[Advayavada Study Plan – week 29] Dukkha (Pali) or duhkha (Sanskrit) means suffering, sorrow, dissatisfaction, frustration, anxiety, or stress; it is the first of the four noble truths of Buddhism and also the third of the three or, in Advayavada Buddhism, four signs or marks or basic facts of being, the other three being the impermanence or changeability of everything (see week 27), the selflessness and emptiness of all things (see week 28), and evolution or, in human terms, progress (see next week). In Advayavada Buddhism, dukkha or duhkha does not include emotional grief nor physical pain, and is, above all, not seen as a permanent feature of reality; it is chiefly understood as the existential distress and distrust of life non-liberated human beings are prone to and which are essentially caused by the unhealthy and socially infectious feeling that reality does not conform to their petty desires and mistaken expectations. The unremitting persistency of human distress, alienation and conflict is undeniably due to the very many everywhere in the world not knowing or not understanding or simply disbelieving the actual, i.e. impermanent and finite, nature of individual existence. Feel free to share this post.