Part III - The Burden Of Dukkha In The Human World

In the case of men, too, the mental and physical phenomena in their khandha always burden them in three ways of sankhata, santapa and viparinama.

1) Sankhata dukkha: As they have not to strive very hard in the field of sankhata, their burden of santapa is very heavy, and is a hundred thousand times greater than that of a deva. Their time of destruction too comes to them very quickly. Their span of life is an infinitesimal fraction of that of a deva.

2) Santapa dukkha: How heavily the khandha of men are burdened by way of santapa may be explained as follows: The trouble of being conceived in the womb of a mother, the trouble of having to be born, the trouble of feeling warm when residing in a warm region during the warm weather, the trouble of feeling cold when residing in a cool region during the cold weather, the trouble of living in the torrid zone and exposing oneself to the heat of the scorching sun, the blowing of hot wind and the biting by flies and fleas, the immense trouble to be undertaken by a cultivator to cultivate his lands amidst those troubles for the purpose of his livelihood, the trouble of serving under a government, the trouble of having to transact civic duties, the trouble concerning one's kith, and kin, the trouble of feeding the so called body morning and evening so that it may live, the trouble of changing the postures every now and then as one is not able to remain for long in any one posture during one of the four modes of deportment, the trouble of supplying nutritive essence to the defilements that arise at the six sense-doors and which may be compared to ogres and demons. These are all suffering which are the common ways of the world. There are other kinds of suffering such as the troubles arising out of the over-enjoyment of sensuous pleasures, the trouble arising out of earning a livelihood by performing evil deeds, the trouble of maintaining wife and children, trouble of becoming a man among people who profess a faith involving wrong views, thus dragging him to the lower worlds as long as he remains in that clan or nation, the troubles arising from self- mortification by living near the fire during the hot season and by remaining in the water during the cold season, etc., which are fruitless and are the practices of people of wrong views, the trouble connected with disease, bruises, wounds and pains, and the immense troubles caused by extern enemies, such as water, fire, thieves, rulers and those disliked.

Thus the burdens of santapa for human beings, in the round of samsara are various and heavy. The body of human beings burdens them in such a manner by way of santapa.

3) Viparinama dukkha: The khandha of men burden them by viparinama. To have become a man is one of the rare opportunities, and even when a being arises in the world of men, he is liable to die at any moment from the time of conception in the mother's womb up to the end of the span of his life.

Thus at the embryonic stage immediately formed after conception a being has the appearance of a little drop of butter-oil scum attached to a fine woollen thread. Then follows the abbuda (an oval shaped tiny mass), then the pesi (the lump of flesh), then the ghana (clot), then the pasakha (off-shoots), in which later stage arms, legs, etc., are forming. In the whole of the round of rebirths, a being arises and perishes countless times in any one of the above-mentioned stages of life. Thus khandha of men burden them in the four ways, and so this is purely dukkha-sacca.