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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: Big Uncle on June 22, 2012, 08:45:59 PM
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In theistic religions, there is a creator God, an almighty personality that shapes us out of mud or something. However, in Buddhism we don't believe that the God(s) created us, humans. What do the Buddhist believe? If Karma is the creative force behind our existence, what created karma? I think this question is linked to the question of when was our first lifetime.
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In theistic religions, there is a creator God, an almighty personality that shapes us out of mud or something. However, in Buddhism we don't believe that the God(s) created us, humans. What do the Buddhist believe? If Karma is the creative force behind our existence, what created karma? I think this question is linked to the question of when was our first lifetime.
Karma = law of cause and effect!
Meaning there is no effect without a cause. Therefore there cannot be a 1st life without a cause for it, hence there cannot be a 1st life per se. If there was a so called 1st life, it would contradict karma ie the law of cause and effect.
In view of this, there is also no beginning. How can there be a beginning if there is a cause for it because then there is something that preluded, making the beginning NOT the beginning. Time is beginning-less.
The Christians' do recognize there is no effect without a cause and from a Christian understanding, the cause is a creator God, making the idea of the 1st life acceptable.
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The creator deity is a very prominent figure in many religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. However, Buddhism rejects a creator and states that questions on the creation of the world are pointless.
Some gods in Buddhism have the view that they are creators of the world. An example would be Baka Brahma. However, Buddha pointed out to them that they do not know the whole extent of the universe, and further, the spiritual power of the Buddha was greater than the spiritual power of these gods who thought they created the world. One of the sutras dealing with this subject is the Kevaddha Sutra.
I am do not have a full understanding of Karma but I do believe that Karma is created by nobody. It is a law of cause and effect. It is a law that all sentient beings have to abide and it is a law that is inescapable. Nobody governs this law but we are to face its consequences and benefits. Unless, we release ourselves from Karma which means becoming enlightened.
Regarding your question about your first lifetime, it is impossible to know. Because we have been existing in many different forms since beginning-less time and even before Earth was created. Because Earth is not the only place where humans have existed.
In conclusion, searching for a beginning would only waste one's precious time in our precious human life. It is pointless.
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So if Buddhists do not believe in a God, who created us? According to the Buddha, the god idea has its origins in fear. The Buddha says, "Gripped by fear men go to sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines." (Dhammapada) The Buddha's explanation of the origin of the universe (and thus the human race) corresponds very closely with the scientific view. In the Aganna Sutra, the Buddha describes the universe being destroyed and then re-evolving into its present form over a period of countless millions of years. The first life forms on the surface of the water and again, over countless millions of years, evolves from simple into complex organisms. All these processes are without beginning or end, and are set in motion by natural causes.
(from Ven. S. Dhammika, "Good Question, Good Answer")
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If there is God, known to be perfect and worthy of praise, how can we explain the inconsistency differences in every being on this earth? Why are there differences in each individual of animals, human build, structure, wealth, behaviour, etc.. If there is God, every being would have been perfect. Well, it is not happening the way we think we wanted it. How, where and what we are, depends on our past and present karma created. The law of karma explains the problem of sufferings, the mystery of the so called ‘fate’ and ‘predetermination’ to some religion. Further to this, why would there be apparent inequality of mankind.
In Buddhist teachings, there’s no beginning and no end to one’s existence or life. There’s virtually no recognition of a first cause for example how human existence first come about?
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Yes I have had this question posed on me several occasion and there is no real solid answer to it isn't it? And from many readings I gather that we come from our very own karma... and yup...no beginning and no end.
Answers extracted from [url]http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/qanda05.htm[/url] ([url]http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/qanda05.htm[/url])
Buddhism offers the most satisfactory explanation of where man came from and where he is going. When we die, the mind, with all the tendencies, preferences, abilities and characteristics that have been developed and conditioned in this life, re-establishes itself in a fertilized egg. Thus the individual grows, is re-born and develops a personality conditioned both by the mental characteristics that have been carried over and by the new environment. The personality will change and be modified by conscious effort and conditioning factors like education, parental influence and society and once again at death, re-establish itself in a new fertilized egg. This process of dying and being reborn will continue until the conditions that cause it, craving and ignorance, cease. When they do, instead of being reborn, the mind attains a state called Nirvana and this is the ultimate goal of Buddhism and the purpose of life.
The most important factor, but not the only one, influencing where we will be reborn and what sort of life we shall have, is kamma. The word kamma means 'action' and refers to our intentional mental actions. In other words, what we are is determined very much by how we have thought and acted in the past. Likewise, how we think and act now will influence how we will be in the future.
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I guess in Buddhism, it is more logical to look at answers that we can answer. I wonder why the Buddha never spoke about it and I am sure that he knew the answer. Perhaps, it is an answer that he couldn't divulge because it would be beyond the capacity for us to comprehend or perhaps like what most people say, it is unimportant to our spiritual practice at this point.
Our actions/karma is obviously the creator of our world and in Tantra, it is believed that our previous lives are so endless that it is like a thread that goes on and on. I don't know anything more and perhaps, that too is not important or the line is just too long, it would boggle the mind to know how long. However, I am always curious about this. In a way, this makes Buddhism very attractive to modern spiritual seekers because it is very pragmatic about such issues.
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From the Abhidharma, we know that there is continuous change in the universe and its life forms. The moment when the causes and conditions for its existence cease, our universe will explode. All the sentient beings within the universe will die and take rebirth in another universe. Sentient beings in samsara will repeat the process of dying and taking of rebirth until they have gained liberation and enlightenment. These deaths and rebirths are governed by the Law of Cause and Effect or Karma. Karma is a natural phenomenon and it is not created by anyone or God or Buddha. Death is the cause for rebirth. And rebirth is the cause for death. So when is our first life-time? There is no answer.
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interestingly my friend was discussing about this topic with me yesterday... whether is it possible for all sentient beings to become enlightened and if that happens "there'd be no more work to do".
i remember someone once explained to me about our existence: there is no beginning hence there is no end. does this mean that it is not possible for everyone to gain enlightenment one day? does gaining enlightenment mean one will "cease" to "exist"?
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We will only know the answer once we are enlightened. I have asked this question many times and also have pondered about it. The answer I usually get is "it's beyond my understanding". I believe it is because at the level of our minds, it would be difficult to explain this to us. It's the same as emptiness. Not everyone is able to comprehend it.
I have no answer for you. I have stopped thinking about it and think about more important things such as liberation. Knowing how we came about from the beginning-less time brings no benefit to us or anyone.
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Interesting topic!
As far as I know Buddhism doesn’t look into the creator but very much into Karma which is Cause and Effect. Personally whether there is a creator or god that initiated the whole entire universe it doesn’t show me much on the spiritual side of it. Most probably believe in karma and everything happens for a reason and is the effect from our previous action.
We have live for so many life time and what determine our life or future life is our very own action that causes the effect. It’s fair, what you are now is what you have done before and is very much to ask us to take full responsibility towards our action. This matter to me and always.
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I don't think there is an answer for this. So far i can't find any answer about who is the creator in Buddhsim. In other religions, the explanations are rather vague or mostly merely faith in believing who the creators were. If there were a creator, then there will be a creator of the creator. Does it makes sense when there is no end nor beginning of who the creator is? If there is a creator with no beginning then there will be no Karma. Because if there is a creator, why the creator created us with endless suffering and full of imperfections? Why not the creator create the perfect being?
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Buddhism has not said anything about how man was created,but has answered it indirectly.Buddha has given a law known as 'the law of dependant origination',according to this law a thing will happen if the required circumstances are there,for example if water is heated it will change into vapour and if heat is taken away from vapour,it will again change into water.Here heat is the required item for the circumstance.Buddhism accepts what science say about how man was created.Man was evolved from apes and still man has been evolving anatomically and functionally.Buddhism never accepts man was created by God,why because Buddhism rejected the existence of God and soul.
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That is why I like Buddhism because it is logical and it does not rely on the ultimate power up there to determine anything. We are taught to control our own life by understanding karma, the law of cause and effect. Even one does not have to be a Buddhist can accept that logic, cause resembles effect and result.
When I was young, I used to seek for an answer who created us? Then why make us different colours with so many differences.. then why the condition? Why so unfair? After getting in touch with Buddhism, many things make much more sense. It lies in our own hands, we can charge of our actions. Hence, a positive action resulted in a positive return. Very logical.
Contrary to the creator concept, if the creator is known to be loving and compassion then why would he create human kind to suffer? then why are we not equal?
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Honestly, sometimes I do wish there is a God... it would make life and coming to terms with our existence here on earth so much easier. I can just live a righteous life and be guaranteed a good afterlife. Too bad I'm Buddhist and my logic just matches Buddhist teachings.
Technically, if we look deep down into ourselves... we dont exist. Yes, I'm talking about emptiness... We are almost like impermanence in slow mo. Too bad we can't pause it, and even if we could it would still not last.
So who created us? No one.
Its just like Physics... who created physics? definitely not the person who discovered or studied physics. Who created momentum? No one... it just exists as a law of cause and effect .
So what are we if we are non existent? We're just merely a 'happening'... something that occurred out of the laws of karma. Its like burning oil and get black smoke... we're the black smoke that occurs from burning the oil, and the oil that fuels it is karma.
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I guess in Buddhism, it is more logical to look at answers that we can answer. I wonder why the Buddha never spoke about it and I am sure that he knew the answer. Perhaps, it is an answer that he couldn't divulge because it would be beyond the capacity for us to comprehend or perhaps like what most people say, it is unimportant to our spiritual practice at this point.
Our actions/karma is obviously the creator of our world and in Tantra, it is believed that our previous lives are so endless that it is like a thread that goes on and on. I don't know anything more and perhaps, that too is not important or the line is just too long, it would boggle the mind to know how long. However, I am always curious about this. In a way, this makes Buddhism very attractive to modern spiritual seekers because it is very pragmatic about such issues.
I get this question posted to me quite often as well especially among my friends who is seeking knowleage about Buddhism. I myself have been trying to seek this answer as well until one fine day i decided i should not bother about how did it all began. I think it is of no begining and there is no end to it. But having thought about that, there should be at least something that made it happen right? I am still unable to answer, when or how did the first life form (i am talking about beings not bacterias) is born in this world or in this universe?
i do believe that if one can answer and prove how human existed in this world will definitely help to convince people who are looking into Buddhism as their spiritual paths. This enforces their believe in Buddhism on how things existed and karma. This brings me to another question, Karma is of cause and effect. Without the cause, how will an effect takes place?
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In theistic religions, there is a creator God, an almighty personality that shapes us out of mud or something. However, in Buddhism we don't believe that the God(s) created us, humans. What do the Buddhist believe? If Karma is the creative force behind our existence, what created karma? I think this question is linked to the question of when was our first lifetime.
Karma = law of cause and effect!
Meaning there is no effect without a cause. Therefore there cannot be a 1st life without a cause for it, hence there cannot be a 1st life per se. If there was a so called 1st life, it would contradict karma ie the law of cause and effect.
In view of this, there is also no beginning. How can there be a beginning if there is a cause for it because then there is something that preluded, making the beginning NOT the beginning. Time is beginning-less.
The Christians' do recognize there is no effect without a cause and from a Christian understanding, the cause is a creator God, making the idea of the 1st life acceptable.
I agree with positive change. There will always be a prelude to the identified "beginning". As ilikeshugden stated, it's pointless to know the beginning. How does it help the person? What's real for us now is that karma exists and we are controlled by it.
So it makes more sense to understand the rules of the universe and master it. Otherwise, we'll be washed away by our karma. In this situation, ignorance doesn't pay.
As my lama told me many years ago, master the practice of compassion to the level of HHDL, then figure out what is the creator God. We're all play school level. It's impossible for us to begin to understand Phd matters.
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As far as Buddhism is concerned there is no God, the Almighty or Creator. If there is a God or a Creator, who created them? Until now, I still can't find an answer as to who is God/Creator or how we come about. My point of view is that there is no God/Creator that creates us. If there is a God/Creator, he would have created us equally and perfectly but this is not so. Every being has different degrees of happiness or sufferings. Thus I believe that it is our karma that determined our lives. How did human existence first come about? I think it is impossible to know or we are not at that level to understand. Unless we achieved Enlightenment, maybe we can find that answer. In the meantime, it is pointless to waste our precious time trying to find the answer as it brings no benefit to us.
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The answer to the question of "who created us?" is the same as "who created God?" If God created us, then who created God? Us? Without us, then God would not need to exist. All this is illogical.
I would say, the answer to the question of "who created us" would be "us". We created ourselves. We need to exist, hence we exist. If there is a need, then it would be filled. The higher or strongest ones will first be filled. God needs to exist, then there is God. He needs to exist. But God and us exist almost simultaneously. That is not to say, he created us. He did not. We all need to exist.
That is karma of existence.
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We have to look backwards:
I am here now, I existed 10 hours ago, I existed at 2 years old, I existed in my mother's womb, I existed at the time of conception, I existed in my previous life prior to conception, I existed in the years of my previous life, I existed at the time of conception in my previous life... and it goes on, and on, and on.
There is no beginning. It just hundreds of thousands - countless number of lifetimes. We are not actually born, we don't actually die. It's just a continuous stream of existence. There is no beginning.
The sheer thought is un-phantomable.
So who created us? If we break down our existence, we are our consciousness (as our body is a mere vehicle). If we are our consciousness, what is our consciousness?
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Is there a god? I am not too sure but I am sure there is karma. What we do today will affect us in the near future in this life or the next. We have a consciousness which has been there for countless of aeons, lifetime after lifetime, rebirth after rebirth. Our mindstream follows us from one life to another life but we do not remember what happened in our previous life.
When we die, our mindstream does not die with our body. Our mindstream will go to another body or another form and continue from there. That is why Buddhist are seeking enlightenment/liberation, so that we get out of this cycle of birth and death.
Do good so that we can be reborn in the human realm and continue on to learn Dharma until our enlightenment.
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We have to look backwards:
I am here now, I existed 10 hours ago, I existed at 2 years old, I existed in my mother's womb, I existed at the time of conception, I existed in my previous life prior to conception, I existed in the years of my previous life, I existed at the time of conception in my previous life... and it goes on, and on, and on.
There is no beginning. It just hundreds of thousands - countless number of lifetimes. We are not actually born, we don't actually die. It's just a continuous stream of existence. There is no beginning.
The sheer thought is un-phantomable.
So who created us? If we break down our existence, we are our consciousness (as our body is a mere vehicle). If we are our consciousness, what is our consciousness? "
I like how Jessica puts it , if we were to subscribe to the current scientific explanation of how the universe was created i.e via the Big Bang theory, then there is technically no beginning and no end !
This is why i just love buddhism as it is so logically scientific , LOL . According to the the Big Bang Theory the universe as we know it, was created by an explosion on an extremely hot , small and infinitely dense body of matter . And all that exist in the universe is the by product of that cosmic explosion that is still infinitely expanding.
Some cosmologist estimates the the age of this explosion to be between 12 -20 billion years ago and still continuing to expand. At the moment scientist are unable to phantom its end . And even when this expanding explosion stops , the universe which is the by product of this explosion will continue to exist as all the mass of the universe put together will not have enough gravity to pull it back together to its original form. Thus, there is no end.
So , in the beginning there was this mass that exploded and this mass had exist prior to the explosion. Whence did this mass come from ? Another explosion ?!
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In Buddism there is no the beginning or ending. Our mind never go away, it always exist from our many of past lives body till today in this body. I know for sure that we create our own karma, therefore how is the level of our mind is reflect from our karma we created and this karma is go on to taking rebirth in future life too.
There are many of practitioners are aim their practice to end from the cycle of the suffering of life, no more exist in samsara by hold the vows, do their practice to achieve Arhatship. But this is also not the end though, our mind still there in Arhatship.
So let create more merit so that we will gain more wisdom to understand more about this.
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It is very easy to accept that A GOD created us from the Garden of Eden, from Adam to Eve and so forth. This makes life easy enough but in Buddhism and the essence of Karma and dependant arising, give a more logical answer though more deep.
As our mind will leave the physical vessel in any of the 6 realms of existence, there is no beginning to the existence but it is how our mind is trained and how we create the cause and effects that will be the arising of any form with the same mind in any of the 6 realms.
That too is the meaning of the vicious cycle or birth and death. So death is the beginning or Birth is the beginning? With deeper contemplation it is so true to say that there is no one lifetime nor is there a beginning it is all dependant arising. The realisation of Karma.
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Buddhists do not believe in a creator God. In Buddhism, the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since there is no beginning and no end. In Buddhist cosmology, there are many world systems which are always appearing and disappearing. Our planet is only part of one world system. According to Buddhist teachings, the world is nothing but samsara, the cycle of endless births and deaths. To the Buddha, it is meaningless and a waste of time to explain the origin of the universe. Our goal in life should be to liberate ourselves from samsara, from suffering. Wanting to know about the origin of the universe and who created us is like the man who was shot by the poison arrow. Instead of getting help immediately, he wanted to know who shot the arrow, etc. By the time the information was obtained, he was already dead. Similarly, our immediate task is to achieve liberation, not to worry about our origin.