The Universe    

        Most religion have myths that attempts to explain the origin and nature of the universe. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Khnumm created the universe, and then made men out of clay, after which the goddess Hathor breathed life into them. The ancient Greeks believed that everything was made by Oceanus, the primordial waters. The ancient Jews and Christians had two creation legends, both contained in the Bible. The first says that the Hebrew god created the universe and light and darkness on the first day, the water and dry land on the second day, all the plants on the third day, the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day, all the birds and animals on the fifth day, and the first man and woman on the sixth day. The second creation legend in the Bible says that God made the earth, then the first man, then all the plants and animals, and finally, he created woman. The different religions have different ideas concerning the age and extent of the universe, but most of them are within the bounds of limited human imagination.

           The development of modern physics has caused scientists to come to the conclusion that the universe does not have an ultimate beginning. It is constantly changing from one form into another, coming into being and being destroyed, a process with neither beginning nor end. To claim that there was an ultimate beginning would require explaining how all the energy in the universe came into being out of nothing, and this would contradict every principle of physics. The Buddha agrees that the universe, or as he calls it, samsara, is without beginning. He says:

       Undetermined is the beginning of this universe. The furthest point of beings moving on from bitth to birth, being bound by ignorance and craving, cannot be known.

       Scientists now believe that the universe is a pulsating system, that itr expands to its furthest limit, then contracts with all energy compressed into a single lump, until pressure becomes so intense that there is an explosion, or "big bang", once again sending all energy outwards. This expanding and contracting of the universe takes place over a period of billions of years. Again, the Buddha  was familiar with the idea of an expanding and contracting universe. He says:

        Sooner or later there comes a time when, after a long period, this universe contracts... But sooner or later, after a very long period of time, this universe begins to expand again.

        The invention of the conventional telescope and more recently, the radio telescope has allowed astronomers to understand not only the origin and nature of the universe, but also its actual structure. We now know that the universe is made up of billions of stars,planets,asteroids and comets. In places, these objects cluster together into disk-or spiral-shaped forms that astronomers call galaxies. Our own planet is a tiny speck in the Milky Way galaxy which contains about 100 billion stars and which is about 60,000 light years across. It is also known now that galaxies occur in groups. The Milky Way is one of a group of about two dozen galaxies, whereas what is called the Virgo group contains about a thousand galaxies. Despite the fact that solar systems, galaxies and groups of galaxies have only been known in the West since the invention of sophisticated scientific equipment, Buddhist texts speak of most of these things. The ancient Buddhists described galaxies as being disk-or spiral-shaped, the Pali word for galaxy being "cakkavala", which is derived from the word "cakka"(wheel). The Buddha very clearly and accurately describes the groups of galaxies that scientists have only recently discovered. He calls them world systems(loka dhatu) and says that they are of different sizes:the thousand-fold world system, the ten thousand-fold world system, the major world system, and so on. He describes them as consisting of thousands of suns and planets, although astronomers today talk not of thousands but of millions.

       As far as these suns and moons resolve, shining and shedding their light in space, that far extends the thousand-fold world system. In it there are thousands of suns, thousands of moons.....

       Until fairly recent times, people simply could not think of the vast distances in either time or space that are needed to understand the nature and extent of the universe. Their imagination was very earthbound. The Bible, for example, conceives of the whole universe being created in six days and implies that creation is a mere few thousand years old. Today astronmers number the stars in the thousands of billions and measure distances in light years, one light year being the distance that light travels in one year. Ancient man simply could not imagine categories this huge. The Buddha, however, was an exception. His wisdom, being infinite, was quite able to understand the concept of an infinite universe. He speaks of the "black, gloomy regions of darkness between the world systems where even the light of our sun and moon, powerful and majestic though they are, cannot reach..." It takes many 'kappas' for a world system to disintegrate and then reform, and when the Buddha was asked how long a kappa was, he answered:

      "Long is a kappa. It is not easy to calculate by counting years, centuries or even thousands of centuries....."

       When someone once insisted that the Budddha answer his questions about the extent of the universe, the Buddha compared him to a man wounded with a poison arrow who refused to have the arrow removed until he knew all the details about the person who shot the arrow. The Buddha then said:

       Living the holy life could not be said to depend on whether the universe is finite or infinite or both or neither. For whether the universe is finite or not, there is birth, there is ageing, there is dying, there is grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation and despair, and it is for the overcoming of these that I teach.

       Quite clearly, knowing how the universe began cannot help us overcome our suffering, nor can it help us develop generosity, virtue or love. And to the Buddha, questions regarding these things were far more important than idle speculation about how the universe began.

       However, the Buddha's remarkably modern and accurate conception of the universe compels us to ask how he came to know these things. How could someone know about clusters of galaxies and that galaxies were spiral-shaped long the invention of the telescope? How was he, living so long ago, able to comprehend the infinity of time and space? The only possible answer is that he was what he said he was, a fully enlightened Buddha. His mind was so utterly free from the usual prejudices and delusions that cloud the ordinary human mind that his knowledge was able to extend far beyond the normal human range. The Buddha claimed to be a 'knower of the worlds'(lokavidu), and evidence supports his claims.

Adapted From : All About Buddhism(S Dhammika)