Why Did The Buddha Say "Life is suffering"? [Quick Q&A]

How can he claim that "life is suffering" when it clearly offers us so many moments of joy, happiness, and pleasure?

What did the Buddha mean when he said that "Life is suffering"?

​In this short "dharma bite," I answer this single question.

So, what did the Buddha mean, exactly, when he said that "Life is suffering"?

Nothing.

​Why, nothing?

​Because he actually never said that.

The phrase "Life is suffering" is an oversimplification that has become a widespread myth in textbooks, academia, and culture.  Many people believe it without questioning.  This is unfortunate because it misrepresents what is often considered to be a core teaching of the Buddha, and has widely become a three-word summary of what Buddhism is supposed to be all about.

It is such a widespread myth that many well-intentioned people often believe, repeat, and teach it as canonical Buddhist doctrine... even many Buddhists.

Let's set the record straight, or at a minimum, let's get you on the right page so you are coming from a place of knowing and understanding, rather than believing and accepting.

What is Life According to the Buddha?
​

Mythbusting: The Buddha never said, "Life is suffering," nor is it to be inferred that he ever intended to imply that life itself is suffering.  So, what did he say?

The Buddha taught that:

    "Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering." (SN 56.11 Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta)

That final line is crucial:

    "In brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering."

Note the absence of the word "life" on that list.  That's because the Buddha does not teach that life itself is dukkha, but rather that clinging to the aggregates, the substance and processes (our body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness) that make up what we call "a sentient being," is dukkha.  The phrasing of "life is suffering" never appears anywhere in the Pāḷi Canon.  In fact, the very foundation of the Buddha's teachings on dukkha and Four Noble Truths is grounded upon worldly sources of "pleasure" and "satisfaction" specifically because they are all impermanent after all, and therefore, ultimately connected to suffering:

    "Bhikkhus, if there were no gratification in the world, sentient beings would not become aroused by it; but because there is gratification in the world, sentient beings become aroused by it... As long as sentient beings don’t truly understand the world’s gratification (... and danger ... and escape) for what they are, they haven’t escaped from this world — and they don’t live detached, liberated, and with a mind free of boundaries." (AN 3.105 Gratification)

When we subscribe to and repeat a distorted Buddhist quote such as "life is suffering," we replace a precise diagnostic teaching with an ontological statement that the Buddha never made.

"Life" in the ordinary sense includes dukkha, unsatisfactory worldly pleasures connected with dukkha, and the potential for the cessation of dukkha.  If "life" itself were a mass of suffering, then there would be no room for cessation in this life, yet the Buddha clearly taught that "nibbāna is to be realised here and now."  ​This distinction matters because it preserves the space for cessation and the realisation of nibbāna within life itself.  There is more to life than just suffering; there is also the cessation of suffering in this very life.  If "life" were just dukkha, there would be no space for the Dhamma to be learned, contemplated, practiced, and realised in life.

To summarise, it’s important that we don’t conflate what the Buddha actually said in the Nikāyas with what later traditions, interpreters, and the uninstructed laity have inferred.

What the Buddha actually taught is precisely what I stated above, that: "The five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering;" he never taught that "life is suffering."

And, now, you know something that most other people on Earth don't know. ☻