The Buddha’s First Sermon, sixth century, BCE, Northern India
The Noble Truth of suffering is this: Birth is suffering: aging is suffering: sickness is suffering: death is suffering: sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair and suffering….
The Noble Truth of the origin of suffering is this: It is the thirst which produces re-existence and re-becoming, bound up with passion and greed...
The Noble Truth of the origin of cessation is this: It is the complete cessation of that very thirst, giving it up, renouncing it, emancipating yourself from it, detaching oneself from it.
The Noble Truth of the path leading to cessation of suffering is this: It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
