Is Life Actually Bliss?

Discussion
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Hi. I’m reading about Dharma and enlightenment from a new point of view for me, and I’m a bit confused. It says that truly knowing suffering can lead to real happiness. Could someone please explain?
From the course “Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism”

”Now what is this Dharma, the teaching that the Buddha taught?
The Buddha called his teaching by the word Dharma, Which Sanskrit word was not very current in the previous Verists’ culture. The great Patrick Olivelle says that he only finds 17 instances of the word Dharma in the pre-Buddhist writings of the ancient Brahminical scholars. The Sanskrit word later is analyzed by Buddhist scholars, Vasubandhu in particular in the 4th century, or early 5th, to have at least 11 different meanings ranging from simply quality of something through the thing itself,
a phenomenon or a noumenon, through the meanings of custom, duty, religion, and law, all of which we could call pattern maintaining meanings, in a Parsonian language,
a social-science type of language. And then Buddha added to this meanings
teaching, virtuous practice, path, and virtue, even, or even the reality itself that is taught,
the highest being Nirvana, freedom from suffering. So dividing these 11 meanings in those two halves, pattern maintaining and pattern transcending, the five higher ones are all pattern transcending. Teaching is pattern transcending, 'cause you learn new things, and you behave in new ways. Path is pattern transcending, 'cause you leave an old place and come to a new one. Reality is pattern transcending because it frees you from suffering actually, according to Buddha’s understanding of it. All of the meanings of the word Dharma come from the verbal root Dhri, which a cognate with Latin habeo and means to hold. The first set of holdings means structuring things, behavior, mind, and belief in certain patterns, you know law and so on. And the second set,
the pattern transcending set, means holding a being in a new place, a positive educational and evolutionary trend. Finally, in the Summum Bonum, the highest good of the blissful freedom from suffering from Nirvana. So the Dharma as reality means Buddha’s in for a flex. Buddha’s inside, which is why he was smiling and why he was so happy, which is that reality holds you free from suffering
when you overcome your misunderstanding of that reality
and you know it’s true nature. Then you realize that life is bliss actually. It’s what Buddha’s great discovery was. The latest research attests to the fact that it was the Buddha himself that added the later set of pattern transcending meanings to the word and its pattern maintaining uses, trans-valuing the word to serve his liberative revolution.”

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Definitely we can talk in Dhamma about bliss but … Life is too metaphysical concept, lets go to down to earth “experience”. Or life of common man. Buddha great discovery was that any kind of experience as such should be classified as “suffering”. Also in the sense that we rather suffer experience that experience suffering, so any kind of bliss, connected with sensory experience or meditation due to being impermanent is suffering.

Bliss coming from asankhata dhatu, but it cannot be described as “experience” since it is atemporal, and should be described rather in terms of the cessation of time.

Buddha discovered the Truth, and as such it is available to any intelligent seeker.

Q: Buddha said that life is suffering.
M: He must have meant that all consciousness is painful, which is obvious.

*
M: All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. Realisation by itself is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely realisation is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience.

M - Nisargadatta Maharaj

One explanation, “unreal” in Nisargadatta Maharaj vocabulary is synonym of impermanent, it doesn’t mean that “things in reality don’t exist”.

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This is a common myth that many often believe and repeat. The Buddha actually never said, “Life is suffering.”

Rather, he taught: “Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are suffering; association with the unbeloved is suffering, separation from the loved is suffering, not getting what is wanted is suffering. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering.”

There is more to life than just suffering, there is also the cessation of suffering in this very life. If “life” were suffering, there would be no space for the Dhamma to be learned, contemplated, practiced, and realised in life.

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For many years I learnt dhamma, but I finally found the essence or the true meaning of dhamma, and how to practice it after I met a great disciple of a great meditation master. One can’t really taste the meaning of these profound words of dhamma unless they follow the right teacher, and follow the practice. You have to be wise to identify the ariyan teacher who has realized dhamma. Otherwise it’s only words and reasoning. I recommend Ajahn Brahm’s teachings regarding all these topics, once you’ve learned the basics you’ll understand the Buddha’s words and their deep meanings.

The five aggregates are suffering.

Sankhittena pancupadankkhanda dukkha,-dhammacakkapavattana sutta.

The highest bliss is the bliss of nibbana.

Nibbanam paramam sukham. -dhammapada verses.

Once you’ve realized what’s suffering and the the cause of suffering,then only you’ll be able to get rid of the cause which will then lead to the cessation of suffering, once there is cessation of suffering, then you’ll find the supreme bliss of being free from all suffering.

When you mediate only you’ll realize why the five sense world is suffering, by meditating under right instructions you will realize how letting go leads to more and more inner peace and happiness which is much higher than five sense pleasures. Then one day when you realize the cessation of all the 6 senses then you’ll know why nibbana is the highest bliss because there all sufferings have ceased.

With metta.

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I would say that it is common myth that the statement “Life is suffering” seriously distorts Lord Buddha’s message.

Now, you seem to think, it distorts it. In this case please consider following:

In life as we experience it there is always present fleeing - it is indispensable factor of any experience. And Buddha has said: whatever is felt, counts as suffering. It is very important point, since the delight in experience is what imprisons us in samsara.

“But, Sāriputta, if they were to ask you: ‘Friend Sāriputta, how have you known, how have you seen, that delight in feelings no longer remains present in you?’—being asked thus, how would you answer?”97
“If they were to ask me this, venerable sir, I would answer thus: ‘Friends, there are these three feelings. What three? Pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. These three feelings, friends, are impermanent; whatever is impermanent is suffering. When this was understood, delight in feelings no longer remained present in me.’ Being asked thus, venerable sir, I would answer in such a way.”
“Good, good, Sāriputta! This is another method of explaining in brief that same point: ‘Whatever is felt is included within suffering.

SN 12: 32

Also one who says for example:“life as we live it, isn’t suffering, there are some bright sides of it” should be asked: friend, five aggregates of clinging cover together any kind of experience, and in the first noble truth Buddha described them as “suffering”. Please tell us what was overlooked by the Buddha, what kind of experience isn’t really dukkha.

Misunderstanding is hidden perhaps in this that the First Noble Truth describes suffering not understood by the puthujjana, and it actually is his task to understand that whatever is felt is included in suffering.

It is quite normal and natural that puthujjana disagrees with such formulation, but Buddhist puthujjana should put his faith in The First Noble Truth and try to understand it.

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It seems that the meaning of my original post was distorted with some unhelpful assumptions. To be clear, responding as if I had denied the universality of dukkha misrepresents my comment is a classic straw man, and I won’t be baited. Being told to “Please tell us what was overlooked by the Buddha” is an unfair and false request as I never made any such claim as to warrant defending a position I never presented; my only point was textual accuracy regarding what the Buddha did and did not say.

I think it’s important that we don’t conflate what the Buddha actually said in the Nikāyas with what later traditions and interpreters have inferred.

The phrasing “life is suffering” never appears anywhere in the Canon. What the Buddha actually taught is precisely what I quoted:

“Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are suffering; association with the unbeloved is suffering, separation from the loved is suffering, not getting what is wanted is suffering. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering.” SN 56.11 Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

That final line is crucial:

“In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering.”

He does not say that life itself is dukkha, but rather that clinging to the aggregates, the processes that make up what we call “a being,” is dukkha.

So when we say “life is suffering,” we replace a precise diagnostic teaching with an ontological statement that the Buddha never made. “Life” in the ordinary sense includes both dukkha and the possibility of its cessation. If “life” itself were dukkha, then there would be no room for cessation in this life, yet the Buddha clearly taught that nibbāna is to be realised here and now.

To properly summarise what I was conveying in my original reply:

  • The Buddha never said “life is suffering.”
  • He said “the five clinging aggregates are suffering.”

This distinction matters, because it preserves the space for cessation and the realisation of nibbāna within life itself.

I should also clarify that my original comment wasn’t intended to open a debate or invite analysis. I simply meant to offer a brief course correction. My point was limited to clarifying what the Buddha did and did not say according to the suttas, not to spark a debate regarding your interpretation of the Nikāyas.

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Let’s replace ”life” with” experience “. While Buddha never said verbatim ”experience is suffering “, such statement that “arising of the eye is arising of suffering “ say precisely this.

By analogy I tend to understand that you insist that it is not so, since

it doesn’t preserve the space for cessation and the realisation of nibbāna within experience itself.

Of course it doesn’t, since nibbana is not experience, any experience is temporal and as such, has nothing in common with Nibbāna.

Perhaps we don’t understand each other. My point is that statement “life is suffering” doesn’t distort Buddha’s message, it is just little bit unclear due to lack of precise definition what “life” means.

Much more dangerous is - for me - to insist that “life isn’t suffering” since it suggests that there are reasonable things to do in life apart trying to avoid rebirth.

The more painful life apears the more we are determined with the resolution of not being born again. We can expect that for one who thinks that life isn’t really suffering to hold view that being born again isn’t blameworthy, or on the level of practice that meditation in seclusion would not be his priority.

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I would not say that life is “actually blissful,” because it would imply that bliss is the predominant condition for living beings. On the other hand, “Life is actually stressful” is more attuned with the teachings of the Buddha. I would not use “Life is stressful,” because it doesn’t leave room for improvement and seems to deny that there are things in life that are pleasant and gratifying.

https://suttacentral.net/an3.105/en/sujato

Mendicants, if there were no gratification in the world, sentient beings wouldn’t be aroused by it. But because there is gratification in the world, sentient beings are aroused by it.

It’s possible to render the Four Noble Truths using this as a basis:

  • Life is actually stressful.
  • The cause of stress is the desire for illusory forms of bliss.
  • Life can be truly and genuinely blissful.
  • There is a way to realize such a truly blissful life.

The Buddha spoke of this truly blissful life in many ways. The cessation of suffering (as mentioned by @AnapanaMichael) is the ultimate bliss. Yet, there are also other forms of happiness which, though not ultimate or entirely free from suffering like Nibbāna, are connected with skillful qualities that lead in its direction. Among these, we can mention:

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Discard desire and you will know Nibbana.
Embrace desire and you will know suffering.

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