TRUTHS

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

1. Dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction) exists.

2. Samudaya (the arising of suffering) is caused by craving and desire. 

3. Nirodha (the cessation of suffering) is possible by letting go of craving.

4. Marga (the path to the end of suffering) is the Noble Eightfold Path.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH

1. Right View: various summaries of “right view” can be found in the sutras. A stock phrase is the opening of the dhamma-eye, in which knowledge arises: “all that has the nature of arising has the nature of ending”;^{[33][note 2]} showing the futility of striving after worldly fullfilment. More extensive treatments state that our actions have consequences, death is not the end, and our actions and beliefs have consequences after death. The Buddha followed and taught a successful path out of this world and the other world (heaven and underworld/hell),^{[36][37][38][web 2]} and his example is to be followed. Later on, right view came to explicitly include karma and rebirth, and the importance of the Four Noble Truths, when “insight” became central to Buddhist soteriology, especially in Theravada Buddhism.^[39][40]
2. Right Resolve (samyaka-saṃkalpa/sammā-saṅkappa) can also be known as “right thought”, “right aspiration”, or “right motivation”.^[41] In this factor, one resolves to leave home, renounce the worldly life and follow the Buddhist path.^[42] The practitioner resolves to strive toward non-violence (ahimsa) and avoid violent and hateful conduct.^[40]
3. Right Speech: no lying, no abusive speech, no divisive speech, no idle chatter.^[43][44]
4. Right Conduct or Action: no killing or injuring, no taking what is not given, no sexual misconduct, no material desires.
5. Right Livelihood: no trading in weapons, living beings, meat, liquor, or poisons.
6. Right Effort: preventing the arising of unwholesome states, and generating wholesome states, the bojjhaṅgā (Seven Factors of Awakening). This includes indriya-samvara, “guarding the sense-doors”, restraint of the sense faculties.^[45][46]
7. Right Mindfulness (sati; Satipatthana; Sampajañña): a quality that guards or watches over the mind;^[47] the stronger it becomes, the weaker unwholesome states of mind become, weakening their power “to take over and dominate thought, word and deed.”^{[48][note 3]} In the vipassana movement, sati is interpreted as “bare attention”: never be absent minded, being conscious of what one is doing; this encourages the awareness of the impermanence of body, feeling and mind, as well as to experience the five aggregates (skandhas), the five hindrances, the four True Realities and seven factors of awakening.^[46]
8. Right samadhi (passaddhi; ekaggata; sampasadana): practicing four stages of dhyāna (“meditation”), which includes samadhi proper in the second stage, and reinforces the development of the bojjhaṅgā, culminating into upekkhā (equanimity) and mindfulness.^[50] In the Theravada tradition and the vipassana movement, this is interpreted as ekaggata, concentration or one-pointedness of the mind, and supplemented with vipassana meditation, which aims at insight