What exactly does Buddhism mean by suffering (dukkha)? Life is not made of suffering - so what does the first truth actually say?

The first noble truth does not claim that life consists of suffering. It says that anything in our life that is subject to arising and decay cannot give reliable, final satisfaction. The word “dukkha” (dukkha) is wider than the English “suffering”: it covers everything from sharp pain to barely noticeable background unease. Dukkha is suffering, and pain, and futility, and nagging weariness.

The canon (see SN 38.14, SN 45.165) distinguishes three kinds of dukkha:

• dukkha as pain (dukkha-dukkhatā);
• the dukkha of change (vipariṇāma-dukkhatā);
• the pervasive dukkha of conditionality (saṅkhāra-dukkhatā).

The first kind is clear to everyone. The second is about the fact that everything good ends or spoils. The third concerns the nature of all things: any support assembled out of conditions holds exactly as long as the conditions do. The short general formula: what is impermanent is dukkha (SN 22.45).

The pleasant is not cancelled by any of this. Pleasure in the suttas (see MN 13) is called by its own name (sukha) and taken apart under three headings:

• what makes it attractive (assāda);
• where its danger lies (ādīnava);
• and what the way out of this situation is (nissaraṇa).

The problem is that pleasure, sukha, is almost always conditioned and ends as soon as its causes end. And the attempt to hold on to it creates a whole spectrum of new problems and new causes for suffering. There is also a happiness that does not depend on sensual pleasures: from the Buddhist point of view this is Nibbana, awakening.

Dukkha does not arise simply because everything ends. The second noble truth names the cause more precisely: craving (taṇhā). So the cessation of dukkha comes with the fading of craving, not with the abolition of impermanence.

Where to read: MN 141 (the full definition of all four truths), MN 13 (gratification, danger and escape), MN 22 (the Buddha on what he teaches).