The First Noble Truth

Dukkha (suffering) is part of conditioned existence

What is Suffering?

Dukkha is a Pali word often translated as suffering.  According to Buddhanet.net (2010) Dukkha encompasses all experiences that are difficult to bear ranging "from extreme physical and mental pain and torment to subtle inner conflicts and existential malaise". 

What is a Conditioned Existence?

Conditioned existence is what we experience everyday.  Conditioning is the lens through which we perceive our world.  It is what reinforces the perception that I am me and that you are you.  An analogy is presented in the first Matrix movie in which the world that Neo thinks is real is actually an illusion created by a computer program. 

At first glance the teaching that life is suffering may seem like a downer.  One may ask why would anyone be interested in something that says, "life sucks"?  This is our conditioned existence speaking.  Conditioning makes the experience of discomfort a "bad" thing.  Life is not synonymous with conditioned existence.

I do not think that I was alone as a child in my thinking that a life free of suffering was possible.  I was pretty sure it would happen when I got my drivers license (that didn't do it).  I remember feeling confident that it would happen sometime during college (it didn't).  At times I thought that rich people had it (they don't).  I think you get the point.

Paradoxically having the notion that a "better" life exists and grasping at experiences that approximate such a life are the very roadblocks that get in the way of living a life free from suffering.  Let me present another example:  As a kid I hated scary movies.  I closed my eyes during the opening scene of Jaws and got so upset that my family had to turn off the movie.  I once called my parents to pick me up from a sleep over during which a bunch of people got shot with a machine gun.  

I remember when Batman the movie came out on VHS.  We rented it and I covered my eyes when my brother's said that a scary part was coming up.  I pictured a scene so horrific that I began crying and feeling nauseous.  My brother stopped the tape, rewound, and made me watch the scene with my eyes open.  The Joker electrocuted some guy and his face melted like wax off his skull.  It was so fake that it made me laugh.  I learned that day that the idea of something is often scarier than the thing itself.

Buddhism presents that dukkha is a part of life as we experience it.  This is not bad news, nor is it good news, it just is.  Sitting with the discomfort that this truth creates has been a powerful experience, and has not been as scary as going through life with eyes closed every time that I saw dukkha on the horizon.

When we recognize and acknowledge our own suffering, the Buddha - which means the Buddha in us - will look at it, discover what has brought it about, and prescribe a course of action that can transform it into peace, joy, and liberation. Suffering is the means the Buddha used to liberate himself, and it is also the means by which we can become free. -Thick Nhat Hanh (1999)

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/8foldpath.htm

Hanh, TN. (1999). The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. Broadway Books, New York.