Question

Describe Buddhist views on the challenges of the physical world, i.e. material life, or physiological life. For example, Buddhism recognizes that life is transience in every aspect such as the unpredictable weather, boom-bust cycle of the economy, etc.

Answer 1

Explanation: Life

The cause-effect nature of life

The teaching of Buddhism centers primarily on human existence consisting of life, suffering, death and the way out of it. The Buddhist perspective on life, suffering and death can never be truly understood apart from the Buddhist laws of causality (Paticcasamuppada) and mutation. For the Buddhist these two laws are natural laws that operate universally in all physical and mental phenomena. The law of cause and effect is thus expressed: "when this exists, that exists, when this arises, that arises, when this is not, that is not, when this ceases, that ceases."1 This is interpreted as meaning that all that exists is the result of antecedent causes. Each "event" or "happening" acts as the cause or the necessary condition for the arising of the following event, which then provokes or causes another event. Thus, as used in Buddhism, the relation between cause and effect is only that of the earlier to the later phase of a single process. Therefore, in the context of this natural law, life consists of many psychophysical factors.2 It is a fabric of causes and effects, arising existing and continuing by the concatenation of these factors mutually conditioning one another. In Buddhism this process is specifically referred to as the kamma process. Kamma (or karma in Sanskrit) means volitional activity whether mental, verbal or physical. The concept is used to emphasize that life consists of interwoven activities of causes and effects. In this sense the preceding cause .