Universe - cristianos

“Why the World, Why the Universe?” A Buddhist PerspectivePaul van der VeldeI ran through saṃsāra, with its many births,Searching for, but not finding, the house holder,Misery is birth again and again.House holder, you are seen!The house you shall not build again!Broken are your rafters, all,Your roof beam destroyed,Freedom from the saṃkhāras has the mind attained.To the end of cravings has it come.1Among modern western Buddhists we may often come across the idea that Buddhism is a “scientific” religion, or even a “scientific spirituality.”2 Buddhism has even got the reputation of being the only “scientific” religion, whatever this may imply.3 Well, actually what this statement implies is rarely ever further interrogated. It is true that nowadays prominent Buddhists take part in scien-tific research or show warm interest in discussions with scientists. The Dalai Lama for instance is a partner in the so called “Life and Mind” discussions, but we may wonder whether in these interactions the Buddhists are subject of research or object.4 But whatever the case, there are Buddhist teachers who do not avoid the confrontation with scientific research, which in itself of course is challenging. I would rather say that it cannot be held that Buddhism is the only “scientific” religion or even that Buddhism as such is “scientific.” But there are 1 Dhammapada XI, 153, 154 in: Buddhism: the Dhammapada, translated by John Ross Carter and Mahinda Palihawada (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1987), 39. Tradition has it that these were the very words the Buddha told Māra once he realized how the[...x]

universe works and how the beings arise and come to their end.2 B. A. Wallace, ed., Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (New York: Columbia University Press 2013).3 S. Lopez, Jr., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).4 A. Harrington, and A. Zajonc, eds., The Dalai Lama at MIT (Hadley: The Mind and Life Institute, 2006). (van der Velde) Buddhists who are more than ready to confront Buddhist ideas and concepts with the results of modern science.In this contribution I would like to reflect from a Buddhist perspective on the three movements proposed by Alan Culpepper on the universe and the impli-cations religion, and realized salvation may have here. I would like to do this on the basis of the division which he makes in his chapter when he raises his three points. First of all, what do scientists say on the history of the universe? This question I would like to transform into the question what Buddhism has to say on the origin and the nature of the universe as we know it. Secondly Culpepper reflects on what this implies for our understanding of God. Here as well Buddhism has its specific views. The last question, what this may signify for the understanding of the Gospel of John, I have transformed into the ques-tion, what the teachings of the Buddha, which are in Buddhist eyes the only way of salvation, imply for us humans. What is the relation between Buddhists’ salvation ideologies and the universe as we know it?1 The UniverseAs a matter of fact, the Buddha refused to give his disciples a kind of creation account. Why the universe exists, after all, was and is not of any interest, so tradition makes him tell his disciples. Once they asked him why the universe was there at all, if it were such a place of misery and suffering. Who had started it, if it was such a bad idea? In the Cūlamāluṅkyasutta (Majjhimanikāya 63) it is stated that the Buddha confronted with this question stated that if one desires to know this answer one is a like a man who has got a poisoned arrow in his eye. Instead of asking to be brought to a physician straight away, he is wonder-ing what the names of the parents of the shooter might be, of what type of bird the feathers originate that are fixed to the stem of the arrow, and so on-wrong questions from a Buddhist pragmatic perspective.The origin of the world is even considered to be one of the fourteen unan-swerable questions, problems of which the Buddha stated that they were not only of no interest at all, but could likewise not be satisfactorily answered. According to the Buddha there is no reason why we should wonder why the universe exists. There will be a reason, but that reason is not of any interest for us. We as suffering beings should try to deal with the universe in order to deliver ourselves and others of the ever recurring experience of suffering. That is all. In this explanation of the Buddha we are confronted with one of the striking aspects of most of oriental speculation, knowledge merely for the sake (page 178)