dukkha

Early Buddhism

• Dukkha-dukkha, aversion to physical suffering – this includes the physical and mental sufferings of birth, aging, illness, dying; distress due to what is not desirable.
• Viparinama-dukkha, the frustration of disappearing happiness – this is the duḥkha of pleasant or happy experiences changing to unpleasant when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasant experiences cease.
• Sankhara-dukkha, the unsatisfactoriness of changing and impermanent "things" – the incapability of conditioned things to give us lasting happiness. This includes "a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all existence, all forms of life, because all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance." On this level, the term indicates a lack of lasting satisfaction, or a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.