"Life Sux". Is this a modern and accurate description of the first noble truth?
We are told these days to be Positive. To me that is confirmation that Life Does Suck. But the soluton given is to actively create a state of denial and shift the mind's focus to 'joy/please/thrills'. "BE MORE POSITIVE!"
But I believe that Buddha would say: "But guys! Life still sux!". Your delusion/denial is only a bandaid at best.
He is saying that we need to work hard to escape the Life (that Sux) permanently. No mor eendless Kalpas of Re-Births.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
I doubt this in an accurate interpretation. "Life sucks," sounds more like the assessment of a depressed teenager or a French existentialist who had too much Pernod instead of the word of the Buddha. It would lead to nihilism.
The Buddha didn't teach that life sux, however that we create suffering for ourselves and others through our attitude.
So you could say perhaps that there is suffering because our attitude sux, the Buddha's teaching is mostly about changing our attitude.
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.” ― Ajahn Chah
Anicca wrote:4) There is a path to the ending of sucking.
A new set of false teeth!
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.” ― Ajahn Chah
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
Thank you Chris for pointing out that very important distinction.
metta
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Shonin wrote:Also 'unsatisfactoriness' or 'unreliability' may be a better translation than 'suffering'.
Or maybe not.
Better to internalise the meaning of Dukkha, as it appears in the context of the Suttas imo.
Just as we all have with "Kamma" or " Metta".
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.
Shonin wrote:Also 'unsatisfactoriness' or 'unreliability' may be a better translation than 'suffering'.
Or maybe not.
Better to internalise the meaning of Dukkha, as it appears in the context of the Suttas imo.
Just as we all have with "Kamma" or " Metta".
It was from studying suttas and commentaries on suttas that I arrived at this provisional understanding. Dukkha seems to have a range of meanings which don't always correspond exactly to our concept of 'suffering'.
