Explore the relationship between ‘Buddhism and ‘Natural selection and evolution’

Editor: Rev. Mangala priya

Watsuthivararam,

Yannawa, sathorn.

Bangkok,10120.

Thailand.

The general meaning natural selection is that there is a fittest with over production of organism and an inevitable struggle for existence in the nature so there is a major factor in the evolution of life.

Living things have evolved continuously and successive periods of time have each been characterized by particular type’s levels and assemblage of living organisms. The other factor that helped in the acceptance of the theory of natural selection, which created new species in nature was mutation. Mutations are the so called spontaneous variations by which new and distinct varieties of plants and animals arise.

Professor hennas Alfven of the royal institute of technology maintains the simplest and most sympathetic is naturally that God or some other force directed the development towards a certain goal in the crown of creation that is we.

None of these in anyway contradicts the Buddha Dhamma. In all parts of the world dealt a mortal blow to the traditional and superstitious mythologies with which men of all races have surrounded their ideas about human origins except the Buddhists. The laws of mutability are quite different from those of individual variations. Even the evolution theory of Ape did not in fact occur, it is shown most vividly from the study of fossils. Viewed from a larger scale with the amoeba as the starting point the perspective appears more natural but as soon as we look closely at detail, we see this conception untenable. If the natural laws are without exception valid there is no place left for such an intervention.

We are wandering to see that the awesome wonder of evolution from amoeba to man or for      it is without doubt an awesome wonder was not the result of a mighty word from the creator but a combination of small apparently insignificant process. The result of a struggle over food between two animals, the reproduction and feeding of the young are simple elements that together in the course of millions of years created the great wonder. This is nothing separate from ordinary life. This is in our everyday world, if only we have the ability to see it.

There is no such entity as a soul in men or animals. All things animals or men are subject to change. Nothing in permanent, all things come into being and pass away; hence there is no permanent entity in the form of a soul or self existing in man or in anything else. All life on    earth is interdependent and does not function in isolation. Therefore man and animals are not self-sufficient and all biological phenomena are impermanent and undergo continuous change and are in continuous flux and each is conditioned by environmental factors. Everywhere we find conflicts, and these conflicts indicate the unsatisfactory nature of life.

Buddhism nevertheless stresses cause and effect with regard to the life continuum according    to the doctrine of dependent origination. It shows how a cause becomes an effect and an    effect becomes a cause. Likewise in science and philosophy, the term cause and effect are     too great a simplification but they still in popular use.

This continuous recurring of birth and death called samsara has been aptly described as a cycle. It is inconceivable to ascertain the beginning in such a circle of cause and effect; therefore with regard to the ultimate origin of life Buddha says.

“Without cognizable end in these recurrent wandering first beginnings of beings who, obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving wander to and from, it not to be perceived”

One should not worry in vain, seeking for a beginning in a beginning less past. Life is a process of becoming, a force. A flux and as such necessitates a beginning less past, whether one is an ape or a man.