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dharma TALKguided largely by natural selection. The first humansappeared quite recently. The extinction of the greatdinosaurs 65 million years ago (possibly as the resultof a catastrophic collision between the earth and anasteroid) left ecological room for the evolution of thefew little mammals that were about, and after 63 or64 million more years, one line of that evolution finallyproduced us. In geological time, we arrived onlyyesterday.But no sooner did our ancestors arrive than theybegan to think of themselves as the most importantthings in all creation. Some of them even imaginedthat the whole universe had been made for theirbenefit. Thus, when they began to develop theoriesof right and wrong, they held that the protectionof their own interests had a kind of ultimate andobjective value. The rest of creation, they reasoned,was intended for their use. We now know better. Wenow know that we exist by evolutionary accident,as one species among many, on a small andinsignificant world in one little corner of the cosmos.The details of this picture are revised each year, asmore is discovered; but the main outlines seem wellestablished. (James Rachels, The Elements of MoralPhilosophy, McGraw Hill, 2007)IV. Buddhist ApproachBoth subject and object of perception manifestfrom consciousness according to the principle ofinterbeing. Man is present in all things and all thingsare present in man. On the phenomenal level, thereseems to be birth, death, being and non-being, butontologically, these notions cannot be applied toreality. The dynamic consciousness is called karmaenergy. Everything evolves according to the principleof interdependence, but there is free will and thepossibility to transform; there is probability. The oneaffects the all, the all affects the one. Interbeing alsomeans impermanence, non-self, emptiness, karma,and countless world systems.Right view allows right action, leading to the reductionof suffering and the increase of happiness. Happinessand suffering inter-are. The ultimate reality transcendsnotions of good and evil, right and wrong. (Thich NhatHanh, Winter Retreat of 2008)manifestation of consciousness. As a scientist, you cannotstand outside as an observer; to really understand, you haveto be a participant.In Buddhism we speak of karma as the threefold aspectof action; thinking, speaking and acting. When we producea thought, that thought can change us and can change theworld in a good way or in a bad way. If it is right thought, ifthat thought is produced in line with right thinking, then itwill have a healing, nourishing effect on our body and on theworld. Just by producing right thinking you can change theworld. You can make the world a better place to live, or youcan transform the world into hell. That is karma, action; thisis not something abstract. For example, the economic crisisis born from our thinking. There is a lot of craving and fear,and the value of the dollar, of the euro is largely created by themind. Everything comes from the mind. That is why thinkingis action and speaking is action. Speaking can release tensionand reconcile, or speaking can break relationships. Speakingcan destroy someone’s hope and cause that person to commitsuicide. Physical action is also energy.There is individual karma that has an effect on everyone.Everything that happened to you happened to the world. Youproduce that thought, you are affected by that thought, and theworld is also affected by that thought. There is also collectivekarma. During this twenty-one-day retreat, the friendship, thejoy, the healing, the transformation is the work of everyone.Each one of us contributes through our practice, through ourinsight, through our speech. In Buddhism, we do not believein a God that arranges everything, but we don’t believe in coincidenceeither. We believe that the fate of the planet dependson our karma, on our action. It does not depend on a God,it does not depend on chance, it depends on our true action.Karma is the dynamic force that underlies everything. I thinkthat scientists will have no difficulty accepting this.Man is present in all things and all things are present inman. Man just arrived yesterday in the history of life on earth.Looking into a human being, we can see our non-human elements,namely our animal ancestors, our vegetable ancestors,and our mineral ancestors. In our past life we were a cloud,and we were a rock. Even in this moment, we continue to bea cloud, we continue to be a rock. There is a mountain in us,do you see? There are many clouds in us, do you see?In a former time, we were fish, we were birds, we werereptiles. And our ancestors are fully present in us, in the here,in the now. We continue as a reptile. We have many reactionsthat belong to the reptile species. We want to say thatwe are created by a God in his image. But in fact, we havemany ancestors. When a fish swims happily in the water, itis very proud of its talent for swimming. And a fish has theright to say that God must be the most wonderful swimmerin the world. And a rose can say, “God is the most beautifulrose in the world, because he has created me like this.” Ifyou are a mathematician, you tend to think God must be thebest mathematician in the world. Your notions of God areanthropocentric. If you are a gay person, you may think that8 Autumn 2009