Sukha

Sukha means happiness, pleasure, ease, joy or bliss. Among the early scriptures, 'sukha' is set up as a contrast to 'preya' meaning a transient pleasure, whereas the pleasure of 'sukha' has an authentic state of happiness within a being that is lasting. In the Pāli Canon, the term is used in the context of describing laic pursuits and meditation.

Etymology

According to Monier-Williams, the etymology of sukha is "said to be su + kha and to mean originally 'having a good axle-hole'"; thus, for instance, in the Rig Veda sukha denotes "running swiftly or easily". Monier-Williams also notes that the term might derive alternatively as "possibly a Prākrit form of su-stha, q.v.; cf. duh̩kha", literally meaning su + stha . Sukha is juxtaposed with dukha, which were established as the major motivating life principles in early Vedic religion. This theme of the centrality of dukha was developed in later years in both Vedic and Buddhist traditions. The elimination of dukha is the raison d'être of early Buddhism.

Pali literature

In the Pali Canon and related literature, the term is used in a general sense to refer to "well-being and happiness" in either this present life or future lives. In addition, it is a technical term associated with describing a factor of meditative absorption and a sensory-derived feeling.

General life pursuit

In the Pāli Canon, the Buddha discusses with different lay persons "well-being and happiness" "visible in this present life" and "pertaining to the future life", as exemplified by the following suttas.

Anana Sutta

In the Anaa Sutta, the Buddha describes four types of happiness for a "householder partaking of sensuality" :

the happiness of earning wealth by just and righteous means
the happiness of using wealth liberally on family, friends, & on meritorious deeds
the happiness of debtlessness be free from debts
the happiness of blamelessness, to live a faultless and pure life without committing evil in thought, word, and deed

Of these, the wise know that the happiness of blamelessness is by far the greatest householder happiness. Economic and material happiness is not worth one sixteenth part of the spiritual happiness arising out of a faultless and good life.

Kalama Sutta

In the Kālāmā Sutta, townspeople ask the Buddha how they are to ascertain which spiritual teaching is true. The Buddha counsels that one should "enter and dwell" in "things" or "qualities" that are:

skillful,
blameless,
praised by the wise, and
when put into practice, are conducive to well-being and happiness

Using the latter criterion, the Buddha then asks the townspeople to assess greed, hate and delusion whereby it is agreed that entering and dwelling in non-greed, non-hate and non-delusion lead to well-being and happiness. The Buddha states that, given this understanding, a noble disciple pervades all directions with lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity ; and, by doing so, one purifies oneself, avoids evil-induced consequences, lives a happy present life and, if there is a future karmic rebirth, one will be born in a heavenly world.

Dighajanu Sutta

In the Dighajānu Sutta, Dighajānu approaches the Buddha and states:
In a manner somewhat similar to his exposition in the aforementioned Anaa Sutta, the Buddha identifies four sources that lead to well-being and happiness in the current life:

productive efforts in one's livelihood,
protective efforts regarding ones wealth in terms of possible theft or disaster,
virtuous friendship, and
even-headed living, abstaining from womanizing, drunkenness, gambling and evil friendships.

In terms of well-being and happiness in the next life, the Buddha identifies the following sources:

faith in the fully enlightened Buddha;
virtue, as exemplified by the Five Precepts;
generosity, giving charity and alms; and,
wisdom, having insight into the arising and passing of things.

Mettā practice

As indicated above, in the Kālāmā Sutta, the Buddha identifies the practice of the four divine abodes as being conducive to one's own well-being and happiness. The first of these abodes is mettā, which is, for instance, classically expressed in the Pali canon's Karaniya Mettā Sutta by the sincere wish :
Similarly, the Pali commentaries explicitly define mettā as "the desire to bring about the well-being and happiness " Thus, in Buddhism, to dwell wishing for others' general happiness is conducive to the development of one's own happiness.

Feeling attribute

In the Buddhist frameworks of the five aggregates and dependent origination, "feelings" or "sensations" arise from the contact of an external object with a sensory organ and consciousness. In the Pali Canon, such feelings are generally described to be of one of three types: pleasant, unpleasant, or neither-unpleasant-nor-pleasant.

Mental factor in meditation

In the commentarial tradition on Buddhist meditation, the development of jhāna is described as the development of five mental factors that counteract the five hindrances:

vitakka counteracts sloth and torpor
vicāra counteracts doubt
pīti counteracts ill-will
sukha counteracts restlessness-worry
ekaggata counteracts sensory desire

Both pīti and sukha are born of bodily seclusion and mental quietude in first jhāna, but both are then born of focused concentration in the second jhāna and only sukha is sustained in the third jhāna until it is abandoned for pure, mindful equanimity in the fourth jhāna.
The Visuddhimagga distinguishes between pīti and sukha in the following experiential manner:
Providing a bare-bones conditional chain of events that overlaps the above more narrative exposition, the Upanisa Sutta states that sukha arises from tranquillity of the body and mind, and in turn gives rise to concentration. Citing traditional post-canonical Pali literature related to this discourse, Bodhi adds the following functional definition of sukha:

As a characterization of awakening

Nibbāna entails the foundational extinction or "blowing out" of the processes of unwholesome desire, aversion, and delusion. From the perspective of awakened experience, the latter deleterious processes are appreciated as "agitations" of the mind. In comparative contrast to such agitation, sukha and its cognates are at places in the Pali Canon used to characterize the calm of Nibbāna, the "Unconditioned," as a bliss:

Sanskrit literature

In Bhagavad Gita verses 6.21-23, the term 'sukha' is used to define the boundless happiness that characterizes yoga. It states that when the yogi attains this happiness, understood by the discriminative faculty but beyond the senses, he becomes firmly established in this state, free from suffering, and does not waver from it, a state known as yoga.
The Taittiriya Upanishad figuratively quantifies the bliss of Brahman, starting with the bliss of humans:
In the Yoga Sūtras, Patañjali uses the term 'sukha' in verse II.46, where he defines asana as the balance between "sukha" and "sthira". In Sutra I.33, sukha refers to those who are happy, and suggests fostering friendship towards them to promote mental lucidity.
In Tattvartha Sutra, Jain scholar Umaswati explains the concept of sukha in context of spiritual liberation from karma. Umaswati explains four different meanings of sukha: as the quality of objects, as freedom from pain, as happiness resulting from meritorious actions, and as the ultimate sukha in the state of liberation.

Neuro-scientific basis

Some researchers have proposed that a "shift" in the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex is what supports a state of inner fulfillment and equanimity.