Unedited notes taken at moment of insight:
Birth is dukkha, illness is dukkha, old age is dukkha, death is dukkha. Not having/meeting liked is dukkhā, Meeting/having unliked is dukkhā. In short not having what one likes is dukkhā. PañcaUpādānaKhandha is origin of dukkhā.
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By understanding the first noble truth the origin of dukkha must be understood.
Dukkha arises due to having PañcaUpādānaKhandha for saṅkhata with Aniccā nature. That is gist of this whole truth.
Now, why are the internal and external Rūpa of all kinds Aniccā?
If internal Rūpa were niccā (as per one’s desire, wishes), we could say that let senses (which are what internal Rūpa are) be always fulfilled, yet, despite putting so much effort (let alone the wishing) for their fulfilment, we are always left unsatisfied, unfulfilled, helpless state. Because we cannot desire what we have And we have never been able to have what we desire. Let’s say this statement is false, then tell me, what have you found in this unfathomably long sansarā that you can claim is according to your own liking completely and not only it is niccā but also you are able to keep it.
Permanent unending happiness, bliss, pleasure, rapture, joy is what everyone desires. No one is whole world can rightly claim that they are doing saṅkhāra for having Suffering, not for happiness. It is altogether a different matter, however, that happiness in this world is first conditional and second too momentarily/fleeting/brief/short etc.
Due to the happiness in this world being conditional, one must be CONSTANTLY making conditions to make sure that one will have his future happiness, if not, one will be grief struck and distraught.
So, this constantly working to have happiness is first kind of dukkhā that one must face.
Not having what one desire after saṅkhāra dukkhā
Not being able to keep what one desire after doing saṅkhāra
There are also two type of paths to happiness.
One is worldly happiness. We all know about worldly happiness. worldly happiness is defined by constant “chase” behind it. It is something we have ran behind for unfathomable long sansarā, yet where is that happiness? Isn’t this happiness (worldly happiness) like Mirage, you constantly running behind it, and in many cases to do get to this Mirage unlike Mirage in dessert, yet, one has never been able to keep it to one’s liking.
Another is kind of happiness that is completely mutually exclusive to worldy happiness. Biggest benifit of this this happiness is that once it is achieved it doesn’t require any further future maintenance.
It is truly according to one’s wishes. One can not ever lost it due to any reason. There is not even ounce of physical or mental suffering in it. It is permanent unending.
However, as this two types of happiness are mutually exclusive. One cannot have his foot in both of this happiness completely. Before understanding the message of buddha one is constantly standing on worldly happiness,
It is not that permanent happiness cannot be had by anyone. Anyone in this world can have permanent happiness. If only they chose to cultivate the causes that leads to permanent happiness.
First observation: this truth is not about feeling of suffering. it is about constantly present (inherent) problem of dukkhā.
Dukkha is removable suffering. Not unstoppable/unpreventable suffering.
It is removable, because it has originated from the causes. With removal of the causes leading to dukkhā, dukkha ceases. So, suffering is NOT inevitable if causes are removed for that suffering. For example, If one removes the causes for birth in human realm, all the dukkha one has to face in human realm can be instantly eliminated. Even better would be to remove the causes permanently, for permanent stopping of any suffering.
Now, old age and illness mostly applies to animal and human realm. This two realms are most prone to suffering caused by
Suffering is visible both here and now and suffering to come can also be easily predicated for future lives.
Suffering here and now: three kinds of dukkha in human realm.
Suffering in future: first is being born in apāyā. Second is again the insatiable nature of both internal and external Rūpa of any kind ranging from the most dense rupa of niraya to most subtle kind of Rupa in arūpāvacara Brahma realms. All are subject to
Analysis: direct dukkha, indirect second or third order effects of that dukkha. Niraya, human and any higher realm dukkha. Saṅkhata vs living being dukkha, Aniccā embedded in everything, origin of dukkha PañcaUpādānaKhandha.
All saṅkhata with dukkhā characteristic always makes us helpless at the end. Because we do them for happiness. We do saṅkhāra for this saṅkhata in hopes that we will have HAPPINESS. Noone wants this happiness to end. Yet, it always inevitably unstoppably goes away. Making us helpless in the end. Either of internal Rūpa or either external rupa will go into viparinama state. This change can be gradual (getting old in case of living beings and getting decayed in case of any non living saṅkhata) OR they can have sudden unexpected change in their state (sudden illness, sudden untimely death in case of living beings and sudden unexpected rapid change in case of any non living saṅkhata.) Leaving us helpless in end always. Either of this two type of change must happen to everything.
So, this is nature of suffering INHERENT in world. It is independent of ourself, our actions. Because it is inevitable unstoppable suffering.
Buddha goes as far as to say that world is indeed anchored in suffering. Why? Because, laws of nature are such that achieving permanent happiness in this world of 31 realms is impossible task, an uphill battle.
YET, we do not have to experience this suffering. Just because, ALL worldly objects are filled with suffering doesn’t mean we all have to experience suffering through them.
For example, if you knew the pan that is kept on stove is very hot, would you touch it?
Just like that if you can understand this much about the nature of worldly objects in world. How they have inherent dukkha nature in them, would you embrace them?
And our problem is just this,
we need to understand just this much.
First we should be able to understand how worldly objects are like hot pan.
Second we need to understand that just because a hot pan is in front of us, it doesn’t cause us suffering. It is when we touch it, that it leads to painful feelings. Here, touching hot pan means the tanha, desire to experience worldly objects. This tanha/craving is through either greed or hatred. Greed is more Fundamental, we want to have good part of worldly objects without their corresponding bad part (which inevitably comes up). We arise hatred when the “supposedly” good state of object inevitably turns to “bad” state.
Example. A very simple but illuminating example, would be about aging. One would not want to have decayed sense faculties, one would like to have faculties of young men, but, no one in world can have it to their own liking. However, one can stop having the human body in first place, that would automatically eliminate the suffering that comes consequently due to having human body. How would one do that? By removing the causes leading to birth of human body.
It must be mentioned that this are just narrow examples, but, the suffering characteristic is there in everything.
If someone were to say attachment is what leads to suffering, he would be wrong. Because, attachment does not lead to suffering, it is attachment to objects with nature of suffering that leads to suffering. If one were to attach to object that leads to true happiness they would not be suffering. So, it is not as much as problem of attachment as to it is problem of what we are attaching to.
We all want to have something which is niccā. That is we want to have something to our complete liking. That is why we device all shorts of methods and tricks to make ourselves happy. Going so far as to do various very very immoral kinds actions, all in our quest to happiness. (Harming others either physically or mentally. Lying, killing, stealing, beating, violence, corruption)
yet that is something utterly impossible. You don’t have to be Sisyphus. All Sisyphus can do is rolling the stones again and again. Yet, you have choice to change the way you approach this quets of Happiness.
If you were to run behind the kind of happiness that doesn’t change, doesn’t deteriorate with time, doesn’t go away once achieved, which js completely to your liking all the time, will you not want that kind of happiness ? Would not that be much better kind of happiness then the kind of happiness we constantly chase behind.
Quest for Sensual pleasures is bitter at beginning and end, sweet at the infinitesimal moment at the middle. Effort of acquiring sensual pleasures is suffering, sense faculties not fulfilled by such happiness even after getting it, is not to our complete liking either.
If you cannot have something the way you wish, is it niccā or Aniccā?
If you cannot have the good part of something without the bad part that comes with it, is it niccā or Aniccā?
So, becuse you cannot have good part without bad part, that is what Aniccā is. Not to liking. If it were completely niccā, than we would be able to have good part without bad part in any worldly object. We would not suffer, but, because they are Aniccā we suffer after touching them.