  1. Unsatisfactoriness (duḥkha). As the first mark of  conditioned existence, unsatisfactoriness presents both an  opportunity and a challenge: as an undesirable condition,  unsatisfactoriness itself is a motivator for its own overcoming. But  without a proper understanding of its root cause, unsatisfactoriness  can become a source of aversion (toward unpleasant states) and of  grasping (after pleasant states). The cause of this  unsatisfactoriness is ignorance (avidyā), understood  not simply as lacking knowledge about particular states of affairs,  but rather as a basic misunderstanding about how things truly are.  The Buddhist Abhidharma traditions break this unsatisfactoriness into three categories: 