Duhkha in Advayavada

Dukkha (Pali) or duhkha (Sanskrit) means suffering, sorrow; dissatisfaction; frustration; stress; gnawing unease; the existential distress and distrust of life non-liberated human beings are prone to. In Advayavada Buddhism, dukkha or duhkha is the third of the four signs or marks or basic facts of being and the first of the four noble truths of Buddhism; it does not include emotional grief nor physical pain and is, above all, not seen as a permanent feature of reality; it is rather understood as an existential suffering in the sense of a basic frustration, even suffocation, caused by the unhealthy and socially infectious feeling that reality does not conform to the person’s desires and expectations. The unremitting persistency of human distress, alienation and conflict is undeniably due to the very many everywhere not knowing or not understanding or simply disbelieving the true nature of existence.