Five Levels of Suffering

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Five Levels of Suffering - Gil Fronsdal. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 12, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Five Levels of Suffering

So, I'd like to talk about a topic which maybe will be very unpopular. It's supposed to be really popular to talk about suffering, and to really get your attention or have you race for the door, I could say a little saying that part of the purpose of Buddhist practice is so you can suffer better. Isn't that nice? But suffering better doesn't mean being ground down by it and just having higher quality suffering so you can really feel bad. What suffering better means is to suffer in a way that better leads to the end of suffering. To somehow face the suffering, see it clearly, so that we can come to the end of suffering.

The Buddha is said to have claimed that what he teaches is suffering and the end of suffering. The word "suffering" is an English translation of the Pali^[1] word dukkha^[2]. There are a lot of other choices than the English word "suffering." I suspect that one of the reasons the word was chosen to translate dukkha into English was that Victorian English translators were borrowing religious terminology from Christianity in order to enhance the religiosity of Buddhism, and suffering was an important thing for certain Christians—the suffering of Christ and things like that. It has a really big role there.

Another translator prefers the word "stress" instead of suffering. One of the reasons he likes that is that as the Buddhist path and meditation practice gets really deep, you wouldn't really use "suffering"—it's a heavy word for what's left there. But there is a kind of subtle stress that a person in deep practice is still navigating, even though there might be a lot of happiness at the same time. Sometimes I've wondered whether we could use the word "unease" as a translation for it, or even better, if we used a hyphen: "dis-ease." That ties it to the idea of a disease or a sickness. There's a movement in early Buddhism to say the Buddha was a doctor and he's addressing the disease of dukkha. If we hyphenate it as "dis-ease," it points to a possibility of some profound sense of peace or ease that involves the end of suffering.

What I'd like to do today in talking about suffering is to orient ourselves around it in the very classic way in Buddhism, which presents practice as a journey. It's a gradual path of unfolding. There's an arc that we're on and moving through. I'd like to talk about five different levels of going deeper and deeper into this world of suffering, suffering better until we come to the end of suffering. These five different levels are also fairly common ways that dukkha is talked about. But often they're not considered in how they fit into a progressive path of deepening. It might just be one particular way, and listening to it, you don't see the wider context and how it can fit into an unfolding that goes on over time.

Level One: Unremitting Suffering

The first level is what we can call dukkha-dukkha^[3]—suffering that just suffers. This is where we are so in our distress, our fears, our anxieties, and our angers that it's almost like it is all of us. It isn't that we have some anger; we are angry, and the anger is so full that there's nothing else. It might be so strong that we don't really even know that we're suffering in some powerful way—that we're a terrible combination of grief, distress, discouragement, self-loathing, guilt, and hatred, all wrapped up in one big wonderful package. Maybe it has a nice ribbon around it, but it's just a big mass.

For some people, it's all they know, and they don't even know why they're feeling so bad. They just feel awful. This is how it is, and they are this way, and it feels inevitable. It feels like it has a lot of authority. It can also be very confusing because there's not a lot of self-awareness about it, except that it's who we are. We identify with it strongly, and there's no hope. That's the first level, a level before encountering something like Buddhism.

But then in Buddhism, we talk about suffering directly and name it. I've known people who have come to Buddhism where their first encounter with it was a talk someone gave on suffering, on the Four Noble Truths^[4], which emphasize suffering. They're so relieved because they grew up in a setting or a family where suffering was denied, ignored, or pushed under the carpet. It was not something anybody wanted to talk about. They had some kind of overarching religious worldview that somehow made everything rosy and wonderful. You're supposed to appreciate how pastorally wonderful this world is and smile. People have talked to me and felt that their life was a lie, but no one was talking about it. When they come to Buddhism and suffering is talked about so directly, they feel a big relief: "Finally, we can talk about this."

Level Two: Clear Recognition

Then we encounter the second level, where we begin to recognize suffering as suffering. This is considered a very significant shift because we step away from it well enough to recognize, "Oh, this is what's happening." In that clear recognition, we are no longer submerged or drowning in it. Our head goes out of the water. I was over my head in water, but now my head pops up and I can see it: "Ah, this is suffering."

All kinds of things can begin happening with that clear recognition. One is we have enough distance from it, or enough overview of it, that we can try to address it. We can consider that maybe there's another way. Maybe I don't have to give it so much authority in my life. Maybe I can question it. Maybe it's not the full story. The clearer that recognition is—that we're stepping away from it—the clearer you get a sense that something in me is not suffering. The ability to name it is not suffering. That belongs to a different dimension.

By that clear recognition of suffering, there can be a decision to do something about it. There's ancient lore in Buddhism that no one comes to Buddhism without suffering first. That suffering is the motivation to overcome it, deal with it, and come to the end of it. To improve one's life so there's less suffering. That is a fundamental orientation that most people bring with them. For that to happen, there has to be some acknowledgement of suffering, some desperation, and some inspiration. Some people come because they're inspired that there's a better way. Some come because they don't know—everything else seems hopeless. They're so desperate: "Okay, I'll try this. They say this might be a help, so I'll come and do it."

This willingness to see it for what it is is also the beginning of understanding that suffering is not just a mass of things, but it can be questioned. In Buddhism, there's a very interesting move around this recognition, and that is that the word "suffering" is treated as an adjective, not as a noun. The word dukkha is describing something in particular. It's not a thing in and of itself. In the first level, it's just "everything" and it's a noun: "I'm just suffering," and we identify strongly with it. With the second level, the movement that Buddhism suggests is to be very specific, saying, "This is suffering."

We begin recognizing the specificity of it, not the generality of it. This is easier said than done, because sometimes it's the sum total of all the challenges of our life packaged together, and it's hard to see it that way. It just seems like we're carrying it with us like a cloud of suffering, and we don't quite even know what it's about. But the movement mindfulness brings is to slowly begin to see in the present moment what the particular suffering is here. It becomes, for example, an angry mind. Not "I am angry," but "the angry mind is angry." Or there is driving fear—someone had an accident and is severely afraid of driving. There's suffering around driving because of that intense fear. But it's a very particular, "Oh, this is dukkha related to driving." When we see it as an adjective rather than a noun, it's easier to work with, because then we can start looking at it and seeing that maybe it isn't so absolute. Whatever it's characterizing can be freed from that way; it can be changed. So this movement to recognize, "Oh, this is suffering," opens a door for some new possibility.

Level Three: Seeing Our Contribution

The third level is to begin seeing it so clearly that we see there is pain, and there is our contribution to the pain. There is a challenge, and it's what we do in relationship to it. The most classic analogy is that of the two arrows^[5]. The first arrow is being struck by life. The second arrow is what we do in response to that.

For example, if I leave here today and my car has a flat tire, that's an uncomfortable event, especially if you have an important place to go and it's raining. How do you deal with the flat tire? The second arrow would be, "Why didn't I check my tires? I knew it was going flat, but I thought it would last for a few more weeks. Why did I put it off? I'm always putting things off. I'm such a terrible procrastinator, and I'm really a lousy person because I'm the world's best procrastinator, and look at all this trouble I get in." It goes on and on, and we don't just shoot one second arrow, we shoot a third, fourth, and fifth. At some point, you might say, "Well, I'm not even a good procrastinator! If I was going to procrastinate, I should at least do a good job at it, and it's embarrassing how poorly I do it." Some people specialize in all these arrows just building up.

These second arrows are considered to be what is optional. Some things are not optional in a human life. We have sensitive hearts. If we are really present to the depth and fullness of our hearts, there will be times of grief, loss, sadness, and fear. We're not trying to stop being human. These things are kind of sacred, perhaps, if they can be felt cleanly and fully without the second arrows. Grief is one of those. I think grief can be very sacred because of how it represents the depth of human feeling. To trust that and open to it is one of the great gifts of mindfulness practice.

But there are a lot of second arrows around grief: "I should be over it by now," or "I should be doing a better job with grief." People ask, "Are you still grieving? Why is that? Haven't you had a long enough time now?" Or, "You should probably go see a therapist, you're not doing it very well." There are all kinds of ways we add suffering on top of basic human emotional responses. Mindfulness begins separating out the pain we have from our contribution to it. That's a radical thing to begin doing, considering, "How am I contributing? The situation is bad. It's uncomfortable to be out in the rain trying to change a flat tire. But am I making it worse than it has to be? Am I suffering worse rather than suffering better?"

So the first level is unremittent suffering with no exit. The second is to begin to exit it by seeing it clearly for what it is. The third is to begin seeing our contribution to it, how we add to it. This is moving through the levels. I can talk about it quickly here, but it might take years to find our way through these levels, or we go through these cycles repeatedly for different issues and conditions in our life. It's a gradual process.

If we're practicing to understand this, we start with the small sufferings of life, the small places of dis-ease where it's manageable. A flat tire is maybe relatively small. You look at it and say, "Wow, this teacher just told me about practicing with flat tires. This is not the worst that could happen. Let me try to practice with this and see how I am contributing to my suffering and making it worse." There might be even smaller things. You are cooking something at home, you run out of sugar, it's raining, and your car has a flat tire, but the big issue is the sugar! You've got to have the sugar. So you say, "Okay, I'll look at this. Let me stop, sit down, and clearly recognize the sugar suffering. What's going on here, and what am I doing to contribute to it? How am I making it worse?"

Looking at small steps helps us become familiar with our strategy so that when really big suffering comes along—and some horrendous things can happen to us—we are prepared. Sometimes people come to the Insight Meditation Center to be able to sit with their distress in community, to feel supported to breathe with it because it's so hard to do alone. We do the small things so we're ready when it becomes really big.

Level Four: Direct Experience

Then we come to the fourth level of meeting our suffering better, and that is we start experiencing it as a present-moment, direct experience. We start learning how to be present for it in and of itself. We've seen how we contribute to it, and maybe that's beginning to lessen. But we start seeing that dis-ease involves an immediacy in this present moment—contracting, tightening up, constricting, burning, getting really hot, freezing, shutting all the systems down, or feeling overwhelmed. Everything in our shoulders and chest contracts and tightens around our heart. There's a physical, direct sensation here and now of what this experience of suffering is like.

We're not necessarily looking at what the suffering is, why it's there, where it came from, or our contribution to it anymore. We're looking at the immediate felt-sense experience. What does it really feel like right here and now? What are the particular sensations that make up this experience? It's a paradigm shift where we're no longer looking at the psychology or the biography of our suffering, but we're getting so simple with the mindfulness practice that we're willing just to experience it as present-moment phenomena. Almost as if we don't want to even think about calling it suffering anymore. It's the physicality, the sense experience of what this is like. It's getting really close.

An important part of this thing called dukkha is that dukkha in and of itself, in Buddhism they say, is craving, is clinging, or grasping. Grasping points to a physical metaphor for what we do internally, emotionally, psychologically, or physically—holding on to something. We're not looking at what we're attached to in order to let go; we're beginning to feel the attachment itself.

The advantage of this is that it's very simple. We are beginning to trust that our inner life, our body, and the practice can take care of things itself without us having to engineer or navigate it. The analogy I like to use is if you hold your hand in a fist for a long time and hold it really tight, you'll notice sooner or later that what the hand wants to do is relax and soften. But because you want to make sure everyone knows you're angry, you have to tighten up again. If you get distracted, you loosen up, but then, "Oh wait, I forgot I'm supposed to be angry," and you have to keep doing it. The natural movement of the fist is to relax. Sometimes it's very hard to do this if we're really afraid, really attached to it, or caught in it. Then we have a friend who comes along and puts their soft hand underneath our fist and says, "Here, rest your fist here." Just that makes it release by itself much faster because we have that support.

In mindfulness practice, we're meant to be our own friend that way. Mindfulness is the equivalent of the hand coming underneath our suffering and just holding it, being with it. For that to happen, it really helps if we understand the physical place that is the home for our particular distress. Sometimes it's all over the body, and you hold the whole body that way. But sometimes it's very specific: in the chest, the heart, the belly, the hands, the shoulders, or behind the forehead. You begin bringing attention to just being there in the moment as a present-moment phenomenon, where there's no need to think about the past, the future, what's going to happen to us, or where it came from. It's so simple, just here. That's the fourth level, and that's one of the deeper possibilities of mindfulness practice.

Level Five: Spacious Freedom

The fifth level is starting to experience freedom, where the suffering we are experiencing is still experienced, but within the freedom of the mind, the freedom of the heart. Something in essence is not caught by the suffering, not reactive to it. It's almost like there's more space, a space of freedom where the suffering can be there. But now, if we identify with anything, it's with the open hand that holds the suffering. If you have two fists, they don't really support each other very well. But if one hand opens, it can support the place that's tight. At some point, we start discovering some capacity for mindfulness, for awareness that can be spacious, open, and relaxed. "Oh look, here is something to love. Here is something to be kind to and support in this open way." There's a sense of freedom.

The important aspect of this fifth level is that now it's easier to not try to do anything about the suffering. It's no longer negotiating, fixing, or figuring it out. It's no longer being mindful of it clearly to step away and see it. It's no longer seeing our contribution. There's very little of that clinging left around it. There might still be some, but the clinging is not a problem. There are no problems because there's so much freedom, spaciousness, and peace that can hold it. This is another paradigm shift in practice: the idea that, "Wow, I can suffer and it's not a problem. Who would have thought? Just a little bit of dis-ease and I can manage with that. I can be free while it's there."

We're no longer trying to make anything happen in relationship to the suffering. We're just allowing it to be there, held in this space of freedom. The reason that is so important in Buddhism is that if you go through all these five levels and come to a place where we're not trying to make anything happen, that creates the conditions for that freedom to open fully. It's like a lotus that has been protecting a jewel inside, keeping it from shining on the world, but finally, the lotus opens up fully by itself.

The full expression of liberation, the end of suffering, is not something we can do. But we create the conditions for it by going through these five levels and coming to the time and place where we can be with our suffering in this very free, relaxed, open way. We're not defined by it. We're not troubled by it. We're not trying to understand it anymore. We're just allowing it to be there in a very simple way, and then something can let go. Something can be released.

Reflections

These are five levels of suffering and practicing with it. Sometimes Buddhist teachers will talk about these without calling them levels. I just made that up, so don't go looking for it anywhere. They'll be talking about individual ones of these areas. I think it's helpful to understand that it's one of the options in a wider context of an unfolding path of practice. You can say, "Oh, they're talking about one option now. This is one of the great options, but I'm ready for something else," or "I'm still at the first level. This thing about feeling it in my body is ridiculous. The world is fully saturated, it's not my suffering."

The final thing I'll say is that there is a teaching from the Buddha that to really engage deeply and turn towards suffering, to really take it seriously, is a condition for the arising of inspiration. For the arising of faith, of confidence, of a big "Yes!" Yes, there is a practice. Yes, there is a possibility of coming to the end of suffering. Isn't this good news? Rather than all this just being depressing news—you know, you can do better things on Sunday morning than come hear a talk about suffering. [Laughter] I apologize to those of you who had better things to do. But it is meant to be a foundation for inspiration. Yes, we can do something. There is hope. There is possibility.

So those are my thoughts for today. Maybe now you can appreciate why I would say that we're trying to suffer better, because most people just suffer worse. There is a better way to do it.

Community Tea Time

Everyone's welcome to stay for tea today. It's very nice on these days to say hello to each other and introduce yourselves. Some of you don't want to do that, and you have all kinds of good reasons why. You're welcome to just sit quietly. It's kind of nice to sit quietly meditating while everybody's chattering around you. The other option is you can leave.

But it's also nice if you could say hello. The idea is to turn to one or two people next to you and just look around. Make sure no one is left alone because everyone turned the other direction accidentally. Just look around and invite everyone to be part of a little group and say hello. If you want to say something that was useful or beneficial for you in this talk, maybe share that so it can live onward. I'll ring a bell in about six minutes to get ready for tea time and the formal ending. So you can turn to someone and say hello or sit quietly.