Three types of Suffering

To the first point regarding arahants (and I must admit to my student-level understanding), if an arahant experiences an unpleasant feeling to have arisen in the mind, they know it for what it is according to their understanding of causal conditions. Importantly, they do not generate further kamma at any level of the cognitive process.

It’s a fascinating area of discussion.

The dog says Woof!

Suppose a dog on a leash was tethered to a strong post or pillar. It would just keep running and circling around that post or pillar […like clowns who…] keep running and circling around form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness.

I enjoy how Ajahn Brahm talks about the development of jhana. Only by progressing into the next jhana can you see the previous one as suffering/not as good. Experiences of the mind that people call union with God, and from a higher perspective, it’s suffering.

Wowza!

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Yup, thanks. I had read more suttas since posting the OP, arahants can experience unpleasant feelings too. It’s the first arrow of suffering, but arahants don’t experience the second arrow.

This primary (first arrow) and secondary suffering classification are better than physical/mental as unpleasant feelings are commonly regarded as mental suffering for most.

“they know it for what it is according to their understanding of causal conditions.”

If it refers to DO this would be incorrect. The discernment that cuts the fetters is of the impermanence of conditioned phenomena. The study of DO is dangerous in this way because it subverts what is the main and simple logic in the process of insight.

Ven. Nandaka the foremost advisor of nuns:

“So then, sisters, what do you think: Is the eye constant or inconstant?” “Inconstant, venerable sir.”

[…]

"This simile, sisters, I have given to convey a message. The message is this: The substance of the inner flesh stands for the six internal media; the substance of the outer hide, for the six external media. The skin muscles, connective tissues, & attachments in between stand for passion & delight. And the sharp knife stands for noble discernment — the noble discernment that cuts, severs, & detaches the defilements, fetters, & bonds in between.”—-MN 146

For beginners, this is one good way to explain 3 types of dukkha.

I think you explain it for beginners. :grin:
Regards to arahants? does not seem to fit such a narrative. Also for sotapanna maybe such projections of the 3 types of dukkha will not fit.

So what’s the difference with respect to the ariyas? Can provide sutta support if possible?

“If clung to” is cause of dukkha (next rebirth, next existence, next experienve)

Nibbanadhatu is dukkhanirodha

Good point :pray:
Impermanent/ change (viparinama) and conditionality (sankhara) is character of dukkha. Everything that has the character of change and is conditioned is dukkha.

Most people get caught up in “experience”. Thinking that dukkha is just a matter of experience. So the translator uses the word “sankhara produce dukkha”: in his assumption, because is one doesn’t like sankhara, his mind becomes dukkha. Here it is stuck. Whereas dukkha as an uncomfortable experience is the first type of dukkha: dukkha-dukkhata. Two others types of dukkha are reality in everything but nibbana.

I change my mind again, due to this:

Thg 248

Those who
for the sake of sacrifice
for the sake of wealth
we have killed in the past,
against their will
have trembled and babbled
from fear.
But you —
you show no fear;
your complexion brightens.
Why don’t you lament
in the face of what’s greatly to be feared

[Ven. Adhimutta:]

There are no painful mental states (domanassa), chieftain,
in one without longing.
In one whose fetters are ended,
all fears are overcome.
With the ending of [craving]
the guide to becoming,
when phenomena are seen
for what they are,
then just as in the laying down of a burden,
there’s no fear in death.

I’ve lived well the holy life,
well-developed the path.
Death holds no fear for me.
It’s like the end of a disease.

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No , they may not commit suicide on hearing life is suffering , bhante . Never heard of , yet . :grinning:
It seems for beginners they like to hear something matching to their desire . As can be seen they like to give , make offering , in return , they gets more . Thats seems what the Buddha taught to lay people . Then the Buddha said , if you perform evil deeds , disaster would be following . Lay people do not want to end suffering , they wants to achieve a satisfying , pleasurable and extra enjoyment in their life . :smile: . Only failing that , they thinks of suiciding .

Please also read M.N.2

Here’s a complication just introduced to me by my teacher.

The Buddha said he could experience vihesā.

From DPD, vihesā has 2 meanings.

  1. fem. irritation; annoyance; trouble [vi + √his + *ā]

  2. fem. harm; cruelty; viciousness; brutality [vi + √his + *ā]

According to the Ariyapariyesana Sutta, the recently awakened Buddha was disinclined to teach his discovery to others, as he anticipated that this would lead to fatigue and vihesā, so mam’ assa kilamatho, sā mam’ assa vihesā (M. I, 168). From analayo encyclopedia.

The way to avoid contradiction is to posit that vihesā might be physical unpleasant feeling or neutral feeling, as domanassa, mental unpleasant feeling is stated as not present in arahants according to Thg 248.

But first look at annoyance, we all would intuitively say that it has mental unpleasant feelings. Something has to give. What do you think?

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As I understand Dhamma it is impossible for arahat to experience mental unpleasant feeling. And based on this I would translate the term as troublesome. To find something troublesome not necessarily involves mental unpleasant feeling.

For example teaching Dhamma to the fool, indeed is quite troublesome, but need not to be connected with mental unpleasant feeling.

  1. “Here, bhikkhus, compassionate and seeking their welfare, the Teacher teaches the Dhamma to the disciples out of compassion: ‘This is for your welfare; this is for your happiness.’ His disciples do not want to hear or give ear or exert their minds to understand; they err and turn aside from the Teacher’s Dispensation. With that the Tathāgata is not satisfied and feels no satisfaction; yet he dwells unmoved, mindful, and fully aware. This, bhikkhus, is called the first foundation of mindfulness that the Noble One cultivates, cultivating which the Noble One is a teacher fit to instruct a group.

  2. “Furthermore, bhikkhus, compassionate and seeking their welfare, the Teacher teaches the Dhamma to the disciples out of compassion: ‘This is for your welfare; this is for your happiness.’ Some of his disciples will not hear or give ear or exert their minds to understand; they err and turn aside from the Teacher’s Dispensation. Some of his disciples will hear and give ear and exert their minds to understand; they do not err and turn aside from the Teacher’s Dispensation. With that the Tathāgata is not satisfied and feels no satisfaction, and he is not dissatisfied and feels no dissatisfaction; remaining free from both satisfaction and dissatisfaction, he dwells in equanimity, mindful, and fully aware. This, bhikkhus, is called the second foundation of mindfulness that the Noble One cultivates, cultivating which the Noble One is a teacher fit to instruct a group.

  3. “Furthermore, bhikkhus, compassionate and seeking their welfare, the Teacher teaches the Dhamma to the disciples out of compassion: ‘This is for your welfare; this is for your happiness.’ His disciples will hear and give ear and exert their minds to understand; they do not err and turn aside from the Teacher’s Dispensation. With that the Tathāgata is satisfied and feels satisfaction; yet he dwells unmoved, mindful, and fully aware. This, bhikkhus, is called the third foundation of mindfulness that the Noble One cultivates, cultivating which the Noble One is a teacher fit to instruct a group.

MN 137

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I think we all can understand, see, feel that we can become annoyed, irritated, or in general emotional in a reactive or impulsive way, as an immediatete respons to some situation. But we can also know and see and feel that not all emotions arise this way. Also not annoyance. Like a parent. There can come a time that the parent acts skilfully just to become angry. Just short. It is very different from the first scenario.

I do not feel we have to avoid that a Buddha can still become emotional too. The uprooting of anusaya only means the uprooting of becoming engaged in a compulsive unvoluntairy way. Like scenario 1.
Scenario 1 does not happen.

Avijja just supports this instinctively being grasped by what arises. When there is avijja, there is fettering, unfreedom, being ruled by conditioning, inner drifts, forces of habits. Where there is no avijja, this is absent. But it does not mean that mind becomes unable to become annoyed, or that a person has no preferences at all, or that this person is not able to conceive or become emotional. I do not believe that.

The same with me and mine-making. A freed mind is only without instinctive me and mine making but, the sutta’s clearly show that also a Buddha formes still thought of me of mine regarding body and mind. I also do not exactly know why people do not pick up that when body and mind are literally seen as not me and not mine, that is sickness and leads to misery.

The clue is, i believe…a freed mind just as easy identifies and picks up, as it abandones that and lets go. That is its freedom. Inability cannot be the taste of Nibbana.

To update, only now did I check it in sc. thag16.1

“There isn’t any mental suffering
“Natthi cetasikaṁ dukkhaṁ,
for one without hope, village chief.
anapekkhassa gāmaṇi;
All fears are left behind
Atikkantā bhayā sabbe,
by one whose fetters have ended.
khīṇasaṁyojanassa ve.

It’s not domanassa, but basically the same.

The problem with how people think about suffering, i feel, is that they just decide/resolve that all is suffering. But people make this up. There is no ratio behind it. No experiential ground for doing so.
We can call things in our experience ‘tall’ because there are also things that can be called ‘small’. Likewise suffering. Without counterpart of suffering in our experience or as something known, suffering becomes meaningless. I do not believe Buddha practiced this way. Suffering was a real experience for him. Not a concept. Something felt, experienced, known to him. In the same way, i believe ,the end of suffering was known to him, not as prospect of a final death without something remaining, but really, end of suffering in this very life.

End of mental suffering as the sutta said above. Physical suffering not.

It’s only logical to see that without body or mind, there’s no physical or mental suffering.

To feel, know, and experience is dukkha due to the mind which knows is impermanent. This is the change dukkha or conditionality dukkha.

You ignore what i write…again. please think about this…without counterpart, suffering is really meaningless. It is meaningless just to define all as suffering.