Four Noble Truths - dukkha and its ending

Main articles: Dukkha and Four Noble Truths

The Buddha teaching the Four Noble Truths. Sanskrit manuscript. Nalanda, Bihar, India.

The Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism: we crave and cling to impermanent
states and things, which is dukkha,[47] "incapable of satisfying"[web 2] and painful.[48][49] This keeps us
caught in samsra, the endless cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha and dying again.[note 7] But there is
a way to liberation from this endless cycle[55] to the state of nirvana, namely following the Noble
Eightfold Path. [note 8]

The truth of dukkha is the basic insight that life in this "mundane world," with its clinging and
craving to impermanent states and things"[48] is dukkha, and unsatisfactory.[50][62][web 3] Dukkha can be
translated as "incapable of satisfying,"[web 2] "the unsatisfactory nature and the general insecurity of
all conditioned phenomena"; "painful."[48][49] Dukkha is most commonly translated as "suffering,"
which is an incorrect translation, since it refers not to literal suffering, but to the ultimately
unsatisfactory nature of temporary states and things, including pleasant but temporary
experiences.[67][note 9] We expect happiness from states and things which are impermanent, and
therefore cannot attain real happiness