote for the class, on what dukkha is:

strong>Dukkha is everything that does not last, everything that can cause the pain and terror of our lives and everything that we hope will last but indelibly will end. Dukkha is the lie that we tell ourselves in order to believe that the things that make us happy will forever exist.
To me dukkha is the feeling I get with women. When I spend time with a girl I generally have a good time, but soon after the date I feel unsatisfied. I always want more of that feeling. I am addicted to that happiness feeling, but never satisfied because of dukkha. I can apply this to almost every aspect of my life. I am addicted to those things that make me feel good but don’t last; always searching for the next “high” that will make me feel good for the moment and entirely missing the fact that these things are what cause my unhappiness.

The reason that women affect my and create dukkha is because I view that happy feeling I get in those relationships as something that never will end. When the relationship ends I wonder why, what happened, and where did my happy feeling go? Even if I was married with a family my happiness could end. My wife could die, I could get divorced, or she could be extremely unemotional towards me. All these things would trigger me to feel sad and to wonder what happened. If I would only realize that I should not invest my time into the hope of future feelings, to accept them as they come, to enjoy them as a beautiful flower and to accept that these things will one day wither away I could end this dukkha. I should be more aware of these feelings, aware of the day around me, and the beauty that life provides in that moment.

I see how others experience the same struggles with relationships that I have. I have had friends ask me why they are not happy and that they always seem to be in bad relationships. I strongly believe that the relationship fails because of the dukkha in the relationship. We all have this misconception that happiness can be obtained through things and that these things will last. If we only took a step back and saw that the things we love have created the prisons we long to escape, the prison of dukkha.

Another paper goes more in depth into the relationship between dukkha and nirvana:

Dukkha is brought on by the fuel that we feed it. The fire of dukkha does not transform itself into other means after it has started to burn; it produces anger, greed, and many other emotions as its heat. Sukha does not come from dukkha, as the fire of dukkha does not magically convert itself mid flame into a new form, as dukkha in produces dukkha out. With the experience of dukkha, we are bound to the fuel in which we feed dukkha which in result produces the fuel. We are forever bound to this constant cycle unless we find the fuel of dukkha and eliminate it through observation in which we identify the events in which ignorance comes from. Through this kind of observation we end the fuel of dukkha ending the fire and are no longer bound. We then produce a state of reality we call sukha which ultimately shows itself as nirvana or the unbound life of ignorance.

Pema Chodron describes many different examples of how we are to obtain this “snuffing out” the flame of dukkha and many of her examples are lead by meditation. Her meditation is very different from other types of meditation because it deals with just watching reality of the moment and observing how ignorance produces itself. From this practice we can find where this fuel of dukkha resides and stop these emotional complexities in our experience before they occur.

In the last few weeks I have read ahead and finished Pema Chodrons book “The Wisdom of No Escape” and have taken the time to apply this mediation practice to my life. My emotional experience of myself has changed since then as I have found that rather than producing anger or feelings of ill will I no longer have many of these experiences of dukkha in my life. It was the realization of where they occur that was obtained from this type of meditation, a meditation of just watching where these emotions reside and understanding the experience they provide. People tend to try to end their dukkha by pushing it on other individuals. If they would only sit and watch their dukkha, sukha would be the real outcome. Ending dukkha, just as dukkha itself is a process rather than a thing, nirvana is this process.