Understanding The Buddha's Teachings

Chapter 5

Is Everything Suffering?

If we are not careful, we may make the words of our teacher into a doctrine or ideology. Since the Buddha said that the First Noble Truth is suffering, many students have tried to prove that everything on Earth is suffering. This is not the teaching of the Buddha. 

1. "Suffering of suffering" - (Dukkha Dukkhata): unpleasantness ie. toothache, losing your temper, feeling cold etc. 
2. "Suffering of composite things" - (Samskara Dukkhata): what comes together has to (eventually) come apart. Therefore all composite things are suffering. Even things that have not yet decayed - mountains, rivers, the sun and stars - are suffering because they will decay and cause suffering eventually. So if you believe that all things composed are suffering, how can yo find joy? 
3. "Suffering associated with change" - (Viparinama Dukkhata) ie. our lives may be healthy today, but when we age, it will cause us to suffer. There is no point in being joyous because eventually it will turn into suffering. Suffering is a black cloud that envelopes everything. Joy is an illusion. Only suffering is real. 

For over 2000 years, students of Buddhism have said that Buddha taught thall objects of perception are suffering. "This is suffering. Life is sufferinging. Everything is suffering."

Today, people evoke the names of the Buddha mechanically, believing this will lead to insight and emancipation. They are not using their intelligence. with regard to the Dharma. This can be dangerous if you don't ask your intelligence, without a teacher to guide you correctly. "Life is suffering" cannot help you understand the true nature of suffering or reveal the path shown to us by the Buddha. 

Re. Many sutras (canonical scriptures, dialogues, discourses):

Q. "Are conditioned things permanent or impermanent?"
A. "They are impermanent."

Q. "If things are permanent, are they suffering or well-being?!
A. "They are suffering."

Q. "If things are suffering, can we say that they are self or belong to self?"
A. "No."

So, if Buddha is offering a theory - ie. "All things are suffering" - that we have to prove in our daily life. But the Buddha only wants us to recognise suffering when it is present and to recognise joy when suffering is absent. 

The Argument. 

"Impermanent, therefore suffering, therefore nonself" is illogical. To put suffering on the same level as impermanence and nonself is an error. The are a "mark" of all things. Suffering is not. ie. a table is impermanent and does not have a self separate of all non-table elements - like wood, rain, sun, furniture makers etc. right up to the cloud (can you see the cloud?). But is it suffering> A table will only make us suffer if we attribute permanence or separateness to it. If we are attached to a specific table, we only suffer because of our attachment to it (not the table itself).

Anger is impermanent.. without a separate self, and filled with suffering, but it is strange to talk about a table or a flower as being filled with suffering. The Buddha taught impermanence and nonself to help us not be caught in signs. 

The theory of the three kinds of Suffering is an attempt to justify universal suffering. What joy is left in life> We find it in Nirvana (the joy of completely extinguishing our ideas and concepts rather than suffering, is one of the Three Dharma Seals. *See Samyukta Agama of the Northern Transmission. 

To the author, it is much easier to see a state where there are no obstacles created by concepts than to see all things as suffering. All things are marked by impermanence, nonself and Nirvana, and not make too great an effort to prove that everything is suffering. 

Another misconception of the Buddha's teaching is that all our suffering is caused by 'craving' - but only because craving is the first on the list of afflictions (Kleshas). I we use our intelligence, we can see that craving can cause pain, but other things like anger, ignorance, suspicion, arrogance and wrong views can also cause pain and suffering. Ignorance is responsible for much of our pain. 

"Eyes" > used in many sutras to represent all six sense organs and "Form" is used to represent all five Aggregates* (skanhas). The five functions or aspects that constitute the human being The Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really "I" or "mine".*
If we can identify the causes of our suffering, that sometimes it is due to craving or other factors.To say "life is suffering" is too general and "craving causes suffering" is too simplistic. We need to say, "the basis for this suffering is such and such an affliction", and call it by its true name ie. a stomach ache is a stomach ache or a headache is a headache. How else will we find the cause of our suffering and the way to heal ourselves?

The Buddha also taught the truth of "dwelling happily in things as they are" (Drishta Dharma Sukkha Viharin). 

Stop trying to prove everything is suffering!!