The Three Basic Facts of Existence II: Suffering (Dukkha) - Buddhist ...

gladness; without gladness he has no happiness (pīti); without happiness he has no tranquillity;without tranquillity he abides in suffering; and consciousness affected by suffering does notbecome concentrated; when that is so, true ideas (dhamma) remain unclear; and with that he isreckoned as one who abides in negligence.” 119 “An untaught ordinary man, when touched by(bodily) unpleasant feeling, sorrows and laments, beating his breast, he weeps and becomesdistraught. He thus feels two kinds of (unpleasant) feeling: the bodily and the mental as well …But a well-taught disciple of the Ariyas, when touched by (bodily) unpleasant feeling, does notsorrow … and become distraught. He thus feels only the bodily (unpleasant) feeling, not themental.” 120Not all grief is unprofitable (akusala), however, since “here a Bhikkhu considers thus ’Whenshall I enter upon and abide in that base which the Ariyas enter upon and abide in?’ and as hebuilds up love for the supreme liberation in this way, grief arises in him with that love ascondition; yet through that he comes to abandon resistance (paṭigha) and no tendency toresistance underlies that.” 121 Such grief, like the desire (chanda) to terminate it, is a spur toprogress; but the actual perfection of understanding has no grief at all. “I do not say of the fourNoble Truths that there is penetration to them together with suffering and grief; on the contraryI say that there is penetration to them together with pleasure and joy.” 122The perception of suffering is the second of the “eighteen principal insights (mahā-vipassanā:see the article on Anicca). According to the Visuddhimagga “One who maintains thecontemplation of suffering abandons perception of pleasure (in what is unpleasant)” and“contemplation of suffering and contemplation of the desireless (appaṇihitānupassanā) are “onein meaning and different only in the letter,” 123 since “one who maintains in being thecontemplation of the desireless abandons desire (paṇidhi).” The development of contemplationof suffering based on rise and fall is given in the Visuddhimagga. 124In the Canonical commentary, the Paṭisambhidāmagga, suffering appears as speciallyconnected with concentration, and as the second of the three alternative “gateways toliberation.” “When one gives attention to suffering the concentration faculty is outstanding justas in the cases of attention given to impermanence and not-self the respective faculties of faithand understanding are outstanding.” 125—Ñāṇamoli Thera119SN 35:97/S IV 78.120SN 36: 6/S IV 208–9.121MN 44/M I 303–4.122SN 56:35/S V 441.123Vism Ch. 20, p. 628.124Vism Ch. 21.125See Vism Ch. 21, p. 657ff, quoting Vimokkhakathá, Paþis II 58, etc. See also the article on Anicca.48