How important did the Compassionate Buddha consider the question of how the universe began?

[JackieDRhodes]

Is there anyone in here who's familiar with Buddhist religious literature who can give us a clue to Gautama Buddha's thinking on this question?

[AbbyF]

He said that this was one of the questions that should simply be put aside, as not useful. He explained that his teaching was concerned solely with the ending of suffering, and that this and similar questions (life after death, where Buddhas go after death) were vexatious and not conducive to enlightenment. It was one of the examples of "wrong view" listed by him.

[RosaJMoors]

British Shorthair gives an exact and correct answer to the Buddha's views on questions such as this.

Of course, this didn't stop later Buddhists from constructing a cosmogony, or model for the creation of the universe.

Surprisingly, this early Buddhist model is fairly consistent with some modern cosmogonies, despite the fact that it's over 2,000 years old.

Very briefly, Buddhist cosmogony describes the universe as cyclical -- sequential universes arise and disappear over very long periods of time ("mahakalpas" -- a period of 4 "kalpas"). Each universe arises from a "primordial wind" and disappears through a great fire that destroys the entire universe. Then the process begins again.

A kalpa is sometimes described like this: Imagine a solid block of granite one cubic mile in size. Every year a dove flies by the cube and brushes it lightly with its wing. A kalpa is how long it takes for the granite to erode away from the dove's action. A long time . . .

The link below will give you more information on this topic than you probably want.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology</a><!-- m -->

[MichelleBEnriquez]

Well, we did speak of that in Vajrayana Buddhism... but I haven't actually learn that because it is a formal course that usually held for monks.

However, the importance isn't about serving creators like the Abrahamics god (he is quite young actually, in cosmos view - Sakra Devanam Indra), it's about understanding the nature of cosmos, like karma.

Hope this help.

Ha! I was going to put on that wikipedia link.