University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
2 occurrences of Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth Century
[Clear Hits]
  
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  
  

expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
collapse sectionVII. 
  
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 

2 occurrences of Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth Century
[Clear Hits]

7. The Universe. Buddhism declares that everything
has causes; that there is no permanent substratum of
existence. There is general agreement that the only true
method of explaining any existing thing is to trace one
cause back to the next, and so on, without the desire
or need to explain the ultimate cause of all things. The
universe is governed by causality. There is no chaotic
anarchy and no capricious interference.

The belief in karma and rebirth led to the assumption
of good and bad places to which people could be born
according to their deeds. The three spheres, or planes,
are (1) the immaterial plane where pure spirits live,
(2) the material plane where beings with subtle bodies
live, and (3) the plane of desire which corresponds to
our natural world, and in which the six classes of living
beings—gods, men, departed spirits, animals, demons,
and infernal creatures—live. Zen Buddhism in China
and Japan, however, has been rather indifferent to the


251

problem of the structure of the universe. Moreover,
Buddhist intellectuals who have been educated in
modern science, however devout they may be, do not
believe this traditional cosmology.

Buddhism does not admit God as the creator of the
universe. It asserts that the universe is without begin-
ning and end, although one period of the universe
consists of the four periods; origination, duration, de-
struction, and annihilation. These succeed one after
another in cyclic change.