The Buddha's first teaching at the Deer Park, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11), begins with the Middle Way and then states four noble truths. These truths are not four slogans to believe. Each carries a task: suffering is to be fully understood, its origin is to be abandoned, cessation is to be realized, and the path is to be developed. The Buddha says his awakening was complete when he knew each truth, its task, and the completion of that task.
The first truth is dukkha. The word covers obvious pain, the unreliability of pleasant conditions, and the deeper unsatisfactoriness of clinging to what changes. Birth, aging, illness, death, association with the disliked, separation from the liked, and not getting what one wants are dukkha. In brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha. The teaching does not say that every moment feels miserable. It says that conditioned experience cannot provide permanent security when treated as "mine" or "what I am."
The second truth identifies origin: craving (taṇhā) that produces renewed existence and seeks delight here and there. SN 56.11 names craving for sensual pleasure, craving for continued existence, and craving for annihilation or non-existence. Craving is not identical to every wish. The wish to practice, abandon harm, or awaken can support the path. The problem is thirst joined with ignorance and appropriation: the demand that experience secure or erase a self.
The third truth is the fading away and cessation of that craving—relinquishment, release, and freedom. This is Nibbāna, not the successful arrangement of all changing conditions. The fourth truth is the Noble Eightfold Path. It makes the teaching practical: right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and collectedness.
A useful canonical companion is the Discourse on the Dart (SN 36.6). An untrained person struck by bodily pain is compared to someone struck by a first dart who then receives a second dart of resistance, grief, and identification. The disciple may still feel the first pain but does not automatically construct the second. This does not reduce all suffering to attitude; birth, sickness, oppression, separation, and death are real. It shows where craving and clinging add a trainable layer.
Koṇḍañña listens as the Buddha teaches the truths in three rounds and twelve aspects: the truth, the duty regarding it, and the knowledge that the duty is complete. At the end, Koṇḍañña sees that whatever arises is subject to cessation.
Two people experience a painful feeling. The untrained person adds resistance and mental anguish, like being struck by two darts. The trained disciple knows the painful feeling without feeding a second wound through craving and aversion.