The First Noble Truth

The First Noble Truth is "All things are suffering." Life is suffering. The word in Sanskrit is duḥkha. Sometimes it is translated as "unsatisfactory". Situations, this world, and our lives are not what we want them to be. There's almost always a gap between what we want and what is. In as much as we cannot accept that gap, we suffer. 

Our inability to accept life as it is and want things to be different creates suffering in our lives. Out of that gap grows all the coping mechanisms that individually we create to try to heal the pain or the disappointment. We lose ourselves in a dream because we're hoping that will take away that fundamental pain. 

By Zen Master Bon Soeng