So here we are again with
our world view changed, seeing ourselves back in the centre of the
known Universe. We moved from seeing the earth as the centre four
hundred years ago, to the earth being a tiny speck on the ocean of
the Vastness, and then back again to the centre in one huge fell
swoop.
For, according to a
mathematician or two, we are likely to be the only, sole unique life
force existing anywhere in the terrible cold vastness of space and
time. It is apparently full of energy, but not of life. He has
worked it out, plotting the variables for life against the numbers of
stars and planets. And its just us. So again, we are alone.
Why should it matter?
Why should we care in the day to day minutiae of mortgage, bills,
work, children, friends, sleep, what difference does it make?
For Buddhists to be born
human is they say the most special and fabulous thing. They have
this lovely image of a blind turtle swimming in the Pacific Ocean and
catching on its head the only golden ring floating in the beauty of
that sea. To be born human is as likely, they say, as that turtle
catching that ring. How much we should then value our sentient,
thinking, beauty appreciating, language adorned life, woven through
with love. How we should wonder at new life, especially new human
life, for its rarity and its wonder and its self-awareness.
Maybe it is not a turtle
and an ocean we need to think of. Maybe, if we listen to that
mathematician, it is one planet and one life force in one Universe.
Only one, we are the only one.
Without us all, all this
teaming life that exists everywhere and in all sorts of difficult
places on this beautiful blue globe, the Universe is truly sterile.
It is just explosions and gases and elements and rocks - one enormous
science lab without anyone to watch its experiments. One terrible
cold, linked by terrible heat without anyone to look at and love it.
Let's be careful of
nuclear bombs, chemical warfare, biological weapons, global warming,
poison on the land, chimera, people made in jars, animals made for
experiment, mountains of food and starvation of children. Let's
watch out for tsunami, earthquakes, volcanoes, hatred, greed and
lies. Let's condemn cruelty and violence of any kind, towards anyone
and any form of life.
We must be careful, we
are all there is.
