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This is how: Suffering arises from within you. The cause of suffering is not in the external environment. It is within you.

This overlooks the most important element of causality of suffering, if you accept a model which posits that external causes and conditions produce the mind which suffers.

The direct cause of suffering for each and every instance of suffering is entirely produced by the mind. I have no problem with that statement.

The material cause of suffering is the thing that "stuff" which turns into that mind (the actual physical material that becomes brain, which produces mind or, if you don't believe mind is an emergent property of the brain's activities, then, the mental stuff that turns into current mind).

So, this refers to egg and sperm, generally (for most sentient beings). These are produced externally; they are not at all influenced by mental fabrications. No mind has been formed yet so no such fabrications can even exist.

Sperm and egg combine to produce fertilized egg; ultimately a newborn sentient being is produced.

Whatever mind that newborn sentient being has, the material cause of that mind is the previous moment of mind back to when its mind first began to function. The material from which mind arises is materially produced by the previous moment of material (brain, etc.) all the way back to the beginning of time, actually.

So whatever brain a newborn is born with is entirely the product of external causes, having nothing whatsoever to do with ignorance (at least if one accepts your model of birth and death).

The same is of course true for the body of such a being, whether it be the body of a future tri-athlete or a body born with a hole in the heart and downs syndrome.

Additionally, the physical circumstances of birth, the place of birth (war torn region of Muslim fundamentalist parents or in a gated Buddhist community composed of Billionaires, if such exists) are entirely caused by external conditions and are contributing causes.

So you say that the above three results (mind, body, physical location) may be determined externally but they have nothing to do with suffering, per se.

I disagree

It's like saying that a shooting victim whose femoral artery is severed and bleeds to death is not killed by the bullet. It's entirely true that the specific cause of death for a shooting victim is lack of blood to the brain and other vital organs. The blood is lost through the wound and not enough gets to the brain (especially) and the victim dies. But the external cause of being shot is clearly responsible for everything else that happened. A coroner's report would state "cause of death---loss of blood secondary to severing of femoral artery by 99mm bullet" or similar.

If I try to light a match in a vacuum you can state, accurately, that the cause of the match not lighting is lack of oxygen necessary to support combustion). However, someone would surely point out, no matter what you say, that the real cause of the match not lighting was that you foolishly tried to light it in a vacuum.

In fact, the external circumstances of their birth (just as in the case of the bullet that severed the femoral artery or the fool who tried to light the match in a vacuum) mandate such suffering; there is absolutely nothing that the vast majority of such beings can do about it.

Shantideva pointed this out very nicely, actually. He spoke of one who is pierced by an arrow and made to suffer thereby blaming the arrow for causing her/his suffering. That's foolish. Then...blame the person who shot it? Is that the cause? Just as foolish. Instead we should blame the suffering which produces such behavior.

You are placing the blame for suffering (instead of blame you can call it cause; it's all the same thing) on the one who suffers because, technically, the act of perceiving suffering, any suffering, is a process steeped in ignorance and the mental fabrications that arise from it.

When you are born with fundamental ignorance plenty of cause for mental fabrications that insure a constant stream of suffering (mosquito) and when there is no chance of reversing the process, it makes no sense at all not to then look to the causes for such birth. And the causes are the material cause and the circumstances (place, parents, etc.) are contributing causes.

To the extent that a being has choice and awareness of the causes of suffering and the mental ability to engage in meditation, and the good fortune to be able to practice, have teacher, materials, etc. then it's reasonable for that individual to think of her or his own suffering in terms of mental fabrications arising from ignorance. That's what he's working with. And, for people in this forum who are desiring to embark on their own spiritual journey towards the eradication of suffering it makes sense to see the causes for their own suffering as coming entirely from their own mental fabrications; after all that's what they are looking at and working with.

However, it's a totally different thing to analyze the suffering of all those sentient beings that have absolutely no chance to ever practice, let alone hear about or comprehend the dhamma.