I got a request from an acquaintance, she asked me to translate the sentence „life is suffering“ into Chinese for her. Obviously, this is related to Buddhist canon. What I found:
Chinese
一切皆苦 yīqiè jiē kǔ
- Basic Meaning: all experiences are [ultimately] suffering (Source : User ID guest, no psw)
Hits in:
- 大般涅槃経 Dà Bān Nièpán Jīng, Nirvana-Sutra, महायान महापरिनिर्वाण सूत्र Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
- 大方等大集经 Mahāvaipulya mahāsamghāta sūtra
- 阿摩晝經 Ambattha Sutta
- 雜阿含經 Saṃyuktāgama Sutta
- 大般若波羅蜜多經, 大般若經, महामहाभारतसूत्र Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra
- encyclopedic collection of Prajnaparamita texts, usually attributed to Nagarjuna, translated into Chinese by Xuanzang and his assistants.
- 勝天王般若波羅蜜經 ???
- p. 14 作是思惟。諸受皆苦。顛倒眾生妄起樂相。凡夫愚癡以苦為樂。聖人但說一切皆苦。 https://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/sutra/chi_pdf/sutra3/T08n0231.pdf
- 大寶積經 dàbǎojī jīng, Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, Tib. dam-chos dkon-mchog-brtsegs-pa
- an ancient collection of Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras. It is also known simply as Ratnakūṭa Sūtra (寶積經), literally the Sutra of the Heap of Jewels in Sanskrit (kūṭa means ‘accumulation’ or ‘heap’).
- 大智度論 Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra；Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom
- 瑜伽師地論 Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, „Discourse on the Stages of Yogic Practice“
- 大乘阿毘達磨雜集論, Abhidharma-samuccaya, Mahāyānābhidharma-samuccaya, Compendium of Abhidharma
- 僧伽羅刹所集經 Saṃgharakṣa ???
- 成實論, Satyasiddhi-sastra
Mention in Smaller Sutras and Collections:
- 大哀經 ???
- 阿差末菩薩經 ???
- 説無垢稱經 ???
- 佛説海龍王説法印經 ???
- 禪法要解 Chan fa yao jie
- author: Kumārajīva
- 大乘寶雲經 ???
- 佛説寶雨經
- https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=80554&remap=gb
- 正法念處經 ???
- 菩薩瓔珞本業經 ???
- 佛地經論 ???
- 優婆塞戒經 ???
Alternative Chinese
- 人生一切皆苦
- 出產之時有苦，名為生苦。 (Definition 生苦 shengku)
- 苦集灭道 kǔ jí miè dào (Baidu)
- the Four Noble Truths (Budd.), namely: all life is suffering 苦 / , the cause of suffering is desire 集 / , emancipation comes only by eliminating passions 滅 / |灭 / , the way 道 /
- Definition of 苦ku
Context
- sarva samskara anitya, sarva samskara dukkha, sarva dharma anatman : All conditioning is inconstant, all conditioning is painful, all phenomena are not-self.
- Tri-Lakshana : sarva-dukha ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence
Tibetan
འདུ་བྱེད་ཐམས་ཅད་སྡུག་བསྔལ་བ (Source)
- TRANSLITERATION: du byed thams cad sdug bsngal ba/
- TRANSCRIPTION: dujé tamché dukngelwa
False Translations
Sanksrit
जीवनं कष्टमयं अस्ति = „Life is suffering“
- जीवनं jīvanaṁ = ??? some form of जीवन jīvana
- जीवन jīvana = life
- कष्टमयं kaṣṭamayaṁ = ??? some form of कष्टम् kaṣhṭam
- कष्टम् kaṣhṭam = m. akk. evil, difficulty, trouble, misery, suffering, hardship
- अस्ति asti = to be
-> Result: This sentence is obviously grammatically wrong and could not be traced back. It is not a sentence found in Buddhist canon.
sarva-saṃskārā duḥkhāḥ = „All [life] is suffering“
- सर्व sárva = all
- संस्कार saṃskāra N; m / संस्काराः saṃskārāḥ Nom. Pl. ? = purification, sacrament, impression, putting together, accomplishment, training, preparation, forming the mind, adornment
- „mental formations“, „impulses“, „volition“, or „compositional factors“ (Skt. samskāra, Pāli saṅkhāra, Tib. ‚du-byed): all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, prejudices, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object (Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon- contains the teachings of the Buddha, as preserved by the Theravada tradition. Section: The five skandhas)
- दुःख duḥkh N; m = sorrow, grief, sadness, suffering, distress
- My sentence: ??? सर्व संस्कार दुःख ???
-> Result: My transliteration is obviously wrong, the source might be wrong. Tracing back was possible but produced no satisfactory results.
Sources
人有四癡，常著四顛倒：
一者、萬物非常，自以為常；
二者、天下皆苦，人持作樂；
三者、天下空，人以為有；
四者、身非身，不可保 (Source)
https://www.dhalbi.org/publ/journ7/zcl_j7.pdf
https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T1579_,30,0775a24:1579_,30,0775b24.html
T1579_.30.0775a26: 熱惱等法。由是因縁一切皆苦。此即依先