In Buddhist Cosmology, Creation and Destruction are One
In the great and ancient cosmologies of Asia, creation and destruction are recognized as one. The Buddha is remembered to have said in his Heart Sutra (sutra meaning teaching), “form is the void and void is the form” – there is no dualism, no separation of the beginning and the end. There can be no life without death, no genesis sans apocalypse. In our Western culture, which has come in many ways to predominate the planet over the last four hundred years, we are still searching for such reconciliation. A History of the End of the World, Jonathan Kirsch’s splendid summation of the history of apocalyptic speculation in the Judeo-Christian tradition, makes this dichotomy all the more clear.
