Four Noble Truths

At the heart of most Buddhist teachings are the Four Noble Truths ("the truths of the noble ones"). These are supposedly the first teachings of the Buddha. They start with the idea that life inevitably includes dukkha, often translated as suffering, difficulties, or unsatisfactoriness, posit that dukkha arises from cravings, attachments, clinging, greed, excessive/ non-virtuous desires and self-centeredness, and conclude that there is path to overcome dukkha (the Eightfold Path). Life also includes happiness, pleasure, ease, joy, bliss, equanimity, etc., and one can cultivate these- the idea is not being attached to or craving anything such that it leads to dukkha.  

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The Four Noble Truths can be summarized as:

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1.  Life includes suffering/ difficulties/ frustration/ distress/ unsatisfactoriness (dukkha)- dukkha is inevitable and universal

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2. Dukkha has a cause, namely craving for sensory pleasures, attachment/ clinging to impermanent things, greed, excessive or non-virtuous desire, and self-centeredness; dukkha also arises from physical pain, emotional distress, sickness and aging, change (which is constant), loss, and self-infliction; dukkha emerges from the desire for life to be other than it is

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3. there is a cessation of dukkha

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4. there is a path to the cessation of dukkha, the Eightfold Path

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A more decriptive version:

There is this Noble Truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering, association with the loathed is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering...

There is the Noble Truth of the origin of suffering: it is craving, which produces the renewal of being, is accompanied by relish and lust, relishing this and that; in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being.

There is the Noble Truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading and ceasing, the giving up, the relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of that same craving.

There is the Noble Truth to the way leading to the cessation of suffering; it is the Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

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("Right" may also be translated as complete, genuine, or in perfect harmony- or viewed as "to right," as in restoring an accurate position, in alignment with what is "true," like an arrow or instrument that is finely crafted or tuned and fit for its purpose)

Buddha: "If, Mahali, forms, feelings, perceptions, inclinations, and consciousness were exclusively suffering (dukkha) and pervaded by suffering, but if they were not also pervaded by pleasure (sukha), beings would not become enamored of them. But because these things are pleasurable, beings become enamored of them. By being enamored of them, they are captivated by them, and by being captivated by them, they are afflicted"