What does Buddhism say about how everything came to be?

Oh whoops! I forgot that I'm oppressed daily and that I live in constant fear.......... ...........lmao

Such a peaceful religion to have called up such arguments, though Mahealani and CI are raising very interesting points.

Thank you.


I do hope someone will stop by with an answer to the question, though.




I see i shall have to do some searching for myself, if not.

If there is no line between shintoism and buddhism and most Japanese practice both while not favoring one over the other, then their praying in buddhist temples simply because there are more of them does not make them truly buddhist and thus Japan can hardly be declared a "buddhist nation".



The fact that 80% of Americans claim to be Christians does not make the nation Christian. A nation is designated as being of one religion or another only when governance of that nation follows a particular religious creed....such as Saudi Arabia. Oh, wait! George Bush has often claimed that he is divinely inspired. Well, geez, cicerone...I guess you were right then! HA HA HA HA

PS: When you quote large chunks from a website, could you provide a citation? Thanks.

Prospero, Buddhism does not pretend to know anything about the creation of the universe because it is accepted as being unknown and unknowable. To a buddhist, the universe just is...always was and always will be although it will go through cycles and mutations.

It is very easy to become distracted by these big questions and although intellectually stimulating, at the end of the day is not terribly important.

lani, Much of my understanding of religion in Japan comes from many years of reading different articles and trestices(sp) over a span of some 50+ years. No one source can be assumed or gotten at this time, but I'm sure any search on the web can support or deny what I've stated.

As for religious influence by governments, even secular ones, to call a nation christian or buddhist, I'm afraid I know of none. I can only go by what the major religion of any country is today - nothing more, nothing less. If you know of any, please let us know.

Cicerone, my knowledge of Buddhism and Japanese culture/society comes from being introduced to Buddhism in Hawai'i and spending a lot of time with Japanese nationals and sensei over the course of many, many years. Alas, I have never been to Japan and the information I have gleaned and opinions formed come from observation and "talk-story" with my Japanese friends.



I was referring to a specific post, which appears to have been lifted verbatim from here: Creationism & Platonic Essences - Sean Robsville



I was referring to governments being influenced by religion rather than the other way around. I know of only one country that can be called a truly "Christian Nation"--Vatican City. There are, of course, many countries which have a predominance of Christians in their populations and whose governments are doubtless influenced by the Christian faith of their members of government, but they cannot really be designated as "Christian nations" (although there are certainly those who would disagree, and rather vehemently I suspect!)

Good discussion, by the way...

My wife and I visited Japan twice, and the last one was a buddhist pilgrimage to the Kansai District, in April 2004. We visited 33+ temples in ten days, and walked 79 miles - mostly up hills and up stairways, but I believe it's the best way to see the "real" Japan. Glass and steel buildings can be seen all around the world, but 1,200-1,300 year old temples are much more rare. Some of the temples in Japan are national treasures, and most are unique in size and design. It's a very good way to see Japan, and I highly recommend it.

We were supposed to go again last year in October to visit the temples around Tokyo, and we even made reservations to go, but my wife came down with artheritis of the knees. We had to cancel.

Bummer...hope you get to go another time.

My wife will retire from work early this year from nursing, and I'm planning on taking her to Japan - one of her favorite destinations.

It seems to me you folks are talking at cross-purposes. What is, or is not, a Christian/Buddhist nation can surely be discussed elsewhere. First, I'd like to comment on how differently religion is regarded in the East and West. Then I'll try to address the primary question on which the thread is based.

Asia is not Kansas. This self-evident fact has been consistently overlooked for a very long time. In the West our predominant Weltanschauung is Monotheism and Universal Truths. Across most of Asia Monotheism is relatively rare, and people tend to be less chauvinistic about such things. These differences are deeply rooted in each of the dominant cultures (European v. China/India). Westerners often find it difficult to conceive that an individual can sincerely believe and belong to two, or more, very distinct religious groupings. For many Asians it seems perfectly natural to live a Confucian lifestyle, yet be married and buried as a Buddhist. The "edges" of Confucism, Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Jainism, Hinduism, etc. overlap and have been worn smooth and comfortable over thousands of years. Major conflicts over religion and theology is exceedingly rare in Asia. I'm sure that from some Asians it is incomprehensible why the three main Abrahamic religions find it so easy to hate and kill one another over seemingly minor theological points.

No religion is wholly one thing, or another. The thoughts, words and actions of a religious founder most often arise from a transcendental experience, but not always. Confucius sought to bring about a well-ordered and virtuous society by carefully defining social structures. There is hardly an ounce of mysticism anywhere in the writings of Confucius or his followers. The origins of Shinto are lost to us, but in its veneration of nature has similarities to Taoism. The first Buddhists to enter Northern China were thought to bear with them the final evolution of Lao Tse's thought, and Lao Tse may have no more historical reality than Homer.

As to the question of whether there are "Buddhist" creation myths or not isn't all that easy to answer in a definative way.

Buddhist Background. Buddhism does have a historical founder. Siddharth Gautama Shakyamuni was a minor Prince in an Indian backwater. He gave up his family and life of luxury to find the cause of suffering, and if possible to conquer it. He had a transcendental experience, and was thereafter the Buddha (a title meaning the Enlightened). The Buddha preached his insights into the nature of suffering and its solutions shortly thereafter. It should not be surprising that the terms and analogies used in the Buddha's teachings are drawn almost exclusively from the Hindu culture that he and his audience were familiar with.

The earliest records of Buddhism are in the Pali language, and still form the foundations of the Theravada School of Buddhism. This is a very strictly disciplined form of the religion, and holds that each individual can only achieve Enlightenment for them selves. Buddhism in its earliest forms had no temples, or rituals, nor even any iconography to speak of. Before the beginning of the Current Era, a new form of Buddhism was emerging, Mahayana. The language of Mahayana Buddhism is Sanscrit, and it's theology made/makes it much easier for laymen to regard themselves as Buddhists. Mahayana theology is inherent in the Pali texts, but attempts to delve beyond the Buddha's direct doctrines to the philosophical heart from which those teachings come. Mahayana resulted in a flood of successful missionary efforts, and Buddhism was carried west until it came into contact with the Greek culture in Gandara. It found its way north into the Himalayan kingdoms, most notably Tibet. It spread east into Southeast Asia, and by sea into southern China. In each of these new lands, Buddhism adapted itself to the local cultures and folkways. In India, Buddhism virtually died out, leaving the Theravada stronghold in Ceylon and Mahayana schools in Tibet, Southeast Asia (especially Thailand, Laos and Cambodia), China with different schools in the north and south, and Japan.

In each of these locations, Buddhism was/is greatly influenced by the parent culture and the folkways of the people. The superstitions, legends, fairytales, and Weltanschauung are adopted into Buddhism. If the people have believed in ghosts and demons for a thousand years, they will probably go on believing for another thousand. This is exactly the same sort of accommodation with local folk-belief that Christianity made in Rome, Gaul, Germany, and England.

There is the pure, the direct experience of those who are either Enlightened, or talk with God in the desert of on mountaintops. There is a theological doctrine formulated by the Master's disciples to fix "for all time" their understanding of the meaning of the Master's teachings. The doctrine becomes the catechism of monks, priests and "organized" religion. Finally, there is the religion of the layman, the congregation, that nominally accepts the theological doctrine within the dominant culture and folkways.

In Buddhism, to be a Mahayana Buddhist (various Schools and Sects) all one has to do is profess a belief in certain fundamental tenets of the religion. Period. No baptism, no mandatory church attendance, is usually required. In the United States many lay Buddhists meet on Sundays in a temple for services not much different from those practiced across town in a mainline synagogue or Christian church. My wife and I were married in a traditional Japanese Buddhist ceremony, and for many years were congregants in good standing at the Hewitt Street Temple in L.A. Our sons attended Sunday School where they were taught the cultural icons of Japanese Buddhism. The adults sang Buddhist hymns, heard a Buddhist sermon delivered by a Buddhist priest, and adjourned afterwards to discuss their workweek and to gossip about those who weren't present. These were people who had been Buddhists all of their lives, and their great-great-great-great grandparents before them. You could ask any of the congregation about the niceties of Buddhist theology, doctrine, or even practice and get little more than a blank stare. I think almost everyone in the congregation had Christmas trees, but Japanese festivals were most popular.

Creation Myths in the Buddhist community. Let's take them in order:

Fundamental Buddhism. Nothing in the Pali texts of the Theravadan branch of Buddhism even remotely suggests that the Buddha would even address the question. Both the Pali and Sanscrit sutras repeatedly emphasis that it is a waste of time to conjecture about ultimate beginnings of anything, or their endings. The emphasis is always that Buddhists should focus upon the moment, and that past/present are empty. Speculation on the causation of the Perceptual World detracts from the mindfulness needed to struggle with suffering, which arises from illusion. Ultimate Reality is repeatedly referred to as empty, outside of time and space, without beginning or ending. Suffering arises from the mistaken notion of "Self", of multiplicity, and the attachment one has for impermanent phantoms. The Enlightenment Experience is accessible to all sentient beings regardless of their status as monk, priest, layman, or even Buddhist affiliation.

Institutional Buddhism. This is pretty much the same as described immediately above, but varies from School to School. Tantric and Pure Land Buddhism have their own take on things, and even encourage to an extent the notions of Heaven and Hell, of demons and protective benevolent beings that can shield or mitigate suffering of laymen. The local cultural setting is important to consider. Tibetan forms are rife with spectacular rituals to protect the world from evil demons, while invoking the powers of Bodisatvas and other "spiritual" beings of power. Pure Land forms tend to have been traditionally centered in northern China and Korea, and there admixtures of Taoism and other folk beliefs can be seen in the doctrines followed by Buddhists of those sects.

Popular Buddhism. Almost anyone can be a Buddhist, and everyone will bring with them to the religion their own myths, legends, stories, etc. so long as they don't conflict too much with the fundamental doctrines and theological foundations of the School/Sect they belong to. Much of this has almost nothing to do with Buddhism, except such things/beliefs are held by held an individual who is identified as Buddhist. By far this group makes up the great majority of the world's Buddhists.

The bottom line is that "creation" stories do not appear in Fundamental Buddhist doctrine. Some Schools may have adapted to local conditions and folk-beliefs by grafting on such tales to standard Buddhist doctrine. Most likely you will find "creation" stories in the folklore of various societies where they are tentatively held by people who are regarded as Buddhists.

This is all a tempest in a teacup. The very sort of intellectual masturbation that the Buddha tried to avoid. Pay attention.

Thank you for your answer, Asherman, much appreciated.

I am wondering to whom this:

"This is all a tempest in a teacup. The very sort of intellectual masturbation that the Buddha tried to avoid. Pay attention."

is addressed, however.


If it is to myself, for asking the question, then I also find your attitude "the very sort of intellectual masturbation that the Buddha tried to avoid" in its apparent arrogance.


If it is to others on this thread who have been debating other things, then again I find your attitude apparently very patronising.


Whether or not I give importance to the different creation myths in various forms of Buddhism, I was interested in knowing their nature, and especially if they stemmed from Buddhism's very accepting attitude to local pre-existing beliefs, which is an attitude I find most attractive in Buddhism.


If I have mistaken your intent, I apologize.

And, in either case, I thank you for the information you have provided.

Well, I think you've misunderstood me and my intent. Creation stories are interesting and deserve study. There are those who will assert that they've heard of Buddhist creation stories. It would be better stated that they've heard Chinese, or Tibetan, or Japanese, or Thai stories whose only connection to Buddhism is that they are folkstories held by people who are nominally Buddhist.

That last remark of mine was directed more at myself than to anyone else. I've been following the discussion, but remained silent because Buddhist creation myths have noting whatsoever to do with fundamental Buddhist doctrines. Only when you asked for a response directed to the thread's topic did I step in. My comments were drawn from over 40 years as a Buddhist, and from my undergrad and graduate work in the field of Oriental Philosophy and Religion. I try to be authoritive without talking down to those who are genuinely interested in Buddhism.

Buddhism in the West has been growing for only a couple of hundred years, and only in the last half century or so has the Western community of Buddhists begun to find recognition. The number of monks, nuns and priests of Western heritage has dramatically increased, but Buddhist householders of Western extraction remains scattered. I believe, that the process of adapting/adopting Buddhism to Western culture is overdue.

Ok.....

Ah, my apologies for misunderstanding you.

I am wondering if one can dismiss those who believe in previous folkstory accretions to Buddhism, along with the kernel itself, as being "nominally" Buddhist...at least, I am loath to make such a claim.

Oh you mean as compared to



from http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2001-02/02rn42.htm

I'll listen to lectures from you regarding freedom if you ever come close to what we have here. Until then you are content to stay there, and I am ecstatic.

I can't understand the people who say we live in a facsist country. It's like a little spoiled kid who can't get his way whenever he wants, so he kicks and screams 'abuse'. I bet if the people who lived under the Saddam regime heard our little protests of facsism, they would laugh hysterically.

The USA, in all seriousness, obviously does not meet the all the criteria of a fascist state. However it certainly meets meets a lot of them!

In that case, RL, no one in the world is free according to you, because guess what? Even the Brits don't have any real written constitution.

The bizarre thing is that somehow Brits think this is better than a written constitution, because it doesn't restrict our freedoms.

Out of interest, what Buddhist countries are you thinking about RL? As far as I can remember, most of them were colonies under foreign rule until recently (recently, as in the past ten, twenty or thirty years).

It would have been nice, RL, if Buddhist countries had enjoyed the relatively wonderful immunity to war that the US had. Most of the enemies the US fought were so far away from the mainland that the US never knew what it was like to be ravaged by war.

Only 9/11 can even compare to what other nations in the Old World have suffered.

Given the turmoil that European nations and Japan imposed on the area, I'm surprised the Buddhist countries aren't in a worse off state than they are now.

No one is completely free, unless perhaps they simply live in the wild under no system of government at all.

I know that Americans who actively criticise the US government, are in a lot more danger than Australians who do it.

I find the US to be a terrifying country, and am very happy that I'm 10000 miles away from it. I know that if I get ill, I'd much rather be in Australia than the US.

I know that I can write an email to John Howard, telling him what a piece of scum he is ( and have done so) and don't have to worry about ASIO knocking on my door.

But I don't even care what RL says. I've seen sufficient evidence of his severe psychological derangement on other religious threads, to know that he's only a danger to those close to him. I am safely isolated from him and his freakish ilk.

BTW, I'm going to Thailand next month. A buddhist country, that must have the friendliest people on earth. Australia also has a reputation for easy going friendliness. Nobody uses word friendliness in relation to the US. Could it be because of the number of christians there?