What is Buddhism's answer to the problem of suffering?
In one word, the dhamma, the Buddha's teaching, the prescription and the practice that he teaches.
The Four Noble Truths are dukkha (an untranslatable word often translated into English as 'suffering'), the arising of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, and the path to the cessation of dukkha.
The second noble truth is that dukkha arises as the result of 'tanha' (thirst, craving, desire), or perhaps 'neediness'.
The third noble truth is that dukkha declines as tanha declines.
The fourth Noble Truth is the Noble Eightfold Path, which is basically Buddhism in a nutshell. It's a whole spiritual practice designed to reduce one's psychological neediness.
The eight practices are cumulative, you add later ones to earlier ones, as opposed to completing one before starting the next.
1. Right view - this is intellectual understanding of what Buddhism is. One needs to have heard of Buddhism and have some idea what it is before you begin. At the more advanced level, it's Buddhist philosophy.
2. Right resolve - in order to begin, one needs to be motivated. One's motivation deepens as one progresses.
3. Right speech - the first ethical/behavioral action is to start talking like a Buddhist. That will create expectations in those around you that will help keep you on the path. It will also motivate you to use your words in positive ways, avoiding lies, harsh and divisive speech.
4. Right action - means keeping the five pancasila precepts in one's behavior. The pancasila precepts are don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, don't consume mind-clouding drugs, and don't commit sexual improprieties like child-molesting or rape. Ethical principles become more sophisticated and nuanced as one progresses.
5. Right livelihood - means introducing Buddhist principles into how one conducts one's entire life, along with avoidance of activities that harm others.
Notice that 2. through 5. represent a progressively deeper ethical practice. In the West, Buddhism is often presented as if it consisted of nothing but meditation, but its heart is probably its ethics. Behaving ethically in all things is profoundly transformative, psychologically speaking. In a very real sense we are what we do, and behaving ethically is in fact a very real kind of meditation.
Now the path move inward and addresses one's own psychological processes.
6. Right effort - refers to directing one's mind towards wholesome states.
7. Right mindfulness - means being aware at all times of one's own dynamics. Then one gradually develops the ability to intervene in and steer one's own inner process. Mindfulness is very trendy at the moment, and it's sometimes taught separately from the rest of Buddhist tradition, as a stand-alone psychological technique.
8. Right concentration - means cultivating the ability to focus necessary to enter into the higher meditative dhyana states and for mindfulness to become fully effective.
This is the entire Buddhist path in very minimalist outline form. The thousands of suttas in the Pali canon are basically elaborations and commentary on it. So it can become as detailed as somebody wants it to be.
I should note that Mahayana Buddhism subsequently developed its own Boddhisattva path, that places greater emphasis on the ethical and personal transformative effects of compassion.
