Who created us?

[brian]

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?

[Klein]

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.

[pgdharma]

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.

[yontenjamyang]

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.

[jessicajameson]

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?

[Galen]

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.

[Benny]

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 ?!

   

[ratanasutra]

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.
 

 

[Dondrup Shugden]

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. 

[Midakpa]

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.