It is also important to understand the following:
“There is a difference between suffering (the feeling or vedanā) and the ability to understand the causes of it (paññā or wisdom.) The latter can lead to future suffering, and that is what the First Noble Truth explains.
- Pāli word for suffering is dukha. On the other hand, dukkha (with two “k”) is dukha + kha or the “removal of dukha” in the sense that there is dukha in the world, but it can be overcome. Thus, in most places in the Tipiṭaka, dukkha conveys “suffering” but implies that it can be overcome.
- Dukha (suffering) is the opposite of sukha (pleasure). That is in several suttās. For example, in the “Bhāra Sutta (SN 22.22)“:
“Bhārā have pañcakkhandhā,
bhārahāro ca puggalo;
Bhārādānaṃ dukhaṃ loke,
bhāranikkhepanaṃ sukhaṃ”.
Translated: “The five aggregates are burdens,
The burden-carrier is the person;
Carrying the burden is suffering in the world,
Laying the burden down is blissful“.
- Of course, the word dukkha appears in most suttā because that is what Buddha Dhamma is all about, i.e., the removal of suffering.”
The above is extracted from the post “Does the First Noble Truth Describe only Suffering?“
