Dukkha Quotes

“It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us." - Tilopa”
― Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World

“Part of the apparently conventional nature of our relationships is the threat of separation and death. This body dies. That body dies. We can rejuvenate, feel better, live longer, but, even so, in this world everybody dies. That is why we do spiritual practice, because we are conscious of the destiny of our separation. We are willing to fulfill the law of love, but on the other hand what we love dies. That is why this is one of the realms of suffering. This world is not a heaven. This is not a place of fulfillment. Thus, we must yield to the true Condition. We must not become dependent upon the conventional aspect of our relations. We must recognize our relations. We must identify with the Condition of the loved one.

You must become established in the real Condition, or you will never be satisfied. You will be driven to all kinds of preoccupations and great schemes, trying to become victorious or immortal, for immortality's own sake, simply because you cannot deal with the fact of death. But death is an absolute message in this realm. It obligates us to recognize or identify one another in Truth, and we are not relieved of that obligation in this place.”
― Adi Da Samraj, The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace: The Transcendental Principle of Life Applied to Diet and the Regenerative Discipline of True Health

“Stillness is the foundation of understanding and insight.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Fight

“Another simile is that of the man who was born and raised in a prison and who has never set foot outside. All he knows is prison life. He would have no conception of the freedom that is beyond his world. And he would not understand that prison is suffering. If anybody suggested that his world was dukkha, he would disagree, for prison is the limit of his experience. But one day he might find the escape tunnel dug long ago that leads beyond the prison walls to the unimaginable and expansive world of real freedom. Only when he has entered that tunnel and escaped from his prison does he realize how much suffering prison actually was, and the end of that suffering, escaping from jail is happiness.

In this simile the prison is the body, the high prison walls are the five senses, and the relentless demanding prison guard is one's own will, the doer. The tunnel dug long ago, through which one escapes, is called jhana [meditation] (as at AN IX, 42). Only when one has experienced jhana does one realize that the five-sense world, even at its best, is really a five-walled prison, some parts of it is a little more comfortable but still a jail with everyone on death row! Only after deep jhana does one realize that "will" was the torturer, masquerading as freedom, but preventing one ever resting happily at peace. Only outside of prison can one gain the data that produces the deep insight that discovers the truth about dukkha.

In summary, without experience of jhana, one's knowledge of the world is too limited to fully understand dukkha, as required by the first noble truth, and proceed to enlightenmen.”
― Ajahn Brahm

“The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe. Conflict with time seems to me the most potent and fruitful theme in all human expression.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful.”
― Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion (translated from the Pali by Than

“Once you see things as they really are, you become disenchanted with the world of suffering and with suffering itself.”
― Henepola Gunaratana, Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English: An Introductory guide to Deeper States of Meditation

“Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful.”
― Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

“I lied," the dragon said with a fearful complacency. "Everyone you have ever met has lied to you. Life exists, and all who live are born to suffer. The best moments are fleeting and bought with the coin of exquisite torment. All attachments end. All loved ones die. All that you value passes away. In such a vexatious existence laughter is madness and joy is folly. Shall we accept that it all happens for no reason, with no cause? That there is nobody to blame but ourselves but that accepting the responsibility is pointless for doing so cannot ease, defer, or deaden the pain? Not likely! It is so much more comforting to erect a straw figure on which to blame it all.
"Some bow down before the Goddess and others curse her every name. There is not a fart's difference between the two approaches. They cling to the fiction of the Goddess because admitting the alternative is unbearable."
"Then what—why—what do you want me for?" To her dismay, tears coursed down Jane's face. Oh how Melanchthon must be enjoying this, she thought. What satisfaction it must give him. "You've toyed with me, made promises, gone through Hell-knows-what machinations to bring me here. Why? What's the point of it?"
"I want your help to destroy the universe.”
― Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter

“Later Siddhartha was to recount how the most crucial incident of his childhood occurred when he was nine. In the spring he was taken to the ploughing festival. This was a very important day for the Shakya people who were agriculturalists. On this day, the ploughing season began. The king, Siddhartha's father, would ceremonially cut the first furrow with a special plough. It was the occasion for a great spring festival and everybody was celebrating. Siddhartha was taken along by his nurse maids to watch his father perform the all important symbolic act of making the first cut in the ground.
As Siddhartha watched, what this sensitive child saw was the beautiful earth being cut open: cut open in order that the people might grow crops and so live; cut open just as, perhaps, he knew that his mother had been cut open to give him life. He saw insects turned up by the plough, ejected from their homes. He saw worms cut into pieces. He saw the birds descend and eat the little creatures squirming on the broken soil. He saw that in this cutting there was much suffering. He felt the suffering himself. He felt a great urge to remove himself from this painful spectacle. He slipped away from his nurse maids and went to sit under a tree. Later they came looking for him and found that he had gone into a deep state of concentration. As he reflected upon what he had witnessed he was unaware of their approach or of them observing him. This was the first time, he entered into the kind of intense rapture we call samadhi.
So Siddhartha grew up with a deep concern about the meaning of suffering in his heart. He knew that he was alive because his mother had died. He knew that people were only able to feed at the expense of the cutting of the earth. He felt the unavoidability of much suffering acutely. He went out from the palace and he saw people who were sick and he learned how nobody is immune to sickness. He saw how people grow old and how nobody is able to avert doing so if they live long.
And if they do not live, then they die and this too is an affliction, both for the person who dies and for those who grieve. Siddhartha was certainly sensitive enough to grieve. The great mass of suffering in the world seemed to weigh upon him.”
― David Brazier, The Feeling Buddha by David Brazier (24-May-2001) Paperback