How Buddha Would Fight Burnout
Give it 90 minutes
Buddha’s very first formal sermon covered a set of principles that came to be known as the “Four Noble Truths.” The first, which gets an understandably bad rap, is usually translated as: “Life is suffering.”
It sounds pretty depressing, but Buddha didn’t mean it to be. He was merely trying to validate a feeling all of us have at one time or another. Life is difficult. Pain and loss are inevitable. But this doesn’t mean that life is only suffering. There are moments of joy and happiness, too. Most of us are not in constant agony.
Some scholars aren’t even sure suffering is exactly what Buddha meant. His teachings come to us in a few ancient Indian languages, including one called Pali, and the word used in that language is dukkha. One way to translate dukkha is “suffering” or even “pain.” But others have used the word stress instead. So another way to think about Buddha’s first truth might be: “Life is really stressful.”
For many of us, that’s the version that really rings true — especially when we’re working.
Study after study confirms that our working lives are full of stress. According to a report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 40% of U.S. workers find their jobs “very or extremely stressful.” As far back as 1996, surveys found…
