As experiencers coupled with a finite psychophysical body (i.e., the five grasping aggregates), we are always the victims of duhkha (in Pali, dukkha) which is often translated as suffering or pain.
Duhkha happens to be the first noble truth; it is also the five grasping aggregates (skandhas) (SN 56:13) and also what is not the âtman (yad duhkham tad an-âtmâ). (It is rather odd that modern Buddhism makes an-âtmâ/anattâ the pillar of Buddhism when it is duhkha/suffering—not non-suffering!).
Our rebirth into another suffering body has made us all victims, struggling to avoid duhkha, seemingly, only free in death. But even that is not a sure bet. Paradoxically, we will endure hardship and pain in the present to, hopefully, avoid pain in the future. Only youth seems unaware of duhkha, living as if it were somehow invincible and immune to duhkha, blindly, caught up in desire and passion.
The Buddha defined duhkha this way:
"Painfulness (duhkha, dukkha), painfulness! is the saying, friend Sariputta. But what, friend, is painfulness? There are these three form of painfulness: the sort caused by bodily pain (dukkha dukkhata), the sort caused by psychological change (sankâra dukkhata), the sort caused by the changeable nature of things (viparinama dukkhatâ)" (S. iv. 259).
The overcoming of duhkha was not an easy task even during the time of the Buddha. It involved seeing beyond the veil of duhkha to that yonder shore where there is no duhkha; connecting with that new world such that one can experience what can only be described as transcendental bliss, called nirvana.
"the sort caused by bodily pain (dukkha dukkhata)"
And? Don't we know that this is not possible?
Posted by: Bernd | March 31, 2015 at 10:09 AM