Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death
What Causes Life?
Even with the poetic metaphor of the treasure tower, we are still left to question: Where does life come from? What causes it?
Since ancient times, human beings have been fascinated by the mystery of life’s origin, by questions of why we are here on earth just as we are and what has caused us to be this way. In our quest, we have stretched the limits of our spirits, plumbed the depths of our minds and conducted endless laboratory experiments. All this work has yielded no definitive answers but rather an assortment of religious and philosophical hypotheses.
Buddhism views the universe as one life entity. The universe is imbued with life, and wherever conditions are right, life will emerge.
In the most conventional sense, of course, we are born from the union of our mothers and fathers. At the joining together of the spermatozoon and the ovum, an embryo is formed. As the embryo develops, so do the various functions of body and mind.
Something about the development of a new life, however, cannot be explained simply by the spermatozoon and ovum union. The embryo’s development based on the genetic information it has received and the environmental influences it experiences cannot be ascribed merely to chemical reactions. Something much more profound must cause life to emerge.
Buddhism explains that there are four stages of life: existence during birth, existence during life, existence during death and the existence during the period between death and rebirth, or the “intermediate existence or stage.” Life is understood to repeat the cycle of these four stages eternally.
Birth, like death, is a process. Some sutras describe conception as the appearance of an “entity of intermediary existence,” or the introduction of consciousness. Conception is the moment when this intermediary existence is wedded to its new human form.
Life in all its forms and at all times contains the urge to create, is inherently active, and possesses the positive power of self-generation. Indeed, life is a grand and eternal pulse that constantly seeks to become manifest throughout the universe whenever conditions are right. The power and functions that work within life to promote its self-manifestation can be called “internal causes.” Buddhism tells us that internal causes (including, as we shall see, the karma carried through the intermediate stage) interact with external causes to bring about the circumstances and conditions of birth.
Western science generally considers the spermatozoon and ovum the sole essentials for conception, maintaining that only fertilization of the female gamete is a necessary prerequisite. By contrast, the Buddhist view is that not only the spermatozoon and ovum but also life itself — in the state of intermediate existence and with karma that matches the conditions of conception, heredity, family and social conditions into which the life will be born — are each necessary for human life to come into being and develop. Conception results from the union of all three.
To illustrate, a couple has intercourse and fertilization is about to take place. Due to the combination of DNA from both parents, their potential child will inherit the genes for a birth defect. Conception cannot take place, however, without the “availability” of a life entity in the intermediate stage of existence that has made the causes to experience the effects of being born with and suffering from that birth defect. The life and karma of the mother, father and child — all must align.
The Meaning of Karma
Each of us creates our own karma. Our past thoughts, speech and behavior have shaped our present reality, and our actions (and thoughts and speech) in the present will in turn affect our future. The influence of karma carries over from one lifetime to the next, remaining through the latent state between death and rebirth. The law of karma accounts for the circumstances of one’s birth, one’s individual nature and the differences among all living beings and their environments.
The idea of karma predates Buddhism and had already permeated Indian society well before Shakyamuni’s time. The pre-Buddhist view of karma, however, contained an element of determinism. It served more to explain people’s lot in life and to compel them to accept it rather than inspire hope for change or transformation.
Buddhist teachings further developed the idea of karma. Shakyamuni maintained that what makes a person noble or humble is not birth but actions taken. Therefore, the Buddhist doctrine of karma is not fatalistic. Karma is viewed not only as a means to explain the present but also as the potential force through which to influence our future.
Good karma, then, means actions born from good intentions, kindness and compassion. Conversely, bad karma refers to actions induced by greed, anger and foolishness (or the holding of mistaken views). Some Buddhist treatises divide the causes of bad karma into ten acts: the three physical acts of killing, stealing and sexual misconduct; the four verbal acts of lying, flattery (or idle and irresponsible speech), defamation and duplicity; and the three mental acts of greed, anger and foolishness.
Buddhism teaches that the chain of cause and effect exists eternally; this accounts for the influence of karma amassed in prior lifetimes. The influence of such karma resides within the depths of our lives and, when activated by the moment-to-moment realities of this lifetime, shapes our lives according to its dictates. Some karmic effects may appear in this lifetime while others may remain dormant. “Fixed karma” produces a fixed result at a specific time, whereas the result of “unfixed karma,” of course, is neither fixed nor set to appear at a predetermined time.
Some karma is so heavy, so profoundly imprinted in the depths of people’s lives, that it cannot easily be altered. For instance, suppose someone deliberately makes another person extremely unhappy or even causes that person’s death; whether the guilty party escapes apparent accountability or is arrested and dealt with according to judicial procedures, either way, that person has created heavy negative karma. According to the strict law of causality, this negative karma will surely lead to karmic suffering far beyond one’s ordinary powers to eradicate it. Such grave karma usually exerts its influence at death, and the most influential karma at the time of death will determine one’s basic life-condition in the next lifetime.
The influence of particular karma will be extinguished after its energy is unleashed in one’s life. This is similar to a plant seed that sprouts and grows to blossom as a flower or bear fruit. After fulfilling its function, the same seed will never repeat the process.
Bad karma can be erased only after it “blossoms” in the form of our suffering. According to pre-Lotus Sutra teachings, the influence of severely bad karma, created through numerous actions, could only be erased through several lifetimes; and one could attain Buddhahood only by accumulating good causes in lifetime after lifetime. But the Lotus Sutra teaches that the principal cause for attaining Buddhahood is the Buddha nature inherent in each individual life, and that faith in the Lotus Sutra opens the way to that attainment. It is not required that we undergo lifetime after lifetime of austerities. Through our diligent practice of faith in the Lotus Sutra, we can instantly tap our innate Buddhahood and extricate ourselves from the effects of our bad karma in this lifetime. Moreover, the transformation of an individual’s life-condition can evoke a similar transformation in others. As this process ripples outward, similar transformations become possible throughout entire societies, all humankind and even into the natural world.
Source: Unlocking the Mysteries ofBirth and Death: Buddhist View of Transmigration, Oneness of Life and the Environment, Universe is Life, etc.