sukha
Happiness, ease
[ SOO-kha ]
Seeing it in life
Sukha is the agreeable tone of vedanā; as a jhāna factor it is mental happiness pervading the body in absorption.
In short
Pleasant feeling — bodily or mental.
The analysis
Sukha is the agreeable tone of vedanā — pleasant feeling, whether bodily or mental (somanassa), and as a jhāna factor, the settled mental happiness pervading the first three rūpa-jhānas before being replaced by upekkhā at the fourth. The texts compare pīti to the relief of finding water in a desert and sukha to the subsequent pleasure of drinking it.
Where it sits
Sukha is one of vedanā's three basic tones, and separately one of the five jhāna factors, present through the first three absorptions and specifically released at the fourth, once even pleasant feeling is recognized as a subtle disturbance relative to upekkhā's stability.
The settled contentment of a genuinely easy moment, distinct from the more energized lift of excitement about something anticipated, is sukha in its ordinary, everyday form.
Commonly mistaken for
The ultimate aim of practice. Even jhānic sukha is eventually released at the fourth jhāna in favour of upekkhā.
The same as pīti. The two are closely related but distinguishable — pīti's energized interest versus sukha's settled ease.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha II, IX.
Related terms