1. All existence is dukkha. The word dukkha has been variously

translated as suffering, sorrow, anguish, pain, or unsatisfactoriness.

The Buddha’s insight was that our lives are a struggle, and we do not

find ultimate happiness or satisfaction in anything we experience.

This is the problem of existence.

 

2. The cause of dukkha is craving. The natural human tendency is

to blame our difficulties on things outside ourselves. But the Buddha

says that their actual root is to be found in the mind itself. In particular

our tendency to grasp at things (or alternatively to push them away)

places us fundamentally at odds with the way life really is.

 

3. The cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of

craving. As we are the ultimate cause of our difficulties, we are also

the solution. We cannot change the things that happen to us, but we

can change our responses.

 

4. There is a path that leads from dukkha. Although the Buddha

throws responsibility back on to the individual he also taught

methods through which we can change ourselves, for example the

Noble Eightfold Path.