Buddhism’s foundation rests on the Four Noble Truths: life entails suffering (dukkha), suffering arises from craving and ignorance, suffering can cease through nirvana, and the Noble Eightfold Path leads to liberation. The Eightfold Path includes right understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration, grouped into ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna). Unlike theistic religions, Buddhism emphasizes personal insight,

Before modern borders. Before books were banned and languages silenced. There was a land called Gandhāra. And in that land, in the city we now call Peshawar, a boy was born who would grow up to change the way people understood the mind.