“Mendicants, there are these three forms of suffering. What three? The suffering inherent in painful feeling; the suffering inherent in conditions; and the suffering inherent in perishing. These are the three forms of suffering.
Also found in early Pali at DN 33:1.10.57 and SN 38.14:1.4; in late canonical Pali texts Niddesa (Cnd 8:28.5), Netti (Ne 5:15.6), and Peṭakopadesa (Pe 1:141.8); and extensively in later literature. These three became a staple breakdown of suffering, but are only occasionally mentioned and never explained in the Suttas.
Perhaps the earliest analysis of this passage in Pali is found in the Vimuttimagga: “Here, physical and mental suffering—this is called ‘the suffering inherent in painful feeling’ (dukkhadukkhatā). The change of the basis of pleasant feeling that is subject to contaminations—this is called ‘the suffering inherent in perishing’ (vipariṇāmadukkhatā). The five aggregates subject to clinging—this is called ‘the suffering inherent in conditions’ (saṅkhāradukkhatā)” (adapted from Ñāṇatusita’s translation, Path to Freedom 11.61). Here, the canonical sequence is altered, with saṅkhāra shifted to follow vipariṇāma. This altered sequence is widely found (eg. Visuddhimagga, Path of Purification 16:34–35, Abhidharmasamuccayabhāṣya 44, 49). The canonical Pali sequence, however, is shared with such Sanskrit texts as the Saṅgītisūtra (Waldschmidt 3.18), Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra (Vaidya 76), Bodhisattvabhūmi (Dutt 167), and Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (329). The alteration perhaps stems from the feeling that “conditions” should have the broadest scope, since it includes everything except Nibbāna, and hence belongs at the end. This much is suggested by the late canonical exegetical text, the Netti: “On occasions the world, within limits, is freed from the suffering inherent in painful feeling, and likewise with the suffering inherent in perishing. Why is that? There are those in the world of little affliction and long life. But the world is freed from the suffering inherent in conditions only by the element of extinguishment with no residue” (Ne 5:15.8). The variation in sequence notwithstanding, the explanations of the terms are broadly similar in the traditions. In each case, the suffering is “inherent in” pain, conditions, or perishing, not “due to” them. If, say, pleasant feeling perishes and gives rise to painful feeling, that is the “suffering of painful feeling”; as say someone who eats too much ice-cream and gets a stomachache. The suffering of perishing, rather, refers to cases where a pleasant feeling perishes and another pleasant feeling is experienced. Take, say, someone eating a dish of ice cream; by the fourth or fifth spoonful it’s still delicious, but not quite as good as the first. For a more spiritual example, if someone in the third jhāna goes to the second jhāna, they experience no pain, but their experience of pleasure is less refined. But all conditioned phenomena, even the most subtle and stable of meditations, are characterized by the suffering of conditions, since they are not as peaceful as Nibbāna.
