The Other Side. . .
Dukka is an important concept in Buddhism, commonly referred to as suffering unhappiness, pain or unsatisfactoriness. It refers to the habitual experience of mundane life as fundamentally unsatisfactory and painful. It is also the first of the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha applies the characteristic of suffering to all conditioned things in the sense that for living beings, everything conditioned is a potential cause of experienced suffering and is at any rate incapable of giving lasting satisfaction.
Buddhism rests on the pivot of suffering. Buddha perceived the universality of suffering and propounded a remedy (Noble Eightfold Path) for the universal sickness of humanity. By that Buddhism does not denote an attitude of hopelessness toward life. Buddha did not expect his adherents to be constantly brooding over the ills of life and so make their lives unhappy.
If you look at the world with dispassionate discernment it becomes abundantly clear that there is only one problem in the world, which is suffering, dukka. Buddha says “The world is established on suffering, is founded on suffering” (Dukkhe loko patitthito). Suffering appears and passes away, only to reappear in other forms. All forms of suffering are either physical or psychological. All is in a whirl, nothing escapes this inexorable, unceasing change.
According to Buddha, Birth is suffering, decay is suffering, illness is suffering, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; to be connected with what one dislikes is suffering; to be separated from what one likes is suffering; not getting what one desires is suffering in short, the five aggregates connected with clinging are suffering.
Gautama Buddha taught us that all beings are conditioned by suffering (dukkha), and that not-self or detachment from our clinging is the way to liberty and release from suffering. Never stop just because you feel defeated. The journey to the other side is attainable only after great suffering.
Peace and Love, Jim
#endsuffering #thedailybuddha
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