SUTRA: The hole in the ring
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| Who would ever become a Buddhist monastic? |
"A wind from the east would send it west, a wind from the west would send it east, a wind from the north would send it south, and a wind from the south would send it north.
"Moreover, suppose there were a blind turtle that surfaced only once every 100 years.
"Now, what do you think? How likely is it that that blind turtle, coming to the surface only once every 100 years, would ever stick its head through that ring?"
"It would be very improbable, venerable sir! It would only be by chance that a blind turtle, coming to the surface only once every 100 years, would stick its head through that ring [being tossed around by wind]."
"Likewise, meditators, it is very improbable, mere chance that [at any given time] one obtains a human rebirth.
"Likewise, it is very improbable, mere chance that a Tathagata [a fully enlightened teaching buddha], worthy and rightly self-awakened, ever arises in the world.
"Likewise, it is very improbable, mere chance that a Doctrine and Discipline [Dhamma-Vinaya] expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
"But now this human rebirth has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy and rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A Doctrine and Discipline expounded by a Tathagata has appeared in the world.
"Therefore, take as [an extraordinarily rare and] sacred duty to contemplating [these four enlightening/liberating truths]:
- 'This is [the meaning of] suffering...
- This is the origin of suffering...
- This is the end of suffering.'
- Undertake the duty of contemplating: 'This is the path-of-practice that leads to the end of suffering.'"
In retrospect, the historical Buddha might have said:
- This is pleasure (sukha)...
- This the origin of pleasure...
- This is the end of pleasure (dukkha)...
- This is the path-of-practice that leads to more and more pleasure [until one reaches the ultimate and unsurpassable bliss of nirvana.]
- Why didn't he? It must have occurred to him. One very likely reason is that this is not the path of hedonism (pleasure-seeking as the ultimate good). Making an end of
1. What is "suffering" and could we talk about pleasure instead?
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What is dukkha (disappointment, distress, unsatisfactoriness)? There is no need for confusion about dukkha or displeasure with translating it as "suffering." It is the nature of Pali and Sanskrit that a term has a RANGE of meaning, from agitation to agony.
All of these are dukkha, which could be rendered "off-kilter," like the wheel of an ox-cart that is off center and making for a bumpy and unpleasant ride. The Buddha defines exactly what he means by the word: "Not getting what one wants, getting what one doesn't want, being separated from or losing what one loves, being joined with what one detests." In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as self (the khandha or skandha) are disappointing, painful, unable to ever fulfill, and are thus unsatisfactory and suffering.
(Wiki) According to Monier Monier-Williams, the actual roots of the Pali term dukkha appear to be Sanskrit दुस्- (dus-, "bad") + स्था (sthā, "to stand") [9, Note 2]. Irregular changes in the development of Sanskrit into the various Prakrits [ancient hybrid languages] led to a shift from dus-sthā to duḥkha to dukkha.
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| Western Theravada Buddhist monk Analayo |
Silk Road philologist Christopher I. Beckwith elaborates on this derivation [17]. According to him: "...although the sense of duḥkha in Normative Buddhism is traditionally given as 'suffering,' that and similar interpretations are highly unlikely for Early Buddhism.
"Significantly, Monier-Williams himself doubts the usual explanation of duḥkha and presents an alternative one immediately after it, namely: duḥ-stha "'standing badly,' unsteady, disquieted (literally and figuratively); uneasy," and so on.
"This form is also attested, and makes much better sense as the opposite of the Rig Veda sense of sukha, which Monier-Williams gives in full [11, Note 3].
Translation
The literal meaning of duḥkha, as used in a general sense, is "suffering" or "painful" [Note 4]. Its exact translation depends on the context [Note 5].
Contemporary translators of Buddhist texts use a variety of English words to convey the [many] aspects of dukh.
Early Western translators of Buddhist texts (before the 1970s) typically translated the Pali term dukkha as "suffering." Later translators have emphasized that "suffering" is a too [harsh and too] limited translation for the term duḥkha and have preferred to either leave the term untranslated [15] or to clarify that translation with terms such as
- anxiety,
- distress,
- frustration,
- unease,
- unsatisfactoriness,
- not [getting] having what one wants,
- having what one does not want, and so on [19, 20, 21, Note 6].
In the sequence "[re]birth is dukkha," it may be translated as "painful" [22].
The opposite of pleasure
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| But I want what I want when I want it!!! |
When related to vedana ("sensation" or "feeling") dukkha ("unpleasant," "painful") is the opposite of sukha ("pleasure," "pleasant"), yet all feelings are dukkha [unsatisfactory, disappointing] in that they are impermanent, conditioned [impersonal] phenomena, which are unsatisfactory, incapable of providing lasting satisfaction or actual enduring fulfillment.
The term "unsatisfactoriness" then is often used to emphasize the unsatisfactoriness of "life under the influence of afflictions and polluted karma" [23, 24, 25, 26, 27, a], but it would equally well -- though much less obviously -- apply to sukha.
All pleasure ultimately fails to fulfill, satisfy, make us happy exactly because the nature of ALL conditioned (dependently originated or co-arisen) phenomena is beset by what the Buddha described as three universal characteristics or the Three Marks of All Conditioned Existence (ti-lakkhana) and transient states.
Early Buddhism
Dukkha is one of the three marks of existence -- namely anicca ("impermanent"), dukkha ("unsatisfactory"), anatta ("impersonal," "not-self," "empty," devoid of an enduring essence) [Note 7].
Various Pali canon sutras (discourses) sum up how cognitive processes result in an aversion to unpleasant things and experiences (dukkha), forming a corrupted process together with the complementary process of craving and clinging to pleasure (sukha).
What does dukkha mean?
This is expressed as saṃsāra, an ongoing process of [re-]death and rebirth [Note 8], but also more pointedly and non-metaphysically in the process-formula of the Five Aggregates clung to as self (skandhas):
- [Re-] birth is dukkha (disappointing),
- aging is dukkha,
- deteriorating is dukkha,
- illness is dukkha,
- death is dukkha;
- sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are dukkha;
- association with what we don't like is dukkha;
- separation from the liked is duḥkha;
- not getting what is wanted is dukkha.
- In summary, the Five Aggregates clung to as self (khandhas) are dukkha. More
- Hawaiian green sea turtle Chelonia mydas swimming in turquoise waters (AI generated 32475192 stock photo at Vecteezy)
- AI generated Hawaiian green sea turtle (37750217 at Vecteezy)
- Swim with turtles in Waikiki | Honolulu, Hawaii (Giftory)
- Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Chiggala Sutta: "The Hole" (SN 56:48) based on a translation by American Thai Theravada monk Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff, abbot, Wat Metta, CA), Wiki edit dukkha
