The Buddha's first teaching names suffering (dukkha), its origin in craving, its cessation and the path; suffering is also tied to impermanence and to clinging to a self.
A question
Why do humans suffer?
Editorial overview
Quick answer
Editorial overview
Indian traditions tend to locate the root of suffering not only in outer events but in how we relate to them. Buddhism places craving at the centre, Yoga lists ignorance and its offshoots as afflictions, Vedanta traces suffering to mistaking the Self for body and mind, and Jainism to passions that bind karmic matter. Theistic traditions add that turning away from God deepens suffering and grace can end it. The traditions disagree on metaphysics but share the practical claim that suffering can be understood and reduced.
Concepts involved
Philosophical perspectives
Different answers, each in its own terms. None is ranked.
Patanjali names five afflictions (kleshas) — ignorance, I-am-ness, attachment, aversion and clinging to life — with ignorance the field of the rest; future suffering is to be avoided.
Sankhya begins from three kinds of suffering — bodily and mental, from other beings, and from natural forces — and seeks lasting relief through discriminating knowledge.
Vedanta traces suffering to identifying the Self with body, mind and their changing states; knowledge of the Self removes this confusion.
Jainism holds that passions such as anger, pride, deceit and greed attract karmic matter to the soul, and this bondage is the source of suffering.
Start here
2.14
Pleasure and pain come and go — endure them
सुख-दु:ख आने-जानेवाले हैं, उन्हें सहो
मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदु:खदा:।
Contacts with sense objects bring pleasure and pain through the favourable and unfavourable; they come and go, are impermanent — bear them.
इन्द्रियोंके विषय अनुकूलता-प्रतिकूलतासे सुख-दु:ख देनेवाले, आने-जानेवाले और अनित्य हैं; उन्हें सहन करो।
Contacts of the senses bring heat and cold, pleasure and pain; they come and go, so endure them.
Go deeper
- 1 · Gita verseBhagavad Gita 2.62The chain from dwelling on objects to attachment, desire and anger.
- 2 · Gita verseBhagavad Gita 2.63From anger to delusion and loss of discernment.
- 3 · ConceptदुःखDukkha — suffering, unsatisfactorinessThe Buddhist analysis of suffering.
- 4 · Conceptअविद्याAvidya — ignoranceIgnorance as the root in several schools.
- 5 · ConceptकामKamaDesire as a cause of bondage.
Primary sources
References to the texts behind each perspective.
The Gita’s answer
Grounded in Sadhak Sanjivani.
- What does Krishna say about desire?When Arjuna asks why people do wrong even against their will, Krishna names desire (kama) as the enemy; when blocked, it turns into anger (3.37). Swamiji defines it as wanting happiness from things, people and actions, and says this one fault holds endless faults (3.37). It is never satisfied — like fire fed with ghee, getting a hundred makes you hungry for a thousand (3.39). Dwelling on objects breeds attachment, attachment breeds desire, and the chain ends in the loss of discernment (2.62–63). The one who drops all desires and lives free of longing, 'mine' and 'I' finds peace (2.71).
- Why do bad things happen to good people?Swamiji explains that the situations we meet are the fruit of past actions: favourable circumstances are the 'good fruit' and unfavourable ones the 'bad fruit', and this department of results is governed by prarabdha, not by our present effort (9.28, 2.47). Such situations, pleasant and painful, come and go and do not last; Krishna asks us to bear them, not to be made happy or miserable by them (2.14). The devotee does not see adversity merely as the result of karma — he sees God's merciful dispensation in it: in pleasant times God's kindness, in painful times His grace, through which past sins are washed away (9.28). Whether the situation is understood or not, God's dispensation is for one's good (18.65, 12.18).
- What is real peace?Krishna says the one whose mind and senses are not disciplined has no settled aim and no selfless attitude, and without that there is no peace — and without peace, how can there be happiness (2.66)? Peace comes to the one into whom enjoyments enter like rivers into the full ocean, leaving it undisturbed — not to the one who desires them (2.70). Swamiji explains that when a person becomes free of desire, getting or not getting things causes no inner disturbance; the one with desires remains restless either way (2.70). One who gives up desire, longing, 'mine' and 'I' attains peace (2.71), and giving up the desire for the fruit of action brings peace immediately (12.12, 5.12).
- Why do I get so angry?The Gita traces anger back to desire: dwelling on objects creates attachment, attachment creates desire, and when someone blocks that desire, anger arises against them (2.62). Krishna says desire and anger are really one — desire itself turns into anger when obstructed (3.37). Swamiji puts it plainly: enjoying is kama, hoarding is greed, and anger comes against whoever gets in the way of enjoyment and hoarding (16.21). Anger then clouds judgement, memory and discernment, and leads to one's fall (2.63). So the Gita's remedy is to deal with the root — the desire — rather than only the anger.
Continue exploring
Related questions
Concepts