Buddhism In A Nutshell

I am being a bit facetious here, but I know from personal experience in my early years that Buddhism is frequently portrayed as a negative religion, a religion where “all is suffering”. This is based on poor-quality, early translations of the First Noble Truth.

However, the Buddha did acknowledge that existence is dukkha: a word in Pāli language which is compared to a potter’s wheel that wobbles and grinds, rather than rotating smoothly.

In other words, life is hard.

Life is not without its joys and moments of pleasure, but it’s also counterbalanced by pain and sadness too. Like two sides of the same coin.