What is the 1st Noble Truth of Buddhism: Suffering

• Suffering of conditioned existence – Birth, aging, sickness, and death
• Suffering of negative emotions
• All pervasive suffering

Conditioned Existence – Understanding Dukkha

Conditioned existence basically means birth, aging, sickness, and death. Birth, though talked about as quite beautiful and amazing, is not easy. Classically it is thought of as the mother experiencing tremendous pain. But who knows what a baby experiences?

If we think about it, a baby is just resting in the womb, minding its own business, when the world tightens in violent contractions. Its head is pushed through a narrow canal. It can take hours. It might get stuck. Suddenly, there is something completely foreign we call ‘light,’ shining brightly in never-before-used eyes. There are strange new sounds instead of the regular heartbeat of the mother. It has to breathe. Babies don’t look too happy when they’re born. They’re usually crying. They don’t like what’s going on. They don’t understand it. It’s frightening and confusing.

Aging: This is typically taught in the West as old age, but that’s not correct. The Buddha said, ‘aging.’ Even going from one age to another – toddlerhood to being a young child – is aging and carries its own suffering. A young child notices that everyone else can do a lot of things that he can’t. I know a 4-year-old child who cannot keep up with his 9 and 11-year-old siblings. He chases them and feels constantly frustrated. He didn’t notice it as a baby.

There is a cognitive dysphoria that happens as one grows older and the stabilized sense of self forms at 7 or so. As a teenager, there is tremendous hormonal dysphoria. The body changes rapidly leading to uncertainty and awkwardness, sometimes growing pains. In the 20’s people are often lost as to their place in the world and looking for a mate.

Suffering is the essence of the world.

In middle age, the body begins to feel older, not so spry and strong. A sense of not accomplishing one’s goals arises. You don’t feel like the person you thought you would be. In late middle age and entering old age, the body becomes much weaker, and more fatigued. The nearness of death approaches and the certainty of death becomes quite obvious. Aging pervades all of life and carries with it a measure of suffering. Of course, not all of aging is suffering per se, but it carries suffering as part of the package.

Sickness: obviously, it’s not fun to be sick. There’s little to say that isn’t relatively obvious. We feel feeble and can’t do our normal routine. We can be afraid of dying. Concentration is difficult and almost impossible for longer periods. Nausea, headaches, body aches, fevers, and other issues are common.

Death is frightening. We are going to lose the body and lose everything in our lives. We may lose our mind and vanish forever. The sense of uncertainty is profound. We have no idea what death will bring. Almost everyone has fear of death. When someone else dies we lose them. Not only is our own death suffering but others’ death causes us to suffer. The thought of it creates fear and anxiety.

Teachings about being in the bardo, the state between death and rebirth, are quite frightening. Loud noises, disembodied wandering, completely alone, and fearful visions arise. On top of that, it’s a continual round of rebirth in the Buddhist system, which is why anyone even practices Buddhism, to escape from that cycle. This is the round of existence, the pain of conditioned existence, which continues without end unless you apply yourself and discover the method of escaping from it – the teachings on the 3rd Noble Truth of cessation.

Negative Emotions

The second type of suffering covered by the first noble truth is the kleshas or negative emotions. Generally, this comes down to the dukkha of desire/wantingness and aggression, which, in this view, is a type of desire – the desire for something to end or go away.

When we desire something badly and can’t get it, we suffer. A lot of people want money, love, a better home, fame, etc. All sorts of things people want they can’t get. When they do get them, it fails to provide any lasting happiness and generally does not match the suffering caused by being unable to get them. We get a new car and we like it. It provides a measure of happiness, but it gets old, the thrill is gone and things start to break. The happiness turns to unhappiness.

Losing what we love or care for. When a loved one dies, it is painful. When you get dumped, your children leave home, you are evicted, or lose a job, it causes dukkha. When the peace of your neighborhood is violated because someone puts up a motocross track 500 meters away, or when a neighbor becomes so unpleasant and attacks you, or a nasty boss, but you can’t leave because of the money, you start fighting with your spouse and they aren’t the person you thought, or when a teenager becomes sullen and aggressive – these are the loss of a happier state.

Suffering is how we extend our existence.

Shyunru Suzuki Roshi

All sorts of things in life can happen. This crosses into the third aspect – having unpleasant situations that you cannot leave or stop. Your child is on drugs, has autism, or is depressed after being normal, happy, and well-adjusted, for example.

A more subtle version of this is the suffering of impermanence of happiness. Within every joyful and pleasant situation is the certain knowledge that it will end. This creates a bit of mild discomfort and sadness that is almost always there.

All Pervasive Suffering

The third overall type of dukkha in the 1st noble truth of Buddhism is all-pervasive suffering. Supposedly, this level is quite subtle, so much so that we ordinary beings cannot detect it. Only the more realized beings can perceive it. Or perhaps in strong meditation, we sense it, perhaps by its absence in a state of strong shamatha.

The feeling is a sense that something in one’s mind, being is not right. We’re sensing that we’re not quite in tune with reality. And we’re correct – we’re out of tune with reality. This intuition is a subtle sense of being fundamentally mistaken, of taking something essential as true when it is false.

This low-level suffering is persistent and consistent. It doesn’t have a lot of modulation, nor does it come and go like the other dukkhas. Being always there, it is called all-pervasive suffering. Apparently, this feeling dissolves during meditation on vipashyana, when a powerful insight into reality occurs, when selflessness. This makes sense because we are correcting the basic problem – wrong view, incorrect seeing.

The source of this pain is believing in a solid, truly existent, permanent self, which does not actually exist. This dukkha is also a sort of driver for the Hinayana path. It’s an inability to be truly comfortable, to genuinely relax, even in the easiest, most agreeable situation. Relaxation always has a slight edge – when is dinner? How is my friend? Should I take a walk or indulge in a morning Mai Tai on the beach? You need to adjust the chair, it’s too hot, too many dumb people, or whatever. It’s just a sense that something is always a bit wrong, an ability to be at ease with reality as it presents itself.

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Conclusion: The First Noble Truth of Suffering

The 4 Noble Truths begin with Suffering – the pain of existence. This pain takes on multiple forms, physical, emotional, and existential. Relating to and being honest about these dukkhas, seeing them in your existence (or not, but looking clearly) is the first step to a genuine spiritual path. Acknowledging your own suffering, not pretending you are completely happy when that pain exists in your life, is a powerful, almost magical means to break the illusory spell of false reality.

• See Part II: the Second Noble Truth: the origin of suffering.
• Part III: Third Noble Truth: Cessation of suffering
• Part IV: Fourth Noble Truth: The Path to cessation

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