The Four Noble Truths, a kind of simplified law of causation, are perhaps the best known of all the Buddha’s teachings: all existence is suffering, the cause of suffering is craving and illusion, suffering can be eliminated, and the way to eliminate suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path (ashtangika-marga) consisting of right views, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. As if to indicate their importance, Shakyamuni took the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as the subjects of his very first sermon, celebrated as “setting the Wheel of the Law in motion,” delivered to five ascetics at Deer Park near Benares.