What is dukkha?

[Vaddha]

Responding here @yeshe.tenley

@yeshe.tenley

The three characteristics are not actually characterizing though

I don’t know what you mean by “characterizing” here. If you mean ‘sort into groups or classifications’ then I suppose I’d agree? But I just don’t think that’s how Buddhists tend to use these words. By ‘characteristic’ I hear it as designating an attribute. If you object to the word because you don’t think real, substantial things can be said to carry fundamental attributes or features, then I would agree. But I just mean the word in a common sense.

@yeshe.tenley

Nibbana is peace.

This use of the word matches with the above discussion.

@yeshe.tenley

The three marks (so as to disambiguate) do not use the word dukkhatā but rather use the word dukkha as in, “sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā.”

That’s because presumably the compilers of the texts knew Pāli grammar. ‘Dukkhatā’ is an abstract noun, not an adjective. To say ‘sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhatā’ wouldn’t really make any sense. The translation would be analogous to “All conditions are impermanence.” Proper English, and the Pāli equivalent, would be “All conditions are impermanent.” There is an equivalent word in Pāli for “impermanence” rather than “impermanent” and it’s ‘aniccatā.’ Another example is the “characteristic of suññatā.” Suñña means ‘empty,’ suññatā means emptiness. In Pāli, things are said to be ‘suñña,’ which is the characteristic of emptiness.

@yeshe.tenley

You’re effectively changing the four noble truths

Your response seems as though I myself have made this interpretation or it is revolutionary. But the four noble truths referring to conditional existence or conditioned phenomena is just standard across Buddhist traditions. I understand that in modern times, especially in the West which has influenced the East as well, the four noble truths are often reduced to psychological advice. But that’s not what I take the Teacher’s words to be saying. Just see the passage I cited where the first noble truth is defined as the six senses. Do you think that the Buddha’s six senses vanished under the Bodhi tree?

It is extremely common in the early discourses that words like ‘the All’ (sabba) or ‘the world’ (loka) are synonyms with dukkha and fill in the scheme of the four noble truths. These are defined as the six senses as well, or something akin to them. ‘Dukkha’ is functionally a synonym of ‘samsāra’ to my mind.

1. Cyclic existence
2. Its cause
3. Its cessation
4. The practice