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The Fuzz word dukkha
A fuzz word is an umbrella
term (i.e. a metaphor) that covers a
variety of meanings. It cannot produce meaning closure, therefore leaves the
reader to superimpose his or her own meaning. In short, a fuzz word is one
with a high degree of ambiguity. All the important words used by the Buddha
were fuzz words, e.g. anatta, nirvana, sankhara, dharma and so on.
The word dukkha is derived from Sanskrit. duHkha: According to Sanskrit grammarians properly written
‘duS-kha’ and said to be from dus and kha, but more probably a Pra1kritized
form for duH-stha, and which – as meaphor – can mean: uneasy, uncomfortable,
unpleasant, difficult; hard; uneasiness, pain, sorrow, trouble, distress;
discomfort; pain, suffering; misery;
agony. duHkham = to be sad or uneasy. Pali
‘experts’ (i.e. 19th century Christian amateur translators)
generally accepted that there is no English equivalent for the word. In fact,
no one knows its precise meaning. It is generally translated into English as:
dukkha: unpleasant, painful (probably
inapplicable because too strong physically), causing misery (so
Buddhaghosa); fig. pain, entailing sorrow (probably
inapplicable because too strong mentally or emotionally) or trouble;
possibly ‘ill’. The most flexible modern translations of the term would be
distress. The most apt would be ‘sucks’ (i.e. survival capacity) Note: the
original meanings presented above do not include the term ‘suffering’ (i.e.
intense anguish). Suffering (and its notion) is inserted later (and
deviously) to increase the intensity, and therefore impact, of the word
dukkha. Hence the translation ‘The Four Noble Truths of Suffering’ is
false. It should read: ‘The Four Noble Truths of Unpleasantness’ (or simply
‘distress’). The Tathagata could have
saved everybody a lot of dukkha (and prevented the writing of a mountain of
irrelevant and misleading articles and books) had he provided and unambiguous
definition of the term. But he didn’t. He merely provided a biased selection
of examples of the emergence of dukkha. “This,
O bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of dukkha (here
dukkha is usually intentionally mistranslated as suffering): birth is dukkha; decay is
dukkha; illness is dukkha; death is dukkha. Presence of objects we hate is
dukkha; separation from objects we love is dukkha; not to obtain what we
desire is dukkha. Briefly, the fivefold clinging to existence is dukkha.” Note the
extraordinary ambiguity of the foregoing! The word dukkha here means
‘distressing’ (hence dukkha meaning No 1), to wit, ‘birth is distressing’’.
However, distress (or suffering) (hence dukkha meaning No 2), and which can
be managed, controlled and eliminated, happens as a response to the distress
(i.e. indeed to all stress or stressors). In the latter sense, the 1st
Noble truth is logically the 2nd Noble Truth, namely the cause of
distress. In short,
dukkha can mean either distress (dukkha No 1) or the negative response to
stress, namely distress, i.e. suffering, unpleasantness and so on, i.e.
dukkha No 2. The positive response to stress would be pleasure (Pali:
sukkha). The fundamentally dual
character of the word dukkha (as well as of the other fuzz words used by the
Buddha, see above) eventually led to the ‘Two Truths’ teaching of Buddhism
and which contributed significantly to the disappearance of Buddhism’s in
India. |