In Benares, the Buddha begins to teach the Holy Truth about the middle path and about suffering: “There are two extremes that one who leads a spiritual lifestyle must avoid. What are these extremes? One is life among voluptuousness, lusts, pleasures: this is low, ignoble, not spiritual, unworthy, insignificant. The other is life amidst self-torture: it is sad, unworthy, insignificant. The Perfect One, monks, has avoided two extremes and has entered on that perfect path where his mind and gaze are enlightened, on that path that leads to peace, knowledge, enlightenment, to Nirvana.
Here, monks, is the holy truth about suffering: birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, to be in union with the unloved is suffering, to be separated from the beloved is suffering, not to achieve what you want is suffering; in a word - all fivefold (sensual) desire for earthly things is suffering.
Here, monks, is the Holy Truth about the origin of suffering: it is the thirst for earthly life, leading from birth to birth, the thirst for pleasure, the thirst for existence, the thirst for power. Here, monks, is the Holy Truth about the abolition of suffering: the cessation of this thirst by the complete destruction of lusts, renunciation of them, the desire to abstain, not to provide them with the slightest food.
Here, monks, is the Holy Truth about the path to the abolition of suffering - this is the holy eightfold path: true faith, true determination, true word, true deed, true life, true aspiration, true thoughts, true immersion in oneself!
Further, the Buddha taught about the perishability of everything earthly, that through the veil of happiness and youth one can see suffering, into which happiness and youth will inevitably turn. The Buddha said that the bodily is not the true Self, for it is subject to disease and death. Therefore, sensations, ideas and consciousness are also not true. Hence - ignorance as the basis of suffering. It is difficult for humanity, revolving among earthly worries and finding satisfaction and joy in them, to understand such a thing as the law of causality, the connection between causes and actions.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru