Buddhism is one of the world's oldest religions. At its core are
the quests to understand life and to help people overcome their
basic sufferings. Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism traces its
origins to the teachings of Shakyamuni, who is said to have
lived some 2,500 years ago. Known as Siddhartha Gautama in his
youth, at age 19, he was a royal heir in India. His palace life
was far removed from the everyday life of common people, and
when he discovered how people suffered outside the palace walls,
he set out to find out how to overcome the roots of basic human
suffering. He made it his life's purpose to find solutions to
the inescapable sufferings of life. He sought the foremost
teachers of his day and practiced the extreme forms of
asceticism they advocated as the means to realize the ultimate
reality of life. After following their teachings for several
years, and on the point of death from fasting, Shakyamuni
realized that their path was too extreme. He awakened to the
wisdom of the "middle way," neither the