Where Did We Come From?

I read recently that all religions have a creation story. That gave me pause because at first I was thinking, “Well, in Buddhism there isn’t really a story about a turtle on a rock smoking a cigarette or anything like that.”

But then I remembered our story that answers this basic human question, best asked on a clear night in the woods, gazing into infinity. Where did we come from?

This reflection dovetailed synchronicity-like with something I stumbled upon over the weekend – the David Loy (one of my favorite Buddhist authors) review of Stephen Batchelor’s Confession of a Buddhist Atheist in the recent Tricycle. 

One of Batchelor’s concerns is about making Buddhism modern and practical. Faith to doubt after all. I agree that it is important, of course, but am concerned about that poor baby that he keeps throwing out with the bathwater but you’ll have to read the review or the book to see more because I’m wondering off track. 

Here’s Loy getting back to the issue of stories. 

“This points to one of the intriguing aspects of Batchelor’s approach to practice. A spiritual tradition involves a story about what the world is and how one is transformed. For the practice to work, one must identify with that story to the extent of being motivated by it; one acts as if the story is true. That’s faith.”

So what’s the Buddhist creation story and what’s that got to do with transformation? 
 
The body of the pure Dharma World neither appears nor disappears.

The strength of the vow of great compassion brings life and death into being.

That’s a verse from one of our memorial services and it tells the Buddhist creation story. It’s a short story: the karma (intentional actions) of the many beings creates a world system. In the case of the Bodhisattva, the vow of great compassion – the heart of love – brings life and death into being so that the Bodhisattvas can do their work of carrying beings from here to there … even though this pristine, true world neither appears nor disappears, neither exists nor does not, etc. 

There is also a scientific materialistic story about how the world came to be – you know it, I’m sure. The big bang, lots of molecules bouncing around randomly, elements forming, clobs of matter, stars, planets, and then life and consciousness appear by chance, utterly devoid of meaning and a practice dead end, right?

On the other hand, there’s a lot of practice juice in the Buddhist story. Our intentional activity is so important. We create worlds with it. We can take the story up, tuck the little verse into our breast pocket, live it and then see if it is a true story or religious flim-flam. And from verification, there’s lots motivation for actualizing it, round and round, life after life.