Sweet is his speech who controls his tongue
The bhikkhu who is controlled in tongue, who speaks wisely, who is not
puffed up,
who explains the meaning and the text, sweet indeed is his speech.
Bhikkhu Vagga - The Dhammapada
Is it god, Darwin or the Buddha?
V. Dahanayaka
Mahinda Weerasinghe
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ORIGIN OF LIFE: Mahinda Weerasinghe is a man with an extraordinary
message. Not only is he contesting the creationists’ theories of life,
but also challenging the scientific establishment’s alternative to
divine creation.
We finally caught up with him holidaying leisurely in Mt Lavinia, on
a quick visit to Sri Lanka to launch his work in late August, and posed
some relevant questions.
Interviewer: - Vijitha Yapa publications has just released your
enlarged third edition of ‘The Origin of Species According to the
Buddha’. In that you not only summarily dismiss the creationist version
of life, but also the scientific establishment’s alternative to it;
obviously I am speaking of Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’.
Mahinda Weerasinghe: Curiously enough the global opinion concerning
theories of life is divided between these two schools of thought. The
Creationists profess that species were fashioned in their present form.
When I say creationist we must include all shades of Judeo- Christian
sects. They are of the opinion that pig was created as pig, man as man,
and evolutionary process of species is only a figment of our
imagination.
Then we have the Darwinists; who maintain that ‘natural selection’ is
the ‘scientific base’ for the evolution of species.
External forces
If we go by both these two schools of thought, then it would simply
mean that external forces had determined and controlled our coming into
being. Then how in the world can individuals be called to answer for
their actions?
I: Can you clarify that?
MW: Just consider; no individual that we know of has put in a request
to be created, or be begotten. If a creator had created us in our
present form, then our body and mind would have been the handiwork of
this loving creator too.
Whether he is a pervert, an imbecile or a ‘Hitler’, all individuals
perform actions using the body and mind awarded to them, naturally. So
how indeed can individuals be responsible for their actions?
On the other hand we have the ‘natural selection’ explanation of
Darwinists.
Here too individuals are helpless pawns as we have come into being
through a whole series of ‘luck by chance’ events. In other words we had
no power to navigate over our own destiny by what we have inherited in
this hapless process of accidents. So how can such helpless individuals
be responsible for their actions?
I: But the whole scientific establishment accepts that natural
selection explains the evolution of species. And a lot of research has
been put into it.
MW: Perhaps, but some main ingredients of life are missing in their
theories such as 1. An action theory 2. An ethical theory 3. The
conditioning process or conditional genesis of creatures 4. The pleasure
and pain principle 5. Cause and effect - to name a few.
Unscientific values
I: But these are unscientific values hence inapplicable vis-à-vis
evolution.
MW: OK but then if ‘survival of the fittest’ is good enough to be
applied for other species, why is it not good enough for humans too. In
fact the UN is creating human rights laws to protect the under dog.
Acts of genocide by various human racial groups are condemned by the
world body, so shouldn’t we also apply Darwin’s theory to humans and let
the fittest of these groups survive, as that’s what is supposedly
happening in nature or do Darwinists believe human animal is a special
creation and has to be protected?
I: Naturally if we reject God as our creator, then all we have is to
fall back on a natural explanation, but I do not see how Darwin’s theory
should be applied to human types.
MW: Indeed the original third theory of life has been kept hidden
from the global society where the individual has some control over his
destiny.
I: What do you mean by that?
MW: I am speaking of the two and a half millennia old rational
explanation as to why creatures struggle to survive and cling to life,
in spite of adversity, hardship and suffering.
And in doing so they ignored the Buddha’s main discovery upon which
the Four Noble Truths are underpinned.
Law of impermanence
I: What have they ignored?
MW: The law of impermanence. Do the Darwinists truly believe that the
Buddha, while stating that all compounds are impermanent and all things
are fleeting, made species an exception to this all embracing principle?
It is not only that species were not holding a status quo but
Buddhist scriptures provide a clear explanation as to how the becoming
process of species is fired.
I: You mean to say that all these professors and pundits of the past
and present never connected Buddha’s explanations vis-à-vis species when
it is clearly penned down in the scriptures?
MW: That is the intriguing mystery of all. Soon people will be
questioning, how in the world did Buddhists fail to grasp what was
staring in their face.
I: So how does Buddhist philosophy square with the evolutionary
process of species?
MW: In this connection it is inappropriate to use the word
‘evolution’ to explain this subtle process.
The Buddha never used the word evolution to project its intricate
dynamics. Instead, he used the word, ‘becoming’, more precisely,
‘sensory becoming’. For the becoming process can go either way,
progressively or regressively, depending on the individual’s
circumstance, conditioned state of mind and resources available.
I: Can you be a little bit more specific?
MW: Indeed according to the Buddha, individuals are driven by craving
(sensory greed), which is the fuel for one’s existence. But craving is
not holding on to a status quo too, and it is in a dynamic process of
becoming.
Take away the ‘fuel of sensory craving’ of an individual, and he does
not exist. Craving for what? Craving for all varieties of sensory
stimulants. Tasty food, stimulating music and carnal greed. Books can be
written on the subject. All the worlds’ industrial products one way or
other are catering to this sensory greed of human species.
I: How is the transformation of species is fired according to the
Buddha?
Sensory extension
MW: In order to cater to these needs individuals need to act. Actions
are constrained by conditioned body and mind and the resources
available. Numerous actions, mental and physical, are performed in order
to cater to one’s needs.
These in time will bring in their wake positive or negative
resultants. But within that process of catering to one’s sensory needs
one is stressing and straining one’s body and mind, which in turn will
galvanise the direction of future sensory extension.
I: Is that why you call it sensory becoming?.
MW: In fact, survival then, according to the sensory becoming
principle, is not an objective in itself, but to experience that what
lies beyond, a stepping stone for a more important goal.
Biological evolution, it seems, is subservient to a pleasure
principle. Its net results are creatures with progressively developed
sensory potential.
This in its turn would heighten their sensory experience, i.e.
pleasures of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking.
Just look around and you will recognize the truth of this extraordinary
principle.
(Note: According to Darwinists, creatures are competing for survival
in order to produce their prototypes. And the fittest in a species will
survive and reproduce.)
Colour vision
I: It is not quite clear what you mean.
MW: As an example let us simply consider a single sensory instrument
of humans, the eye. The eye simply documents how subtly advanced the
sensory becoming process is.
We are informed that, man can distinguish 7 pure colours, such as
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, and about 17,000
mixed colours, plus about 300 shades of grey between white and black. So
our optical sense can take in 5 million shades of colours altogether.
What emerges when compared with other creatures is that man’s colour
vision, like the way he sees an image, is not a matter-of-course affair,
for it requires a nerve system that is simply short of miraculous.
What is the necessity for such advanced piece of sensory apparatus
for survival? There is only one answer that fits in smoothly, if its
usefulness is to be justified; visual experience and all the related
pleasures that it caters to its owner.
Such stimulations do not play any role whatsoever in the survival of
its owner. Indeed humans can walk on two feet, dance, run and swim or
climb trees. The sex act is so powerfully motivating that it can be an
elaborate, long drawn affair if one has mastered the art of love play,
which no other creature can imitate.
The human penis is the biggest of all, when compared to all other
apes, including gorillas. Why? We have specialised our body to make it a
pleasure gorging machine. All varieties of music, all sorts of gourmet
foods. But isolate this ape in a desolate, unfriendly island and he
probably would not survive in spite of its advanced body and mind.
I: So we are nothing but simply pleasure guzzling sensory machines?
MW: I have outlined in very simple terms the most advanced and only
none deterministic theory in existence, so you have to get hold of a
book and read it to really grasp the subject, as this tropic will come
to dominate the next generations.
I: How can the Buddha’s sensory becoming principle help the modern
society?
MW: Today we find Judeo-Christian sects are at each others throats.
Why is this? Because each of their sects promotes a club mentality to
its adherents. Absurdly each sect firmly believes that they own an
exclusive truth, provided exclusively by a loving God to them and that
God is on their side.
It is declared by each sect that its members are unique, special and
chosen; no wonder the resulting violent global conflicts. The
Darwinists’ theory of evolution did not help either, as they promoted a
mechanistic version of life.
The result is that the world is in turmoil presently, thanks to such
fatalistic and mechanistically deterministic theories of life.
No wonder the intelligent people are searching for a nondeterministic
version of life. The only rational, logical and realistic one around and
indeed the only non-deterministic one in existence is the Buddha’s
‘Sensory Becoming’ principle of life.
Equipping oneself with it can be an advantage for one’s personal
progress and gain. It will also make the world a healthier place for
everyone to live in.
My website on these matters is :
http://evolution-becoming.com
Australian efforts in uncovering Buddhist history
Shar Adams
Buddhist History: Researchers around the world are moving a little
closer to understanding the early history of Buddhism with the help of
Australian scholarship and science.
Carbon dating performed by the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has confirmed that ancient manuscripts
that surfaced in Afghanistan in the 1990s are among the earliest
Buddhist texts ever found and also the earliest Indian manuscripts.
Australian researcher Dr Mark Allon says ANSTO confirmed that two
manuscripts from what is known as the Senior Collection, were compiled
between 130AD and 250AD, and three manuscripts from the Schoyen
Collection (named after its Norwegian owner), date between the first and
fifth century AD.
Dr Allon, who is considered to be the first person to read some of
the texts since they were written, said that prior Buddhist texts had
been written in ancient Pali and Sanskrit language but the actual
manuscripts were quite recent, as late as 17th, 18th, and mostly 19th
Century, “So here you have a manuscript witness to the story that goes
back thousands of years before,” he told the ABC.
The manuscripts are extremely important to an understanding of the
history of Buddhism in the North-West of India, he said, particularly,
as it was through this region that Buddhism was transmitted to Central
Asia and China.
“They are the oldest extant Buddhist manuscripts. They open up a new
field of studies, namely the study of Buddhist manuscripts and Buddhist
literature from the North-West of the Indian subcontinent.”
The Buddha, who lived in the North-Eastern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
regions of India, passed away around 400BC and left no written texts.
Sermons and stories of his Enlightenment were initially passed through
word of mouth, but were later written down in early languages of the
Indian Gangetic Plains.
Although these earlier writings and later commentaries did not last
in their original form, they were rewritten in various language groups
including Sanskrit and Pali to constitute a vast written tradition.
“Buddhism was originally an oral tradition, but little is known about
how it developed from spoken word to written word,” Dr Allon said. “So
the discovery and date confirmation will give us a unique insight into
the development of Buddhist literature.”
Dr Allon, a lecturer in the Department of Indian Subcontinental
Studies at Sydney University, is part of an international team of
scholars, the main group of which is based at the University of
Washington in Seattle under Professor Richard Salomon.
Their field of study comprises three different collections of ancient
Buddhist material: the British Library Collection (the British Library
also possesses the Diamond Sutra, the oldest printed book to bear a date
(868BC), found in China’s Dunhuang Caves in the early 1900s by Hungarian
explorer Sir Aurel Stein); the Schoyen Collection that surfaced in caves
in the Bamiyan area of Afghanistan made famous more recently by the
Taliban’s destruction of its massive Buddhist carvings; and the Senior
Collection which came from the ancient Gandhara region corresponding to
the modern day Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan.
Dr Allon is one of the few scholars versed in Gandhara language which
he says is related to Sanskrit and Pali, the language of present
Buddhist texts in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma.
“It [Gandhara] is not the earliest language used,” Dr Allon explained
to The Epoch Times.” It is just that the manuscripts that were written
in those languages have survived because of the climate, because of the
dryness in that area.”
“As monks moved into different areas they translated the texts into
local languages so local Gandhara is the language that was current in
North_”West India at that early period from about the third century BC
to the fourth century AD”.
Dr Allon said the Buddhist manuscripts are also fundamental to
understanding the transmission of Buddhism to China “since Buddhism came
to China primarily through the North-West of India, through ancient
Gandhara and many of the early Chinese translations of texts were
probably in the Gandhara language”.
While there have been many new insights into the transmission of
Buddhism and the particular period in history that the manuscripts were
written Dr Allon says what is most remarkable is the consistency of
Buddhist teachings.
“It is often amazing when you think, here is a text preserved in Sri
Lanka and a text preserved in ancient Gandhara, huge distance apart in
different languages and yet they are so similar.
“It tests a degree of fidelity in the tradition,” Dr Allon said.
Epoch Times |