The Truth of Suffering is the understanding that all of human experience is unsatisfactory, because it is inextricably tied up with the notion of self and because it is impermanent. Birth, old age, sickness, and death all involve suffering. Even happiness is seen as suffering, the suffering of decay, because it is impermanent and inevitably leads to a less happy state. Moreover, even the greatest self-based bliss is suffering compared to enlightenment. In the Truth of the Origin of Suffering the Buddha taught that basic ignorance leads to desire and other afflictions, which are the cause of suffering. In the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering, that is, enlightenment, we are given an alternative to suffering as our fundamental mode of being. The Truth of the Path indicates how to get to enlightenment.

Suffering

This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of Suffering: Birth is suffering; decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate is suffering; separation from objects we love is suffering. Briefly, the fivefold clinging to existence is suffering. (Rhys Davids, tr. Vinaya Texts I, 95)

…[T]he Holy Truth of Suffering is either called offenses, or called oppression, or called flux and change, or called grabbing onto conditions, or called conglomeration, or called horns, or called relying on the root,or called vain and deceptive,or called carbuncles and sores,or called the conduct of ignorant people. (FAS Ch8 14)

Origin of Suffering

This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cause of suffering: Thirst, that leads to rebirth, accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there. (This thirst is threefold), namely, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity. (Vinaya Texts I, 95) [NOTE: The usual list has nonexistence, referring to nonexistence after death, instead of prosperity.]

…[T]he Holy Truth of the Accumulation of Suffering is either called being bound up, or called decay and ruin, or called the meaning of love and attachment, or called false awareness and thoughts, or called tending toward and entering, or called definiteness, or called a net, or called idle speculation, or called following along, or called the root of inversion. (FAS Ch8 17)

Cessation of Suffering

This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering: (it ceases with) the complete cessation of this thirst—a cessation which consists in the absence of every passion—with the abandoning of this thirst, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of desire. (Vinaya Texts I, 95)

Path

This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Path which leads to the cessation of suffering: that holy eightfold Path, that is to say, Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Memory, Right Meditation. (Vinaya Texts I, 95-96) [For an alternate translation and explanation, weightfold path.]

…[T]he Holy Truth of the Way Leading to the Extinction of Suffering is perhaps called the one vehicle, or called tending toward stillness, or called instructing and guiding, or called ultimately without difference, or called equality, or called setting down one’s burden, or called without tendencies, or called according with the sagely intent, or called the conduct of the immortals, or called the ten treasuries. (FAS Ch8 19)

四聖諦 ; catvāri āryasatyāni ; cattāri ariyasaccāni