Challenging the Dhamma

[Spiny Norman]

Is there a need to conceive of Dukkha as the fundamental character of reality or one's experience? Does the Buddha conceive of Dukkha in this way, or say that we ought to?

I would say yes, reading SN 56.11, which describes 3-fold knowledge for each of the Noble Truths:

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of stress.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This noble truth of stress is to be comprehended.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before:' This noble truth of stress has been comprehended.'

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

[Sam Vara]

Is there a need to conceive of Dukkha as the fundamental character of reality or one's experience? Does the Buddha conceive of Dukkha in this way, or say that we ought to?

I would say yes, reading SN 56.11, which describes 3-fold knowledge for each of the Noble Truths:

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of stress.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This noble truth of stress is to be comprehended.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before:' This noble truth of stress has been comprehended.'

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Yes, I'm fine with that as it stands, but is the noble truth of stress the same as saying that Dukkha is the fundamental character of reality or one's experience? The relevant bit from the sutta preceding the passage you quote:

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress:[1] Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

doesn't refer to the fundamental character of reality or one's experience.

[Spiny Norman]

Is there a need to conceive of Dukkha as the fundamental character of reality or one's experience? Does the Buddha conceive of Dukkha in this way, or say that we ought to?

I would say yes, reading SN 56.11, which describes 3-fold knowledge for each of the Noble Truths:

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of stress.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This noble truth of stress is to be comprehended.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before:' This noble truth of stress has been comprehended.'

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Yes, I'm fine with that as it stands, but is the noble truth of stress the same as saying that Dukkha is the fundamental character of reality or one's experience? The relevant bit from the sutta preceding the passage you quote:

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress:[1] Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

doesn't refer to the fundamental character of reality or one's experience.

Logically it must be describing subjective experience rather than objective reality. If it were describing reality then there would be no escape from dukkha, and the rest of the Noble Truths wouldn't make sense. So phenomenological rather than ontological.

[Sam Vara]

Logically it must be describing subjective experience rather than objective reality. If it were describing reality then there would be no escape from dukkha, and the rest of the Noble Truths wouldn't make sense.

Agreed. But does it describe the fundamental character of that experience? It doesn't, on the face of it, claim to do so. It's a list, a pointing. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that "fundamental character" might be an import into what the Buddha was talking about - a point that several people have already alluded to in this thread.

[Spiny Norman]

Logically it must be describing subjective experience rather than objective reality. If it were describing reality then there would be no escape from dukkha, and the rest of the Noble Truths wouldn't make sense.

Agreed. But does it describe the fundamental character of that experience? It doesn't, on the face of it, claim to do so. It's a list, a pointing. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that "fundamental character" might be an import into what the Buddha was talking about - a point that several people have already alluded to in this thread.

I suppose anicca would be the fundamental character of experience.

As here, for example, where the aggregates ( experience ) are unsatisfactory because they are impermanent.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nymo.html

Though I'm now wondering whether anicca and anatta can be seen as both ontological and phenomenological.

[Samraj]

a)Why do you have to respect mind and body?
b)Why don't you go for you life. Just enjoy
c)Do you have parents? Did you ever go to school?
d)What do you practice? For what?

(a) Because that is what you've got, they are like your house. If you disrespect your house, you will end up badly.
(b) Because truth is in the middle. If you go for your life you are going for an extreme. Go for it, but with moderation.
(d) I learned that from them. In school I was told that no book or discourse contains the absolute truth. In each book there are some truths and some bullshits, and you have to check. Take the ripen mangos, leave the rotten ones.
(d) I practice yoga and meditation. Because it is beneficial to body and mind.

[Sam Vara]

I suppose anicca would be the fundamental character of experience.

As here, for example, where the aggregates ( experience ) are unsatisfactory because they are impermanent.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nymo.html

We're still in agreement here! I think you are right in that anicca is fundamental. But even if it weren't, that wouldn't mean that the noble truth of Dukkha is somehow vitiated. Saying that impermanent things are unsatisfactory doesn't mean that they wouldn't be unsatisfactory even if they were permanent. Pain, for example. There are three types of Dukkha, and only two of them are related to inconstancy. Have a look at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html

[Spiny Norman]

I suppose anicca would be the fundamental character of experience.

As here, for example, where the aggregates ( experience ) are unsatisfactory because they are impermanent.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nymo.html

We're still in agreement here! I think you are right in that anicca is fundamental. But even if it weren't, that wouldn't mean that the noble truth of Dukkha is somehow vitiated. Saying that impermanent things are unsatisfactory doesn't mean that they wouldn't be unsatisfactory even if they were permanent. Pain, for example. There are three types of Dukkha, and only two of them are related to inconstancy.

Have a look at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html

I'm still not sure whether this is describing three distinct types of dukkha, or whether it's a progressive analysis which considers increasing subtlety.

[Samraj]

We're still in agreement here! I think you are right in that anicca is fundamental. But even if it weren't, that wouldn't mean that the noble truth of Dukkha is somehow vitiated. Saying that impermanent things are unsatisfactory doesn't mean that they wouldn't be unsatisfactory even if they were permanent. Pain, for example. There are three types of Dukkha, and only two of them are related to inconstancy. Have a look at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html

I don't know, seems to me that these two posts support my point of view.
You can see definition 3 and 4 express perfectly the Buddhist correlation between dukkha and anicca
(3) Sankhaara-dukkhataa, says
The suffering inherent in the formations has its roots in the imperfectability of all conditioned existence, and in the fact that there cannot be any final satisfaction within the incessant turning of the Wheel of Life.


I personally have always found absurd that final satisfaction. Why is that one has to measure suffering and pain against a final satisfaction? Isn't this movement implying that at the core of gotama's teaching is the search for a sukkha which is final, or permanent?

(4) Viparinaama-dukkhataa, says
the suffering associated with pleasant bodily and mental feelings: "because they are the cause for the arising of pain when they change"


Viparinaama-dukkhataa even traces a correlation between the cessation (discontinuity) of a pleasant feeling and the arising of suffering.

Definitions one and two are only a paradigmatic definition of the term. They don't specify a particular nuance of the term dukkha, they are like the dictionary definition of the word dukkha. If you were to write a dictionary entry, how would you define suffering? Whatever definition you will come up with, it will be like that of the word 'right' or 'left'. If you look for them on the dictionary, you will find only paradigmatic, or tautological, definitions. Isn't the very word Dukkha-dukkhataa a tautology?
---
Anyway IMO the standard definition of anicca is to be found is suttas like this, where is clearly stated that sukkha is direcly correlated to the finitude (discontintuity) of human life.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

[Sam Vara]

I'm still not sure whether this is describing three distinct types of dukkha, or whether it's a progressive analysis which considers increasing subtlety.

Fair point - I'll have a little think about that. I had always thought the former.

For this issue, though, I think the case still stands as things might be dukkha because they are impermanent (because all impermanent things are dukkha) but they might be dukkha for another reason entirely.

And in any case, everything I have ever experienced has as a matter of fact been anicca...

[Spiny Norman]

I'm still not sure whether this is describing three distinct types of dukkha, or whether it's a progressive analysis which considers increasing subtlety.

For this issue, though, I think the case still stands as things might be dukkha because they are impermanent (because all impermanent things are dukkha) but they might be dukkha for another reason entirely.

I think another way of looking at this is to say that what we really want is a constant and continuing state of contentment, fullfillment, comfort, health etc, but of course impermanence always denies us this. Or to put it another way, aversion is frustrated craving.
So for example an episode of physical pain is unpleasant because it "interrupts" what I really want, ie a continuing state of physical comfort. So I feel aversion towards the pain because it frustrates my craving for comfort.

[Sam Vara]

We're still in agreement here! I think you are right in that anicca is fundamental. But even if it weren't, that wouldn't mean that the noble truth of Dukkha is somehow vitiated. Saying that impermanent things are unsatisfactory doesn't mean that they wouldn't be unsatisfactory even if they were permanent. Pain, for example. There are three types of Dukkha, and only two of them are related to inconstancy. Have a look at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html

I don't know, seems to me that these two posts support my point of view.
You can see definition 3 and 4 express perfectly the Buddhist correlation between dukkha and anicca
(3) Sankhaara-dukkhataa, says
The suffering inherent in the formations has its roots in the imperfectability of all conditioned existence, and in the fact that there cannot be any final satisfaction within the incessant turning of the Wheel of Life.


I personally have always found absurd that final satisfaction. Why is that one has to measure suffering and pain against a final satisfaction? Isn't this movement implying that at the core of gotama's teaching is the search for a sukkha which is final, or permanent?

(4) Viparinaama-dukkhataa, says
the suffering associated with pleasant bodily and mental feelings: "because they are the cause for the arising of pain when they change"


Viparinaama-dukkhataa even traces a correlation between the cessation (discontinuity) of a pleasant feeling and the arising of suffering.

Definitions one and two are only a paradigmatic definition of the term. They don't specify a particular nuance of the term dukkha, they are like the dictionary definition of the word dukkha. If you were to write a dictionary entry, how would you define suffering? Whatever definition you will come up with, it will be like that of the word 'right' or 'left'. If you look for them on the dictionary, you will find only paradigmatic, or tautological, definitions. Isn't the very word Dukkha-dukkhataa a tautology?
---
Anyway IMO the standard definition of anicca is to be found is suttas like this, where is clearly stated that sukkha is direcly correlated to the finitude (discontintuity) of human life.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Yes, to some extent the sutta supports your view that dukkha is predicated upon impermanence; because the Buddha clearly says that everything that is impermanent is Dukkha. But not all Dukkha. Perhaps I am reading Dukkha a little more widely than you, in that I don't see it simply as "suffering". More like "unsatisfactoriness" - the sense that there is something not exactly "right" about our experiences. Hence, one of the sources of that unsatisfactoriness is the fact that things hurt (which is not tautological); another source or "version" of unsatisfactoriness is that pleasure declines; and another way in which they are unsatisfactory is that they are conditioned - they lack aseity.

[Sam Vara]

I'm still not sure whether this is describing three distinct types of dukkha, or whether it's a progressive analysis which considers increasing subtlety.

For this issue, though, I think the case still stands as things might be dukkha because they are impermanent (because all impermanent things are dukkha) but they might be dukkha for another reason entirely.

I think another way of looking at this is to say that what we really want is a constant and continuing state of contentment, fullfillment, comfort, health etc, but of course impermanence always denies us this. Or to put it another way, aversion is frustrated craving.

Yes, I think that says it neatly. The issue here seems to be whether we approach it via the 4NT, or the tilakkhana. This is why I am a bit wary of treating the latter as some kind of ontological statements about how things "really" are - I tend to think of the three marks, rightly or wrongly, as an aid or spur to practice. "You don't want to be clinging to or identifying with anything because, well, look what they do..."

[barcsimalsi]

We're still in agreement here! I think you are right in that anicca is fundamental. But even if it weren't, that wouldn't mean that the noble truth of Dukkha is somehow vitiated. Saying that impermanent things are unsatisfactory doesn't mean that they wouldn't be unsatisfactory even if they were permanent. Pain, for example. There are three types of Dukkha, and only two of them are related to inconstancy. Have a look at:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html

If we take into account the whole picture of becoming, i think it has to do with annica too because experience is inconstant.
If everything is static and permanent, pain becomes irrelevant as we can imagine the existence getting stuck in a pause mode with zero experience.

[Spiny Norman]

I think another way of looking at this is to say that what we really want is a constant and continuing state of contentment, fullfillment, comfort, health etc, but of course impermanence always denies us this. Or to put it another way, aversion is frustrated craving.

Yes, I think that says it neatly. The issue here seems to be whether we approach it via the 4NT, or the tilakkhana. This is why I am a bit wary of treating the latter as some kind of ontological statements about how things "really" are - I tend to think of the three marks, rightly or wrongly, as an aid or spur to practice. "You don't want to be clinging to or identifying with anything because, well, look what they do..."

My focus is usually on anicca because it's what I can notice, and on a good day the noticing can have a liberating effect. Of course dukkha is often there to be noticed, but I don't want to be looking at that all the time.