The Ache That Never Leaves...
The rope you’re pulling is the reason you’re suffering🤔
In Buddhism, there are three deep truths about life.
They are called the Three Marks of Existence, or “Tilakkhana”.
In my last posts, I explained “Anicca”, impermanence. Read more here
And “Anatta”, non-self. Read more here
Today, we’ll sit with the third and last one: Dukkha — Suffering or unsatisfactoriness.
Dukkha is the truth that nothing in this world can give lasting satisfaction.
There’s a quiet moment on the cushion when everything slows down.
No plans. No achievements. No goals left to chase.
Just breath, body, and a flicker of something deeper.
And in that stillness, something uncomfortable rises again.
A restlessness.
A pulling.
A soft ache in the heart that doesn’t have a name.
That’s Dukkha.
The third mark of existence in Buddhism.
Sometimes translated as suffering.
But it’s more than that.
It’s the tension in things.
The tightness that comes when you want life to be different than it is.
Not just big pain, like loss or grief.
But the small, constant friction:
Wishing this moment would pass.
Wanting someone to change.
Feeling like what you have is never quite enough.
That’s Dukkha too.
And once you see it, you start to realize — it’s everywhere.
When I first learned the word, I thought it was too negative.
Why focus so much on suffering?
Why not just teach joy, kindness, and presence?
But the Buddha didn’t teach Dukkha to make life feel heavy.
He taught it to help us see the truth.
And to stop running from it.
Because once you stop running… you can start to relax.
You can finally rest. Arrive. Be at peace.
Imagine holding a rope.
You’re pulling on it, and something on the other side is pulling back.
Your arms are sore. Your hands are burning.
And the harder you pull, the worse it feels.
Now imagine letting go.
Not because you gave up.
But because you finally saw, pulling never gave you peace.
It only kept the pain alive.
That rope is Dukkha.
It shows up in every moment we cling.
Cling to expectations.
Cling to outcomes.
Cling to identities.
Cling to control.
And the Buddha didn’t say that life is only suffering.
He said that wherever we cling to impermanence, there will be Dukkha.
It’s not a punishment.
It’s a law.
Like gravity.
It’s just the way things are.
I remember one day at the monastery, walking silently after lunch.
The sun was warm, the path was dusty, and I felt an unexpected sadness rise.
Not for any reason.
Not a dramatic sorrow.
Just a quiet wave of “something’s missing.”
And my mind tried to fix it.
“Maybe I need to teach more.”
“Maybe I’m not doing enough.”
“Maybe something’s wrong.”
But then I stopped.
I stood under a tree.
Listened to the birds.
Felt the breeze on my face.
And the sadness was still there… but it didn’t bother me anymore.
Because I saw it clearly:
This is just Dukkha.
Not mine.
Not personal.
Just part of the human condition.
It comes.
It goes.
Like weather.
And when you see it clearly, it softens.
It no longer owns you.
Dukkha is not just in sadness.
It’s in joy too.
Because even your happiest moments… fade.
That kiss you never wanted to end.
That success that quickly turned into pressure.
That perfect day that passed too quickly.
Pleasure isn’t the opposite of suffering.
It often carries Dukkha inside it.
Why?
Because we want it to last.
And nothing lasts.
So even joy can hurt when we cling to it.
This might sound heavy.
But I promise you, there is freedom here.
Because once you stop expecting life to feel perfect,
you can start loving it as it is.
Once you stop demanding that people make you happy,
you can start showing up with compassion instead.
Once you stop chasing “the next thing,”
you can finally breathe.
The Buddha wasn’t being pessimistic.
He was being precise.
He saw that if we don’t understand Dukkha,
we’ll spend our whole lives running… and never arrive.
But if we do understand it, not just in theory,
but in our bones…something opens.
A softness.
A peace.
Not because everything is “fixed.”
But because you stopped needing it to be.
There’s an old Pali phrase from the Buddha’s teachings:
“Sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā.”
“All conditioned things are unsatisfactory.”
Not because they’re bad.
But because they cannot give lasting satisfaction.
They are temporary.
They are unstable.
They are not ours to hold.
And when we let go of expecting them to give us what they cannot…
We begin to rest.
We begin to see.
We begin to smile at life, even with all its flaws.
Sometimes, when I teach this, people ask:
“So… what’s the point then?”
And I always say:
The point is not to escape life.
The point is to stop trying to squeeze happiness out of things that cannot give it.
And when you stop squeezing…
you begin to feel free.
Free to enjoy moments, without needing them to last.
Free to love people, without needing them to complete you.
Free to be yourself, without clinging to who you were yesterday.
This freedom is quiet.
But it is powerful.
And it doesn’t come from fixing life.
It comes from seeing life clearly.
So next time you feel that quiet ache…
That pull.
That unrest.
Pause.
Don’t fix it right away.
Don’t distract from it.
Don’t label it as “wrong.”
Just notice.
This is Dukkha.
This is part of the path.
And the more you see it,
the more it teaches you how to let go.
And the more you let go,
the more space there is for something softer to rise.
Not control.
Not perfection.
But presence.
That’s the beginning of peace.
And that’s what the Buddha meant when he said:
There is suffering, and there is a way out.
Until next time,
With love & kindness,
Sadhu 🙏
Nick
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If this touched something in you,
if it helped you see a little more clearly,
or if you simply felt less alone reading it ,
✨ Please consider a restack, a comment, or sharing it with someone who might need it.
Let’s help more people understand this quiet truth.
There’s enough suffering in the world already.
No need to keep it to ourselves 🙏
See the truth and stop running from it. Powerful.
Part of the path indeed... thank you