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The teaching of The Four Noble Truths is common to all schools of Buddhism and it looks directly at the way things are.
From edited talks given by Venerable Sumedho Bhikku (Ajahn Sumedo)
THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH
The Fourth Noble Truth is the Noble Eightfold Path. The first of the eight factors in the path is Right View (samma ditthi), which develops from having seen and experienced cessation. To have Right View requires that we be very mindful all the time. We must know that everything arises and passes away and is not self - this must be a direct experience, an insight. Right View is based on direct insightful knowing, not just thinking and believing in the concept. As long as you don't really know but just think you know, you will always be in a state of uncertainty and be confused. This is because intellectual knowing is based on symbols alone, not on direct experience of the truth.
The second factor of the path is Right Attitude, or Right Intention (samma sankappa). Once you have Right View, then your intention from that moment on is towards nirvana (nibbana) or the uncreated - towards liberation. You still feel impulses and habitual tendencies like doubt, worry, or fear pulling you back into the sensory world, but you recognise these impulses now. You know them as they are, and you can no longer delude yourself for very long with those conditions.
Together, Right View and Right Attitude are referred to as wisdom (panna), and they take you to the third, fourth and fifth aspects of the path: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood (sammavaca, samma kammanta, samma ajiva). In the Pali language, these three are called sila - the moral side of the Eightfold Path. Sila means doing good and refraining from doing evil with bodily action and speech. Right View and Right Attitude encourage sila because once you see the truth, you are no longer inclined to use your body or speech for harming yourself or other beings. You feel responsible; you are not going to misuse your own body or someone else's, or cause harm to other beings intentionally. You may do that unintentionally, but you don't have the intention to hurt. That's the difference.
When there is sila, there is emotional balance and we feel at peace. Because we don't hurt or steal or lie, there are no regrets, we are not guilt ridden, and there is a feeling of calm, equanimity, and humility. From this feeling of peace come the sixth, seventh, and eighth aspects of the path: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration (samma vayana, samma sati, samma samadhi). With effort, mindfulness and concentration, the passive and active are in balance. It's like learning to walk: you are always going off balance and falling down, but in that very process you're developing strength, just as a baby does. A baby learning to walk develops strength by depending on its mother and father, by depending on the table and chairs, and by falling down and hurting itself and picking itself up again. Eventually it takes two steps, then it begins to walk, and finally it begins to run. Once you know what it means to be in balance, then it's no problem - you can walk, you can run, you can twirl around, you can leap.
So we can divide the Eightfold Path into three sections: sila, samadhi, and panna. Sila is morality, samadhi is concentration, panna is wisdom. Sila is how you conduct yourself, how you live your life, how you use your body and speech. Samadhi is the balance of the emotions. When you have good samadhi, love is free from selfish desire, free of lust and trying to get something from someone. With emotional balance, there is a kind of joy and love. You're not indifferent, but you have balance. You can love because there's nothing else to do. That's the natural relationship when there's no self. But when selfishness arises, then love becomes lust, compassion becomes patronising, joy becomes selfish greed for happiness. When there's no self, joy is natural and compassion is a spontaneous arising of the mind. Panna is wisdom, knowing the truth so that there is perfect harmony between the body, the emotions, and the intellect. With wisdom, these three are all working together helping each other as one, rather than as three conflicting forces.
In Theravadan Buddhist practice,
the Four Noble Truths are all that are contemplated.
As we meditate and live more mindfully and more carefully, these truths will
become very clear to us through direct experience. So when the Buddha was
asked what he believed in or taught he said "I teach suffering, its
origin, cessation, and path." The Brahmins would ask, "Is there a
God?" "What happens to the Enlightened One when he passes
away?" But all the Buddha would say was, "All that arises passes
away and is not self. There is suffering, it has a beginning and an end, and
there's a way out of it. That's all I teach." Brilliant minds, great
intellectuals, have all kinds of ideas about ultimate reality and utopian
philosophies. They have magnificent systems of reason and logic, but they
don't know their own bodies and minds. They haven't learned from the
conditions they experience all the time.