苦 – Chinese philosophy and culture

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kǔ 苦

Duhkha / Suffering

烦恼痛苦。佛教的“苦”所涉甚广:既指具体事件中感受到的身心痛苦,也指喜乐衰坏之苦以及一切无常迁流之苦,合称“三苦”(即“苦苦”“坏苦”“行苦”)。对于“苦”的理解是实践佛教教义的出发点:只有认识到生命是苦,才决意了解分析苦的原因,而后通过有效的方法消除这些原因,从而远离烦恼乃至轮回,此即苦、集、道、灭“四谛”。

This term means the suffering from afflictions. The implications of “suffering” in Buddhism are very broad. Namely it refers to the physical and the mental pain experienced in specific events. It also refers to the suffering when joy fades, up to the suffering that all is impermanent and changing. On the whole one speaks of “three kinds of sufferings,” namely “suffering qua suffering or duhkhaduhkhatā,” “suffering of change, or viparināmaduhkhatā,” and “suffering inherent in conditioning, or samskāraduhkhatā.” The understanding of “suffering” is the starting point to practice the Buddhist doctrine: only when one recognizes that life is suffering can one be determined to try to understand and to analyze the causes of suffering. After that one may eliminate these causes through effective methods. As a consequence one may stay away from affliction and even from the reincarnation. These are the four truths: suffering, its cause, its extinction, and the path.

引例 Citation:

◎何谓为苦?谓生、老苦,病苦,忧、悲、恼苦,怨憎会苦,所爱别苦,求不得苦,要从五阴受盛为苦。(《佛说转法轮经》)

(什么叫“苦”?它包括由出生、老死、疾病而致的痛苦,由忧虑、悲伤、烦恼而致的痛苦,与所怨恨或憎恶的人相会而致的痛苦,与所爱者相离而致的痛苦,希求却无法得到而致的痛苦,总之凡以五蕴为基础的所有生命现象都是苦。)

What is suffering? Namely the suffering of birth and of old age, the suffering of illness, the suffering of sorrow, of pity, and of affliction, the suffering of association with detested ones, the suffering of separation from loved ones, and the suffering when one cannot obtain one’s wish. In short, one’s experiences of the five aggregates are suffering. (Scriptural Text: Turning of the Wheel of the Law, Expounded by Buddha)

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