When it is said that a suffering is made by oneself, can we trace to its source among our five elements ( 五陰、ごうん。five Skandha )?  Our body and mind is realized as the gatherings of five elements.

  All things are in the Pratitya_samutpada ( 縁起、えんぎ), Buddhists think so, and is a suffering thing_in_itself ( 自体、自性、self nature)?  It cannot be coincident.

  Buddha Sakyamuni said, “ life is a suffering”, but also said, “ the mind is peaceful released from a weary suffering.”  There is not a suffering in Nirvana ( 涅槃、ねはん).  Where does a suffering go away at the case of Nirvana.

  Since Buddhism is in essence “a religion of awakening,” it poses necessary limits to the role of the professional teacher.  When all is said and done, Buddhism is a matter of practicing oneself.  It is always and forever a question of the awareness of one’s true self,  which no teacher or specialist can ever replace.

  Muddleheaded spirits who complain,  “but I am a sinful fool and have to rely on the words of holy people, will forever find the Buddha’s way close to them.

  Ultimately, there are no sinner or saints, only “ original Buddha ( true self).”  To awaken to this fact in oneself is what Buddhism is all about.

  When Mahayana Buddhism( 大乗仏教) was born around the beginning of Common Era in India, it was a reform movement centered on the laity.  It was different from the primitive Buddhism.

  Wherever it spread, it put less stress on the minority of monks than on salvation of the greater masses of people.  By nature, the Mahayana tradition was a “ lay “ Buddhism for those “ at home.”

  They are us.  Mahayana Buddhism does not recommend to pass our life unmarried as a bachelor or a spinster like a monk or a nun of past time.

  Young people maybe fallen into love with sufferings. But they are not fear of love, and young couples get their partner, they guard and fulfill the duty for the family, and they work for the progress of the world, and so on. They are laity, but they are sufficient for the Buddhists.

  Especially it is difficult for women about the belief and practice of Buddhism, because there were very rare of past living examples of the Buddhists of women.

  Nagarjna was a great Buddhist of such Mahayana Buddhism.

  If the suffering is inquired into the matter of causality, there is not fixed and solid anything of the suffering.  Why is the suffering given by others?  For others, they won’t say the suffering is made by their self.  It is impossible that the suffering is made by the suffering itself.

  In conclusion, there is not a suffering at all.

  It is said that “ all sentient beings have the Buddha nature,” as well as the passage that “sentient beings are inherently Buddha(true self).”

  Here we have one of the foundational idea of Mahayana Buddhism.

  When she becomes aware of herself, she cannot find a suffering. Because “the self’s original nature” ( 自性、じしょう、svabhava), is not proved. Nagarjnya said that the true self is nothingness( 無自性、むじしょう、asvabhava).

  When there isn’t a suffering, we are relieved, aren’t we?

                                                     ( “The Middle Way” 12^th chapter, “About sufferings” is end)