THREE KINDS OF DUKKHA

Dukkha is a term in Buddhism commonly translated as "suffering," "anxiety," "stress," or "dissatisfaction."  It is the first of the Four Noble Truths.

There are three different patterns or categories of dukkha.  The first category includes the obvious physical suffering or pain associated with birth, aging, illness, and dying, the term for which is dukkha-dukkha, or the dukkha of ordinary suffering.

The next category includes the anxiety or stress of trying to hold onto things that are constantly changing, which is termed viparinama-dukkha, or the dukkha produced by change.

The third pattern or category is the general feeling of unsatisfactoriness.  This pervades all forms of life because all forms of life are, again, impermanent and ever changing. Here, the dukkha is a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards, and is called sankhara-dukkha, or the dukkha of conditioned states.

Both Buddhism and Vedanta emphasize that one overcomes dukkha through the development of a transcendent understanding.