Universe
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
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OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
The universe (lokadhātu) is the whole of space and everything in it. Of all the ancient conceptions of the universe, the Buddha’s is the most realistic. According to him the universe has no ultimate beginning or end (S.II,178), but rather forms, dissolves and reforms again over a vast period of time (D.III,84). Within the universe there are countless world systems (lokadhātu) which correspond to galaxies. The Buddha said that within these world systems are ‘thousands of suns, thousands of moons, thousands of continents.’ (A.I,227). He also spoke of the ‘the black, gloomy regions of darkness between the world systems, where the light of our moon and sun, powerful and majestic though they are, cannot reach’ (M.III,124), suggesting that these galaxies are great distances away from each other in space.
Some religions believe that the existence of the universe can only be explained by positing a supreme being who created it, but Buddhism considers this to be mistaken. According to the Buddha, the universe and everything in it came into being due to natural, not supernatural, causes.