Over time, the meanings of words change and evolve. This appears to have happened with the word “dukkha.” We now have evidence that “dukkha” meant something a bit different — and a bit more specific — during the era the Buddha was using the word.
Obviously, the change in meaning cannot be big; otherwise, what the Buddha was recorded to have said about dukkha would probably no longer make sense to us. But a more precise definition of the term would help us better understand what the Buddha meant. We could sure use that help, because the English translations for “dukkha” are unsatisfactory. That this should be so is delightfully ironic, as one of the possible translations for “dukkha” is “unsatisfactoriness.” The most common translation is “suffering.” It is also translated as “stress.”
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