In my last post, I gave an overview of the Buddhist cosmology. If you have not read it, you might want to. It will give you a good context for this post.
Here is a summary. In the Buddha’s Dharma, time is infinite and cyclical. The universe goes through a Big Bang, expansion, contraction, and then the cycle begins again.
Likewise, we go through the infinite cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. We are reborn throughout infinite time in all the realms. Even if we are born in a heavenly realm, eventually there is a fall from grace. We became proud and vain, and oops, there we go again, sliding down the cosmic elevator. This is saṃsara, wandering endlessly throughout all the realms. It is risky and dangerous.
Now think about our current situation. There was a Big Bang. It happened about 13.82 billion years ago. The sun formed about 9 billion years after the Big Bang, and the Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
Obviously when there was no Earth, none of us were being reborn here. There are various accounts in Buddhism about where we go while we are waiting for our world system to form. But we go somewhere. We are waiting for the Earth to become habitable for humans. Given that the last iteration of the universe had to dematerialize before the current one began to unfold, if we add that amount of time to the age of the current universe, we have been waiting a long time.
Once the Earth becomes habitable for humans, then humanity must emerge and evolve. Then we hope that a Buddha will appear. All of this takes a long time, and when a Buddha does appear, it is a miraculous event.
In the Buddhist understanding, there have been many Buddhas. Given that time is infinite, this makes sense. Buddhas discover the Dharma. The Dharma is how things are. The Dharma is not a philosophy. Further, even when a Buddha does arise, some of them choose not to teach what they discover. These are called “Pacceka Buddhas.” This means that even if there is a Buddha, they don’t teach anyone what they learned.
This is because many people are not ready to hear the Dharma. Some of the most accomplished monks and nuns I know have had this experience. They have even been chastised and shunned by their own families. They have been mistreated by their friends. And these are some of the most accomplished Dharma practitioners in the world. So it is not surprising that a Buddha might decide that it is a waste of time to teach something that has such depth and breadth to people who cannot understand it. It would be like trying to teach quantum physics to a child.
The Buddha himself contemplated whether to try and teach the Dharma:
I have heard that on one occasion, when the Blessed One was newly Self-awakened, he was staying at Uruvela on the bank of the Nerañjara River, at the foot of the Goatherd’s Banyan Tree. Then, while he was alone and in seclusion, this line of thinking arose in his awareness: “This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me.”Just then these verses, unspoken in the past, unheard before, occurred to the Blessed One:
Enough now with teaching
what
only with difficulty
I reached.
This Dhamma is not easily realized
by those overcome
with aversion & passion.What is abstruse, subtle,
deep,
hard to see,
going against the flow —
those delighting in passion,
cloaked in the mass of darkness,
won’t see.As the Blessed One reflected thus, his mind inclined to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma.
— [SN 6.1]
The Brahma Sahampati perceived what the Buddha was thinking, and he knew the magnitude of this decision by the Buddha:
Then Brahma Sahampati, having known with his own awareness the line of thinking in the Blessed One’s awareness, thought: “The world is lost! The world is destroyed! The mind of the Tathagata, the Arahant, the Rightly Self-awakened One inclines to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma!”
— [SN 6.1]
Fortunately for us, Brahma Sahampati convinced the Buddha to teach:
Then the Blessed One, having understood Brahma’s invitation, out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world. Just as in a pond of blue or red or white lotuses, some lotuses — born and growing in the water — might flourish while immersed in the water, without rising up from the water; some might stand at an even level with the water; while some might rise up from the water and stand without being smeared by the water — so too, surveying the world with the eye of an Awakened One, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world.
— [SN 6.1]
This passage about beings “with little dust in their eyes” is one of the most iconic in the Buddhist Canon.
So here we are, on a little planet that is about 4.5 billion years old. It has been 13.82 billion years since the Big Bang. A Buddha has not only arisen, more importantly, he decided to teach. And here we are, not only with the Dharma available to us, we have more Dharma resources available than you can imagine. There are thousands of Dharma talks online. The Pāli Canon is online. We have wonderful English translations of the Buddha’s discourses available to us. Even when I started practicing a little more than 30 years ago, none of this was true. It is an incomprehensible miracle.
The Buddha himself addressed what a miracle the appearance of a Buddha is:
“Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?”
“It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.”“It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
“Therefore your duty is the contemplation, ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress.’ Your duty is the contemplation, ‘This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.’”
— [SN 56.48]
Being able to practice the Dharma is priceless beyond compare, and to say that it is an unlikely event would be the greatest understatement possible.
Wishing you joy, peace, and happiness.