The contemporary surge in mental health disorders, spanning depression, anxiety, and existential distress has exposed profound limitations in how modern societies conceptualize and respond to suffering. Prevailing biomedical and psychological frameworks often reduce distress to individual pathology, emphasizing symptom suppression and functional restoration. By contrast, classical Buddhist philosophy places dukkha at the very heart of human experience, interpreting it not as an anomaly but as an inherent feature of conditioned existence. This paper re-examines the Buddhist concept of dukkha as a vital resource for addressing the contemporary global mental health crisis. While dominant psychiatric paradigms, particularly the biomedical and cognitive-behavioural models tend to frame suffering as a pathological deviation to be clinically treated, classical Buddhist thought regards dukkha as a universal and ontological condition intrinsic to all conditioned existence. Drawing on canonical sources: Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and the doctrine of paṭiccasamuppāda, the paper argues that Buddhist philosophy offers a non-pathologizing, ethically engaged, and existentially attuned framework for understanding mental distress. Methodologically, the paper employs comparative philosophical analysis, integrating hermeneutic, phenomenological, and cross-cultural orientation. Under the hermeneutic dimension, canonical Buddhist sources like Theravāda Nikāyas, Abhidhamma, and Mahāyāna sutras are interpreted within their textual and historical contexts to clarify how differing traditions conceptualize dukkha and its cessation. Under the phenomenological dimension, the analysis attends to the lived experience of suffering as described in Buddhist meditation manuals and in modern clinical and neuroscientific accounts of affect, emotion, and consciousness. Finally, under the comparative dimension, the framework situates these Buddhist insights in dialogue with Western paradigms like psychiatric (DSM-5), cognitive-behavioural, existential, and humanistic to reveal both shared concerns and irreducible philosophical differences. Following cross-cultural hermeneutics (Ricoeur <CitationRef CitationID="CR41">1981</CitationRef>; Ganeri <CitationRef CitationID="CR14">2020</CitationRef>), this approach treats Buddhist and Western thought as mutually illuminative rather than oppositional, enabling a reflexive inquiry into how diverse traditions understand the origins, meanings, and possible transformations of human suffering.

Re-Examining the Concept of Dukkha (Suffering) in the Age of Mental Health Crises: A Buddhist Philosophical Perspective

期刊论文
发表日期：

2026年3月19日

查看全文

Sonia Mehta

摘要

The contemporary surge in mental health disorders, spanning depression, anxiety, and existential distress has exposed profound limitations in how modern societies conceptualize and respond to suffering. Prevailing biomedical and psychological frameworks often reduce distress to individual pathology, emphasizing symptom suppression and functional restoration. By contrast, classical Buddhist philosophy places dukkha at the very heart of human experience, interpreting it not as an anomaly but as an inherent feature of conditioned existence. This paper re-examines the Buddhist concept of dukkha as a vital resource for addressing the contemporary global mental health crisis. While dominant psychiatric paradigms, particularly the biomedical and cognitive-behavioural models tend to frame suffering as a pathological deviation to be clinically treated, classical Buddhist thought regards dukkha as a universal and ontological condition intrinsic to all conditioned existence. Drawing on canonical sources: Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and the doctrine of paṭiccasamuppāda, the paper argues that Buddhist philosophy offers a non-pathologizing, ethically engaged, and existentially attuned framework for understanding mental distress. Methodologically, the paper employs comparative philosophical analysis, integrating hermeneutic, phenomenological, and cross-cultural orientation. Under the hermeneutic dimension, canonical Buddhist sources like Theravāda Nikāyas, Abhidhamma, and Mahāyāna sutras are interpreted within their textual and historical contexts to clarify how differing traditions conceptualize dukkha and its cessation. Under the phenomenological dimension, the analysis attends to the lived experience of suffering as described in Buddhist meditation manuals and in modern clinical and neuroscientific accounts of affect, emotion, and consciousness. Finally, under the comparative dimension, the framework situates these Buddhist insights in dialogue with Western paradigms like psychiatric (DSM-5), cognitive-behavioural, existential, and humanistic to reveal both shared concerns and irreducible philosophical differences. Following cross-cultural hermeneutics (Ricoeur 1981; Ganeri 2020), this approach treats Buddhist and Western thought as mutually illuminative rather than oppositional, enabling a reflexive inquiry into how diverse traditions understand the origins, meanings, and possible transformations of human suffering.