Morning Coffee Pali Musing

[daverupa]

As I drank a morning cup of coffee, a reflection arose in my mind thus: Suppose one were to translate dukkha as 'troublesome'; does this capture the essential meaning?

[David2]

Source: Pali-English Dictionary, TW Rhys Davids, William Stede,
Description:
Dukkha (adj. -- n.) [Sk. duḥkha fr. duḥ -- ka, an adj. forma- tion fr. prefix duḥ (see du). According to others an analogy formation after sukha, q. v.; Bdhgh (at Vism 494) expls dukkha as du+kha, where du=du1 and kha=ākāsa. See also def. at Vism 461.] A. (adj.) unpleasant, painful, causing misery (opp. sukha pleasant) Vin i.34; Dh 117. Lit. of vedanā (sensation) M i.59 (˚ŋ vedanaŋ vediyamāna, see also below iii.1 e); A ii.116=M. i.10 (sarīrikāhi vedanāhi dukkhāhi). <-> Fig. (fraught with pain, entailing sorrow or trouble) of kāmā D i.36 (=paṭipīḷan -- aṭṭhena DA i.121); Dh 186 (=bahudukkha DhA iii.240); ofjāti M i.185 (cp. ariyasacca, below B I.); in combn dukkhā paṭipadā dandhābhiññā D iii.106; Dhs 176; Nett 7, 112 sq., cp. A ii.149 sq. ekanta˚ very painful, giving much pain S ii.173; iii.69. dukkhaŋ (adv.) with difficulty, hardly J i.215.

Well, "entailing trouble" is very close to troublesome... so the dictionary says basically that it is possible to translate dukkha this way.

[bodom]

Personally I've always preferred the translation "stress" for dukkha. I think "troublesome" also captures the meaning pretty well.

[lucky-2012]

Nice musing!

Isnt 'troublesome' an adjective though, and 'dukkha' a noun?

So I would say 'troublesome' describes 'dukkha', but they are not interchangeable...



With metta

[piotr]

Hi,

Certainly when someone cuts your limbs with two-handed saw it is troublesome. But isn't it also a bit more than that? What I'm getting at is that the semantic range of the word dukkha is so wide, that it's quite impossible to cover it with one modern word. Or so says a lot of translators…

[piotr]

Hi,

So I would say 'troublesome' describes 'dukkha', but they are not interchangeable...

Dukkha can be a noun aswell as an adjective.

[Sam Vara]

I like it. I can only think of two slight drawbacks.

First, we tend to use it more frquently in cases where the "fault" or agency resides outside of ourselves. What is troublesome is the cause or circumstance which gives rise to the trouble, rather than our response to it. "A troublesome wasp" or "A troublesome customer", for example. This would make further exploration into our contribution to the trouble a bit harder.

Second, as an adjective, it would need to be prefixed with "the" in order to make sense in some formulations. "The Noble Truth of The Troublesome", for example. "The Noble Truth of Trouble" has a touch of the bathetic. "Suffering" doubles as a noun or an adjective according to context, and "Stress" just needs "-full".

[Viscid]

I don't think 'troublesome' quite captures the strain that dukkha places on the individual.. It conjures images of hyperactive children who enjoy running around and knocking things over.. Also saying 'birth is troublesome, aging is troublesome, death is troublesome' sounds quite.. funny..