Suffering

What is the Buddhist answer to the problem of suffering?

Extract from The Buddha's Path, chapter1.

The Buddha gave his own, unique answer to the problem of suffering. He taught that the cause of suffering is within man, namely his own faults and defilements, and not in the external situation. He explained that only profound knowledge of his own mind and of all phenomena of his life can lead to the end of suffering. We read in the Buddhist scriptures (Kindred Sayings I, Chapter III, Kosala, Part 3, 3, The World) that King Pasenadi had a conversation with the Buddha at Savatthi about the cause of suffering. We read:

How many kinds of things, lord, that happen in the world, make for trouble, for suffering, for distress? Three things, sire, happen of that nature. What are the three? Greed, hate, and delusion these three make for trouble, for suffering, for distress.

The outward circumstances cannot be changed, but the inward attitude towards the vicissitudes of life can be changed. Wisdom can be developed and this can eventually eradicate completely greed, hate and delusion. This wisdom is not developed by speculation about the truth of life, it is developed through the direct experience of the phenomena of life as they really are, including ones own mental states. That is the Path the Buddha taught, but it takes time to understand how it is to be developed. The Buddha was not a God, not a saviour, who wanted people to follow him without questioning the truth of his teaching. He showed the Path to the understanding of the truth, but people had to investigate the truth and develop the Path themselves. We read in the scriptures (Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 16, the Book of the Great Decease) that the Buddha said to his disciple Ananda:

Therefore, Ananda, be an island to yourselves, a refuge to yourselves, seeking no external refuge; with the Teaching as your island, the Teaching as your refuge, seeking no other refuge.

The Buddha explained that in developing the Path one is ones own refuge.

Extract from Buddhism in Daily Life, chapter 9.

We read in the Kindred Sayings (V, Maha-vagga, Book XII, Kindred Sayings about the Truths, Ch II, 1) that the Buddha explained the Four Noble Truths (ariya sacca) to his first five disciples in the Deerpark in Varanasi. The first Noble Truth is the Truth of dukkha which can be translated as suffering or unsatisfactoriness. The Buddha said:

Now this, monks, is the ariyan truth about dukkha: Birth is dukkha, decay is dukkha, sickness is dukkha, death is dukkha; likewise sorrow and grief, woe, lamentation and despair. To be conjoined with things we dislike, to be separated from things we like that also is dukkha. Not to get what one wants that also is dukkha. In a word, the five khandhas which are based on grasping are dukkha.

The five khandhas, which are the mental phenomena and the physical phenomena in and around ourselves, are dukkha. One may wonder why they are dukkha. We take the mind for self, but what we call our mind are only mental elements or namas which arise and then fall away immediately. We take the body for self, but what we call our body are only physical elements or rupas which arise and fall away. When we do not know the truth we think that these phenomena can stay; we take them for self. We might for instance think that sadness stays, but there is not only sadness, there are many other phenomena such as seeing, hearing and thinking. What we think is a long time of sadness is, in reality, many different phenomena succeeding one another; none of these phenomena stays.

Phenomena which are impermanent are not real happiness; so they are dukkha. Although dukkha is often translated as suffering, it is not only an unhappy feeling; the first Noble Truth pertains to all phenomena which arise and fall away. There is not anything in our life which is not dukkha. Even happy feeling is dukkha; it does not last. The second Noble Truth is the origin of dukkha, which is craving. The same sutta states:

Now this, monks, is the ariyan truth about the arising of dukkha: It is that craving that leads back to birth, along with the lure and the lust that lingers longingly now here, now there: namely the craving for sensual pleasure, the craving to be born again, the craving for existence to end. Such, monks, is the ariyan truth about the arising of dukkha.

So long as there is craving in any form there will be a condition for life, for the arising of nama and rupa. Thus, there will be dukkha.

The third Noble Truth is the cessation of dukkha, which is nibbana. We read in the above quoted sutta:

And this, monks, is the ariyan truth about the ceasing of dukkha: Verily it is the utter passionless cessation of, the giving up, the forsaking, the release from, the absence of longing for this craving.

Craving is the origin of dukkha, whereas when there is the cessation of craving there will be the extinction of rebirth and thus of dukkha. Nibbana is the end of dukkha. The arahat has, at the attainment of enlightenment eradicated all craving and thus for him there are no more conditions for rebirth, and that means the end of dukkha.

We read in the same sutta about the fourth Noble Truth:

Now this, monks, is the ariyan truth about the practice that leads to the ceasing of dukkha: Verily it is the ariyan eightfold way, namely: Right understanding, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

The eightfold Path (ariya-magga) is the development of right understanding of all phenomena which appear in our daily life. We come to know the world in and around ourselves, not through speculation, but from our own experience. How do we experience the world? We experience the world through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, receiving impressions through the bodysense and through the mind. Everything we experience through the doors of the five senses and through the mind-door is extremely short, because all phenomena which arise fall away immediately. When we see, there is the world of visible object, but it does not last, it falls away again. When we hear, there is the world of sound, but it is impermanent. Likewise the world of smell, the world of taste, the world of tangible object and the world of mental objects; none of these worlds lasts.

In the Visuddhimagga (VIII, 39) we read about the shortness of the world:

...in the ultimate sense the life-moment of living beings is extremely short, being only as much as the occurrence of a single conscious moment. Just as a chariot wheel, when it is rolling, rolls (that is, touches the ground) only on one point of (the circumference of) its tyre, and, when it is at rest, rests only on one point, so too, the life of living beings lasts only for a single conscious moment. When that consciousness has ceased, the being is said to have ceased... Life, person, pleasure, painjust these alone Join in one conscious moment that flicks by. Ceased khandhas of those dead or alive Are all alike, gone never to return. No (world is) born if (consciousness is) not Produced, when that is present, then it lives; When consciousness dissolves, the world is dead...