Is God Void?

2000 years before modern intellectuals derided god as a delusion or worse, a wise man, a prince turned monk, ignored god altogether in founding a religion. Buddhism, Buddha’s philosophy is now the fourth most followed religion with an increasing number of faithful.???

Buddhism?is possibly the most scientific of all religions. Buddha did not believe in the gods and rituals of the Veda, the religion he was born into. He denied a creator and believed that the universe always existed. Buddha did not offer an explanation for creation, instead asked ‘if there was a creator, who then created the creator?’.?Nasadiya Sukta?in Rig Veda raises a similar question to the creator, ‘do you know what you do?’

Scientists advocating the Big Bang can learn from Buddha. Who created the Big Bang? Is there a rule that all questions must have answers? In this chapter, I go with the?Dhammapada, as the essence of Buddhist teachings, translated by Eknath Easwaran, and not any of the sutra of Mahayana, Hinayana and other disciplines. Dhammapada, like the Upanishad and the Sermon on the Mount, is a no-frills offering of Buddha, just the Truth.

When he was about to leave his body, his followers asked Buddha what they should worship. Ever the rebel who ignored gods denied rituals and creation, he turned his begging bowl upside down, covered it with a saffron cloth, and pointed to it. He wanted his?sangha?to renounce worship. When another follower persisted, knowing the human need for an image, he pointed to the Bodhi tree as the symbol to follow. Just before his final?nirvana, when Ananda, his disciple asked what his?sangha?should do, he said to follow the dharma. This noble spirit who denied a God in any form is caged in statues in numerous Buddhist temples. Why imprison that great spirit who roamed free??

A facile explanation given is that one doesn’t worship the Buddha in the temples, but only respects him! Every time I visit a Buddhist temple with imagery depicting gods including the Buddha, I see him rolling around his?samadhi?in discomfort, made into a god whose existence he never acknowledged.?

If you find no one to support you on your spiritual path, walk alone. There is no companionship with the immature.?Dhammapada 5.61

Though Buddha advocated the Buddha as the intelligence, Sangha as the community, and Dhamma as the pathway to Nibbana, enlightenment, he said to journey alone as he did in pursuit of the Truth. In Buddha’s wisdom, the Truth lies within, not in a god, guru or faith outside. So it was with Jesus, who said, ‘seek and you shall find’, meaning within not in the church and evangelists, who prey on the faithful.

Reams have been written about sunyata, the void, based on what Buddha is supposed to have said. There is no verse in the Dhammapada on it. It’s most likely a reference to what Buddha taught as the final state in meditation leading to Nibbana, which means ‘extinguished’ as the absence of everything. It is the state of the ‘No Mind’ with no sensations, emotions, and thoughts of desires or fears, where the mind is still, centred in its energy state.?

In this one word, Sunyata, quantum science meets Buddha’s spirituality. Nothing more needs to be said. In some more blogs, we shall delve deeper into Buddha’s wisdom.?

Reflection

When asked about life and death, Buddha said, ‘Life is a breath long. In that breath you experience life. Beyond that breath is death.’

How would you like to spend that one breath?

Please do write in, resonant or dissonant. Let’s have a conversation. If you benefitted from this post, please repost and share with others who may benefit.?

Ram is a co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com. Ram's focus is the integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably.?