Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

[Malcolm]

I recall suchness in the Gompa being a word that brought about a huge discussion.

All Rinpoche said to an English teacher who was present...
Well it was your people that translated and used it this way..

suchness...another fun word...

Yes, it translates tathāta. Tathā means, quite literally, "that" or "such." The "ta" is equivalent to "-ness."

The Tibetan is little better: de bzhin nyid, literally "like that itself."

[Kim O'Hara]

Once again, you do not (and can not) establish any connection between 'dukkha' and 'suffering' by quoting definitions or origins of 'suffering' which do not mention 'dukkha'.

duHkha 1 mfn. (according to grammarians properly written %{duS-kha} and said to be from %{dus} and %{kha} [cf. %{su-kha4}] ; but more probably a Pra1kritized form for %{duH-stha} q.v.) uneasy , uncomfortable , unpleasant , difficult R. Hariv. (compar. %{-tara} MBh. R.) ; n. (ifc. f. %{A}) uneasiness , pain , sorrow , trouble , difficulty S3Br. xiv , 7 , 2 , 15 Mn. MBh. &c. (personified as the son of Naraka and Vedana1 VP.) ; (%{am}) ind. with difficulty , scarcely , hardly (also %{at} and %{ena}) MBh. R. ; impers. it is difficult to or to be (inf.with an acc. or nom. R. vii , 6 , 38 Bhag. v , 6) ; %{duHkham} - %{as} , to be sad or uneasy Ratn. iv , 19/20 ; - %{kR} , to cause or feel pain Ya1jn5. ii , 218 MBh. xii , 5298.
2 duHkha 2 Nom. P. %{-khati} , to pain SaddhP.
...

Yes - that's exactly the kind of thing you need to justify your preferred translation.
However, I can't actually see the word 'suffering' there ...


Kim

[PadmaVonSamba]

This is not all that different from the term “passion”. It’s why people are disappointed when they go to see a Christian church’s Easter season ‘Passion Play” and they suddenly realize there’s not going to be a hot sex scene in it.
Passion also means suffering.

[Hazel]

Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

[amanitamusc]

Once again, you do not (and can not) establish any connection between 'dukkha' and 'suffering' by quoting definitions or origins of 'suffering' which do not mention 'dukkha'.

duHkha 1 mfn. (according to grammarians properly written %{duS-kha} and said to be from %{dus} and %{kha} [cf. %{su-kha4}] ; but more probably a Pra1kritized form for %{duH-stha} q.v.) uneasy , uncomfortable , unpleasant , difficult R. Hariv. (compar. %{-tara} MBh. R.) ; n. (ifc. f. %{A}) uneasiness , pain , sorrow , trouble , difficulty S3Br. xiv , 7 , 2 , 15 Mn. MBh. &c. (personified as the son of Naraka and Vedana1 VP.) ; (%{am}) ind. with difficulty , scarcely , hardly (also %{at} and %{ena}) MBh. R. ; impers. it is difficult to or to be (inf.with an acc. or nom. R. vii , 6 , 38 Bhag. v , 6) ; %{duHkham} - %{as} , to be sad or uneasy Ratn. iv , 19/20 ; - %{kR} , to cause or feel pain Ya1jn5. ii , 218 MBh. xii , 5298.
2 duHkha 2 Nom. P. %{-khati} , to pain SaddhP.
...

Yes - that's exactly the kind of thing you need to justify your preferred translation.
However, I can't actually see the word 'suffering' there ...


Kim

Understanding Buddhism is difficult.It may take some time.

[Kim O'Hara]

This is not all that different from the term “passion”. It’s why people are disappointed when they go to see a Christian church’s Easter season ‘Passion Play” and they suddenly realize there’s not going to be a hot sex scene in it.
Passion also means suffering.

And causes suffering, come to think of it.
But Passion is an excellent book (the Winterson one, I mean).
So many words, so many meanings! I guess we should think ourselves lucky when they do align.


Kim

[Giovanni]

duHkha 1 mfn. (according to grammarians properly written %{duS-kha} and said to be from %{dus} and %{kha} [cf. %{su-kha4}] ; but more probably a Pra1kritized form for %{duH-stha} q.v.) uneasy , uncomfortable , unpleasant , difficult R. Hariv. (compar. %{-tara} MBh. R.) ; n. (ifc. f. %{A}) uneasiness , pain , sorrow , trouble , difficulty S3Br. xiv , 7 , 2 , 15 Mn. MBh. &c. (personified as the son of Naraka and Vedana1 VP.) ; (%{am}) ind. with difficulty , scarcely , hardly (also %{at} and %{ena}) MBh. R. ; impers. it is difficult to or to be (inf.with an acc. or nom. R. vii , 6 , 38 Bhag. v , 6) ; %{duHkham} - %{as} , to be sad or uneasy Ratn. iv , 19/20 ; - %{kR} , to cause or feel pain Ya1jn5. ii , 218 MBh. xii , 5298.
2 duHkha 2 Nom. P. %{-khati} , to pain SaddhP.
...

Yes - that's exactly the kind of thing you need to justify your preferred translation.
However, I can't actually see the word 'suffering' there ...


Kim

Understanding Buddhism is difficult.It may take some time.

And even then only if we want to understand it, not to interpret it for others.

[Malcolm]

Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/p ... rchhws=yes

[Kim O'Hara]

Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/p ... rchhws=yes

Thanks, Malcolm.
The link, for those still following the discussion, is the PTS dictionary's definition of dukkha. The key points in it, from my POV, are these two paragraphs, and particularly the two sentences I have made bold text:

B. (nt.; but pl. also dukkhā, e. g. S i.23; Sn 728; Dh 202, 203, 221. Spelling dukha (after sukha) at Dh 83, 203). There is no word in English covering the same ground as Dukkha does in Pali. Our modern words are too specialised, too limited, and usually too strong. Sukha & dukkha are ease and dis-ease (but we use disease in another sense); or wealth and ilth from well & ill (but we have now lost ilth); or wellbeing and ill-ness (but illness means something else in English). We are forced, therefore, in translation to use half synonyms, no one of which is exact. Dukkha is equally mental & physical. Pain is too predominantly physical, sorrow too exclusively mental, but in some connections they have to be used in default of any more exact rendering. Discomfort, suffering, ill, and trouble can occasionally be used in certain connections. Misery, distress, agony, affliction and woe are never right. They are all much too strong & are only mental (see Mrs. Rh. D. Bud. Psy. 83-86, quoting Ledi Sadaw).
I. Main Points in the Use of the Word. -- The recognition of the fact of Dukkha stands out as essential in early Buddhism. In the very first discourse the four socalled Truths or Facts (see saccāni) deal chiefly with dukkha. The first of the four gives certain universally recognised cases of it, & then sums them up in short. The five groups (of physical & mental qualities which make an individual) are accompanied by ill so far as those groups are fraught with āsavas and grasping. ...

The PTS goes on to give sources for the second paragraph (which I might look at again after such a long gap) and then, as Heather noted, on and on and on, less usefully for most of us.


Kim

[Kim O'Hara]

Yes - that's exactly the kind of thing you need to justify your preferred translation.
However, I can't actually see the word 'suffering' there ...


Kim

Understanding Buddhism is difficult.It may take some time.

And even then only if we want to understand it, not to interpret it for others.

In case you're misunderstanding my intention, Giovanni and amanitamusc ...

...I'm coming to this from a background of some decades as a teacher (not of the dharma ). I'm a professional explainer: years of studying how to do it, years of getting better at doing it. From that perspective, it's always true that if we can't can't put our knowledge into other words, we don't understand what we're talking about. And if our students can't put their new knowledge into other words, words we teachers haven't used, they don't understand it. It shows up at every level from little kids up to physics Ph D students and adult hobby-course students.
So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

Kim

[Malcolm]

Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/p ... rchhws=yes

Thanks, Malcolm.
The link, for those still following the discussion, is the PTS dictionary's definition of dukkha. The key points in it, from my POV, are these two paragraphs, and particularly the two sentences I have made bold text:

B. (nt.; but pl. also dukkhā, e. g. S i.23; Sn 728; Dh 202, 203, 221. Spelling dukha (after sukha) at Dh 83, 203). There is no word in English covering the same ground as Dukkha does in Pali. Our modern words are too specialised, too limited, and usually too strong. Sukha & dukkha are ease and dis-ease (but we use disease in another sense); or wealth and ilth from well & ill (but we have now lost ilth); or wellbeing and ill-ness (but illness means something else in English). We are forced, therefore, in translation to use half synonyms, no one of which is exact. Dukkha is equally mental & physical. Pain is too predominantly physical, sorrow too exclusively mental, but in some connections they have to be used in default of any more exact rendering. Discomfort, suffering, ill, and trouble can occasionally be used in certain connections. Misery, distress, agony, affliction and woe are never right. They are all much too strong & are only mental (see Mrs. Rh. D. Bud. Psy. 83-86, quoting Ledi Sadaw).
I. Main Points in the Use of the Word. -- The recognition of the fact of Dukkha stands out as essential in early Buddhism. In the very first discourse the four socalled Truths or Facts (see saccāni) deal chiefly with dukkha. The first of the four gives certain universally recognised cases of it, & then sums them up in short. The five groups (of physical & mental qualities which make an individual) are accompanied by ill so far as those groups are fraught with āsavas and grasping. ...

The PTS goes on to give sources for the second paragraph (which I might look at again after such a long gap) and then, as Heather noted, on and on and on, less usefully for most of us.


Kim

Suffer means to bear difficulty, pain, anguish, sorrow and so on. Seems like a perfect equivalent to me, apart form the samskara dukkha, which is not properly a kind of pain, but the general impermanence of formations. YMMV.

[Malcolm]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

[PadmaVonSamba]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

It’s very simple.
Mind is either at peace or it is not.
The specific details, range of pervasiveness, intensity, causes of a stirring mind are all secondary considerations.
Whatever the mind is when it’s not at peace
is dukkha.

[Malcolm]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

It’s very simple.
Mind is either at peace or it is not.
The specific details, range of pervasiveness, intensity, causes of a stirring mind are all secondary considerations.
Whatever the mind is when it’s not at peace
is dukkha.

Yes, because dukkha is suffering, which is anything unpleasant now or in the future that we must bear.

[Kim O'Hara]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting). First, that suffering is a "perfectly adequate" equivalent for dukkha. Second, that "everyone understands [it] immediately."
I'm not going to bother going back through the thread to find out how many members, how many times, have expressed reservations about one or both of those but you're welcome to. For myself, I will say thanks for the PTS entry (which also expressed reservations, but what would the compilers know anyway?) and (as I did earlier until I was provoked) step back to the sidelines.


Kim

[Malcolm]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting).

That’s what you think, but everything is still suffering.

[Kim O'Hara]

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting).

That’s what you think, but everything is still suffering.

That's what you think.
I'm prepared to leave it at that, as I said.


Kim

[Malcolm]

That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting).

That’s what you think, but everything is still suffering.

That's what you think.
I'm prepared to leave it at that, as I said.


Kim

If you think there is something in samsara that is not suffering, you should go for refuge to it.

[Giovanni]

Understanding Buddhism is difficult.It may take some time.

And even then only if we want to understand it, not to interpret it for others.

In case you're misunderstanding my intention, Giovanni and amanitamusc ...

...I'm coming to this from a background of some decades as a teacher (not of the dharma ). I'm a professional explainer: years of studying how to do it, years of getting better at doing it. From that perspective, it's always true that if we can't can't put our knowledge into other words, we don't understand what we're talking about. And if our students can't put their new knowledge into other words, words we teachers haven't used, they don't understand it. It shows up at every level from little kids up to physics Ph D students and adult hobby-course students.
So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

Kim

I would take the opposite view to yours while acknowledging that you have given this much thought. Sanskrit, Pali and to some degree those Chinese and Tibetan terms derived from the Sanskrit are Meta languages that cannot be rendered on a one to one basis into modern European languages..not just English. So that it is inevitable that discussions that happen outside of the brief scope of online forums end with half a page of words to explain a term that is covered by one orvtwo words in Sanskrit. Sanskrit evolved to express subtle ideas that do not exist in modern tongues. To give you an idea of that I learned a term in my Sanskrit lesson just two weeks ago which means “the initial fear that results from having a glimpse of Shunyata”..this is not an unusual example. In the Vajrayana we mostly use the terms adopted into Tibetan, but they have the Meta quality. Modern European languages have largely evolved to express materialistic and technological concepts. The reverse is also true. My Sanskrit teacher showed us how “engine” would be rendered into Sanskrit, the result had 14 syllables! “The thing that turns the thing that drives the thing”..Sanskrit evolved for a different purpose than modern languages.

[ThreeVows]

So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

I think in some contexts it's appropriate to not simply equate dukkha with suffering, personally. Reason being that in normal parlance, suffering implies acute suffering in the moment, which could be considered to be the type of dukkha called Dukkha-dukkha.

But for example Mipham explains that related to Viparinama-dukkha, something can be pleasant while it abides but then painful when it ceases. So for example one might be surrounded by many goddesses in considerable bliss, but this is still marked with 'dukkha'.

From the Mindfulness Sutra translated recently from 84000:

"“Once born there, they will enjoy divine delights, live from food that
yields incomparable pleasures, and be satiated by divine elixirs. Their bodies
and minds will be free from ailments, and they will wear divine garlands and
robes. Constantly playing the five types of instruments, laughing, and
enjoying themselves with dear friends and throngs of goddesses who all
sing beautifully, they will spend every single day in a bliss that is
continuous and increasing, like a waterfall in the mountains. In this manner,
they will enjoy themselves among summits of sapphire, coral, and silver. In
the forests they will encounter various streams, waterfalls, and pools, as well
as cuckoos and other birds. They will thereby intoxicate themselves with
these numerous sights, gazing at the ravishing parks and forests within their
divine world without ever feeling sated. In their rivers, waterfalls, pools,
forests, and parks flow a heavenly water that tastes like the best vintages
of winter wine, blended wine, or sugarcane wine ever made in
Jambudvīpa."

I think it's a bit at odds with the normal way of using the word 'suffering' to say that this is suffering, and yet from a Buddhist point of view, this is still marked with Dukkha. Hence, I think it's reasonable to not simply equate dukkha with suffering without further explanation if the context warrants it.

FWIW.