Dukkha is a traditional element of the religious philosophy of Buddhism, aimed at describing the prevailing situation in the surrounding material world. According to Buddhists, the earthly human reality is primarily the world of suffering – traditionally, the word “dukkha” is translated by religious scholars from Sanskrit as a designation of suffering. Dukkha is one of the three integral parts of existence, along with the constant movement of things in nature and anatman, that is, the absence of a singular soul in a person merged with being. However, this term, and especially its translation, requires clarification.
A more accurate translation of this term is “anxiety” or “impatience”. The nature of suffering is divided into several fundamentally different categories, in connection with which the use of direct translation turns out to be ineffective. Dukkha as a person’s dissatisfaction with the world is not just a condition of life but also the result of one’s own harmful emotions, such as hatred or attachment. Also, the reason for the feeling of anxiety and dissatisfaction can be either the result of karma or one’s own misconception of the world, which deforms the true self-consciousness of a person. The Buddhist method is to let go of such destructive emotions in the name of merging with being by giving up the ego. This path of the Buddha is called “marga,” or the eightfold path. It consists of eight sequential conditions that can be summarized into the following categories: wisdom, morality, and spiritual discipline. All steps to getting rid of dukkha and finding true harmony with the world are interconnected and must be practiced constantly.
Talking about the applied application of Buddhist philosophy in Western medicine, one can draw an analogy between dukkha as dissatisfaction or suffering and a painful symptom that causes discomfort in the patient (Fitzpatrick et al., 2016). Focusing on one’s own discontent implies the patient’s unwillingness to accept reality in the Buddhist sense – that is, to dissolve in it, ceasing to feel pain. The bioethical complication lies in the high authority of the patient, which is the basis of contemporary medical practice. This principle may have a tragic outcome, in which the patient can refuse to accept help, hoping to defeat an illness by the power of his religious consciousness.
Reference
Fitzpatrick, S.J., Kerridge, I.H., Jordens, C.F.C., Zoloth, L., Tollefsen, C., Tsomo, K. L., Jensen, M. P., Sachedina, A., & Sarma, D. (2016). Religious perspectives on human suffering: Implications for medicine and bioethics. Journal of Religion and Health, 55, 159–173. Web.