Origin of life-A Buddhist point of view

Daya Sirisena

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“Na Hethu deva Brahma va
Samsara atathikarako
Suddhamma pavanthanthi
Hethu sambhava appaccayati”

“There is no God or Brahma
Who is the creator of this World.
Empty phenomena roll on all
Subject to causality”.

Faith can be very strong and when it becomes strong enough to exclude reason it becomes bigotry, that is precisely the defect of those world views that are established entirely on faith, when they cannot accommodate themselves for reason or adjust themselves for particular aspect of knowledge on their own level they are bound to become immoderate.

As you know the myth that has dominated religious thought in the West for centuries is, that life is a supernatural faculty divinely bestowed and that man is a special creation.

It was always taken for granted, even after Darwin, that living creatures owed their existence to a creator, a higher being who fashioned them.

Infused them with vital principle, most people saw no other way in which at least originally it could have come about, it was the chief argument for reality of god, he was thought to be necessary on account of his function as a creator.

Man it was argued might make tables, chairs, yet propelled aircraft computers’, nuclear bombs, televisions, ballistic missiles, etc., but he could not make a living being, not even a worm, that was the thing only God could do therefore God must exist. It was simple as that.

Today human beings can be happy that knowledge they have acquired provide beyond doubt that life arises as the consequence of certain natural process with the properties inherent in the cosmos.

To prove it scientists are trying to reproduce the right conditions by which these process are brought into operation.

Let me tell you, scientists are not creating life, they are mostly bringing about artificially the situations in which all the factors being present, living organism inevitably come into being.

They are not created out of nothing. They are the results of nature’s chemistry. They grow and develop in accordance with nature’s laws, tsunami itself is one proof of causality.

Here it may seems there is another loophole for God. If God did not create life in the sense hitherto believed can it not be said that He created laws by which life comes into being if God did not who did? This puts the question right back at its starting point, for if God himself is a living willing and acting being there must be laws by which He himself lives, and those laws must have been in existence prior to God. He could not have created and established the laws of nature before he existed himself.

If God is stripped off all personality he becomes nothing but natural law, a mere abstraction.

It is only anthropomorphic God, a God in the likeness of man that can be loved worshipped and endowed with moral qualities.

Only a god who has personality can have love pity and concern for human beings. These are mental qualities. In the language of psychology, they are personality traits. One cannot love the law of gravity or the force fields of nuclear physics. As H. G. Wells pointed out unless God is a person he is nothing at all.

If a scientist is able to produce living cells in a test tube it might be supposed by some people that scientist has become God, there is in fact growing tendency to look upon the science laboratory as a temple but to follow out the analogy we must regard the scientist not as God but as High priest of what? Of natural law.

Can it indeed be said that the universe and the life process had any beginning or are we constrained to thinking in terms of beginnings only because of the limitations of our own mind?

A beginning is an event which has to take place at a specific point of space and time. It cannot occur in a timeless void because the three conditions of time - past, present, and future which are necessary for the occurrence of any event cannot obtain in a timeless state.

For any event to take place there must be the time before its occurrence (past) the time of its occurrence (present) and the time after its occurrence (future). But time is an altogether relative concept.

There must be events taking place to enable time to exist and it is by the regular occurrence of certain events such as rotation of the earth and seasonal changes that it can be known and measured. The occurrence of events necessitates the existence of things.

By things we mean objects that occupy space.

Thereby their movements in relation to another mark, not only divisions in time but also measurable areas in space. Space and time therefore are a unity; a qualitative whole with quantitative parts or relationships.

We may consider them separately but we cannot make any statesman concerning the one which do not involve the other.

This is stated broadly in the basis of the theory of relativity.

The knowledge of space and time depends upon consciousness and position without any fixed point of observation spatial and temporal.

Movement is common to both the observer and the object observed, so that what can be known is not a thing but merely a relationship.

When this is understood it follows that there could never have been a beginning or origin out of nothingness of the universe or the life process.

It is true that the universe as we know evolved out of dispersed matter of a previous universe, and when it passes away its remains in the form of active forces, will in time give rise to another universe in exactly the same way, the process is cyclic and continuous.

The space and time complex is curved and in a curved construction of inter-relationships there can be no point of origin of departure, so that in this series of related causes it is useless to look for any first causes.

And think them to be necessary only because our minds are conditioned to spatial and temporal relativity; the mind by its very nature, must operate within the mechanism of which it is itself a part. It can deal only with relationships.

This is why it is said in Buddhist texts “the origin of phenomena is not discoverable, beginning of the beings obstructed by ignorance and ensnared in craving not to be found”.

The Buddha’s teaching was for those who could practise it here and now. Many are the ways the Buddha explains the true nature of things.

Miracles were not essential part of His teachings. He always gave the freedom to the people and explained true nature.

Giving the freedom to the mind to introspect and develop the inner faculties, and clear all doubts, was His way of teaching.

At the age of Eighty Gauthama Samma Sambuddha was on his way to Kusinara taking leave of the city of Vaisala.

The unique teacher who taught mankind an incomparable doctrine was physically weak but full of mindfulness. Slowly walking with His favourite disciple Ananda. He was observing the pleasant serene surroundings.

“Citram Jabudivipam Manoramam
Jivitham Manasmanam Manoramam”

“Colourful and rich is India, lovable and charming is the life of men,” from all that he loves man must part, so as the world systems, it lives the span of life and disappear.

So as the teacher, “Ananda how could it be that what is born, what is subject to maturity, decay and instability should not pass.”

“Ananda I can see from your face you are unhappy.

You are wondering when I am gone there is no master for you.

Ananda remember I am leaving behind the Doctrine. Let that be your guide and refuge. Follow with earnestness.