BMV Digest

The Living Heart of Buddhist Teachings

Note: This is the shortest, clearest summary that you can use to counter anyone who wants you to believe in a creator GOD.

Buddhism does not explain existence through a creator or a first cause. In short, it does not recognise an all-encompassing, ubiquitous, all-knowing entity, what many religions call “God.”

Instead, it teaches dependent origination: conditioned phenomena arise through causes and conditions, that is, when this exists, that exists; when this ceases, that ceases.

This teaching is aimed mainly at explaining the arising and cessation of suffering, not at establishing a metaphysical first principle. Nibbana is unconditioned, but it is not a creator or an uncaused cause of the world.

This matters because Buddhism is less concerned with winning a theory of cosmic origins than with ending dukkha, that is, unsatisfactoriness. If one turns dependent origination into abstract metaphysics alone, one can miss its practical use:

– With ignorance, suffering continues.

– With wisdom, the chain is weakened.

– With cessation, freedom is known.

That is the living heart of the teaching.

In summary, you can simply state that:

1. Buddhism rejects a creator “GOD” or first cause.

2. Nibbana is not a creator.

3. Buddhist teaching emphasises “dependent origination,” mainly as a way of explaining the arising and cessation of suffering, of ending dukkha right here and now.

4. Buddhists are not interested in scoring “brownie points” to convince others to embrace a creator in order to get to heaven.

Lim Kooi Fong

Friends of NORBU (https://norbu-ai.org/)