The Buddha didn't say, “Life is suffering."

 

 

This is my response to the question "Is Buddha right that life is suffering?" at the Quora website.

First off, the Buddha never said, “Life is suffering.” That is in the form of a generalized philosophical assertion, and the Buddha did not speak that way.

Let’s look at the word usually translated as “suffering.” It is “dukkha” and comes from the idea of a wheel that is off center or unbalanced. Thus when the wheel turns on the off centered axle the ride is very bumpy. This gives the word the connotations of stress; suffering; agitation; pain; distress; discontent; unease; etc. in how it would feel having to ride in a cart whose axle and wheel are not aligned. The opposite is “sukha” which means how the smooth ride feels in a cart with the axle and wheel properly aligned. This gives the connotations of ease; comfortable; pleasure; satisfaction; joy; etc., that is, to lessen or be free from strain, discomfort, stress, worry, agitation, etc.

So for “dukkha” let’s say “unease” or “uneasy” knowing it means the result of being off center or unbalanced, and for “sukha” let’s say “ease” or “easy” knowing it means the result of being centered and balanced.

When the Buddha taught about unease (dukkha), the Buddha didn’t make a blanket conclusory statement that “life is uneasy.” He pointed out how specific and particular inevitable aspects and conditions of life make us uneasy. This is called the “First Noble Truth of the Truth of Unease.” The Second Noble Truth is the Truth of the Origination of Unease, the Third Noble Truth is the Truth that Unease May Cease, and the Fourth Noble Truth is the Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Unease. They are called the Four Noble Truths, because they are the Truths of the Noble One, i.e., the Buddha, and the truths that will lead each person to becoming a Noble One, that is, a Buddha.

To enumerate the First Noble Truth, the Buddha said, “Birth is uneasy, aging is uneasy, death is uneasy; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are uneasy; being in contact with what we do not love uneasy, separation from the loved is uneasy, not getting what is wanted is uneasy. In short, the five branchings of appropriation are uneasy.”

(The “five branchings of appropriation,” pañca-upandana-skandha, are the outline of the five categories of our physical and psychic makeup that we take as our own to create the manifestation of self and personality.)

People who hear the mistranslation and misinterpretation of “life is suffering” can wrongly conclude that the Buddha was saying “life is bad” or “to put an end to suffering, put an end to life.” This is the gravest misunderstanding of Buddhism (the Buddha Dharma). The Buddha’s teaching that “birth makes us uneasy, death makes us uneasy, sorrow makes us uneasy, despair makes us uneasy,” etc. was to point to the way we can learn to not be made so uneasy by these things. He was pointing to the path of ease and joy in living even when we must inevitably encounter these conditions of life that usually make us uneasy and stressed out. He was not saying “life is suffering and bad, so forget it, or just accept it that way.” He was saying life can be joyful if you look at how unease, distress, or discomfort in life originate and how the cause of that origination may be put to an end.

This path of ease and joy is called The Fourth Noble Truth of the Eight-fold Path and enumerates eight parts of the way to live a life that is aligned, centered, and balanced. So it is profoundly important to understand that when the Buddha pointed out that under our usual way of looking at life, the conditions of life become seen as sources of sorrow, suffering, unease, etc, it is our own perspective, frame of reference, and conduct that make it so, not some inevitable fate or destiny. The original sin leading to our suffering is our own ignorance about how we look at and approach life, not in life itself. The Buddha taught how to put an end to our original sin of ignorance and to be free of unease and suffering while living.