The Buddha was constantly asked to give talks on a whole wide range of subjects that he wasn't interested in. They had nothing to do with human suffering.

And he would refuse each time to comment.

There's some famous sugos where a character named Washagoda who's an important figure in Buddhist lore

would constantly ask the Buddha explain where the Cosmos came about how the world

came about how the world came about, various theories about whether consciousness was the

same thing as the body or separate and all this stuff in the Buddha would each time say,

no, that's not what I teach and in the wonderful water snake

suit that he basically finally says look I don't care the only thing I teach is what causes suffering and what brings it to an end.

So that's it. Stop asking me. So he uses the word Dukka. Dukka can mean a lot of different things.

It's often translated as suffering or stress or mental agitation,

agitation, you can, essentially, it's all the spinning out,

the busyness, the anxiety, and the reactiveness that we add on to life, especially when things are not going as we want.

It's the mind that craves security and happiness externally through things we don't have a great deal of control over.

Short term central pleasures, shopping, financial gain, competing with other people for attention, trying to be in relationships

and other experiences that are not available, etc.

The mind that is chasing happiness where it's not consistently available.

This chasing after this feeling that we have to do something, we have to stay busy, we can't let go, we can't just be with life as it is, the essential survival mode of the mind where the constant need to do, to act, to accumulate, to keep track of, to stay busy, indicative of the stressful survival stay.

And we'll talk about that in a moment.

The Buddha referred to express Duke in a number of different ways.

He compared it to people, the metaphor of people running around as if their hair was on fire.

He compared people who are in Duka or needless suffering as fish flopping about and drawing out puddles.

He used words like Kamachanda seeking addictively soothing pleasures,

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