Newtonian Buddhism


One fundamental difference between Buddhist and Western (Christian, etc.) views of the universe is that the latter assume that the cause and effect chain from the present backwards must stop somewhere, like a row of dominoes on end. If there is no First Cause to push the first domino, why are dominoes falling now?

The Buddhist position is that there was no beginning and therefore no need for a First Cause. This puzzles many Westerners. But perhaps they would understand better if they recalled Newton's first law of motion: that (contrary to the assumption of Aristotle and almost every other Western thinker until the modern era) a moving object does not need to have a cause pushing it along, because it continues its state of motion until a cause acts on it. The Buddhist universe could be compared to a moving object that continues its course merely by inertia.

But didn't it need something to start it moving? No, it never started to move.

Posted: Sun - September 25, 2005 at 06:19 PM           | |

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.