Why Are People Born?

A comment on the video ‘There Is No Rebirth’ asked, ‘Why are people born? Please answer from a Buddhist perspective.’ I always speak from a Buddhist perspective, but the Buddhism discussed here may differ from familiar explanations. The question of why people are born—why I was born and how I should live—may be the starting point not only of Buddhism but of every religion.

After becoming aware of itself, a person wants to give meaning to its existence. Where do I go after death? Where did I come from? Why do I live? Who am I? These are among the most fundamental human questions.

Answers Offered by Religions of the Past

Religions of the past offered their own answers. They said a god created you and the world, so you must live as that god commands; if you live wickedly, you will fall into an evil realm or hell after death. Other explanations said that bad karma leads to birth in a bad world, as an animal or insect, while good deeds lead to birth in a heavenly realm. I regard rebirth, too, as an answer that emerged from the indigenous culture of India at that time.

The Buddha, however, left home with the same questions. He shaved his head and became a wandering seeker, joining people who asked, ‘Who am I? Where did I come from? What am I?’ He saw that the Vedas and religious teachings transmitted from the past were not enough.

Beginning to Question Instead of Believing Answers

In the account I give, the sixth and fifth centuries BCE were a time when the humanities and humanism began to sprout. Human-centered questions arose not only in India but across Persia, Greece, and even China. Where people had previously accepted answers such as ‘A god made it,’ ‘That is just the way it is,’ and ‘Live virtuously,’ they now began asking whether those answers were really true.

By looking carefully, people began to awaken to the possibility that gods, hell, heavenly realms, rebirth, and karma were products of human imagination rather than observation. Then where did we really come from? Skepticism appeared as an effort to question the human habit of filling metaphysical gaps with imagination, set aside inherited answers, and examine the world as it is.

Wandering Seekers Strip Away Images and Imagination

The wandering seekers among whom the Buddha entered homeless life belonged to this current. Some said that what they had regarded as ‘mine’ did not really exist. Others said that what they imagined themselves and the world to be was merely imagination and mental images, not things seen as they are. Teachings such as the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception were also learned within this concern. The Buddha’s two teachers were likewise people who coolly investigated ideas different from earlier religion.

Once the claim that a god created people and the world was recognized as imagination, looking at things as they are made humans appear not very different from animals or insects and as beings that arose naturally. I describe this as the emergence of materialism.

From Attachment to a Soul Toward Impermanence and Not-Self

People imagined an unchanging soul that travels to an afterlife or is reborn after death. Because of attachment to existence—the insistence that I cannot simply die and disappear, and that I cannot fail to meet my parents, friends, partner, spouse, or children again—they created comforting stories of heaven and rebirth. We must, however, begin to stop filling what cannot be observed with imagination.

The Buddha likewise asked where he came from and where he was going, what life and death are, and why people age. After sustained searching, he saw impermanence: everything changes and nothing remains forever. He saw not-self: there is no independent and unchanging self. The being called ‘I’ also appears and changes within relationships. Not even a pen, cockroach, cicada, or mayfly exists alone. When this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises; every being affects and is affected by others and changes.

My Relationship to Supernova Explosions

Why was I born? The universe arose, supernova explosions occurred within countless relationships, and their remnants gathered again to form the earth. I explain that the heavy elements composing the earth could not have been made only from elements present at the Big Bang and are results of supernova explosions.

People in the past imagined unchanging stars fixed in a celestial sphere surrounding the sky, but were astonished when a new star appeared. Today, we understand it not as the birth of a new star but as a supernova, in which a star beyond a certain size explodes and emits enormous light. As the example of the supernova observed by Tycho Brahe shows, a supernova explosion discovered far away is not unrelated to us. Heavy elements such as iron and gold are connected to the regathering of an exploded star’s remnants, and those elements are found in the earth and our bodies. The video’s explanation is that without supernova explosions, neither the earth nor human beings could exist. We are also results of supernova explosions, the Big Bang, and the sun.

Evolution Is a Dependently Originated Worldview

Life emerged from nonliving matter and, within environments and many influences, developed through mutual interaction until we appeared. From flies and cockroaches to single-celled organisms too small to see and human beings, all arose within relationships. Under the influence of the sun, earth, moon, supernova explosions, and the Big Bang, life arose and evolved until the present.

Human beings are also not the same now as they were 2,500 years ago, 10,000 years ago, or 100,000 years ago. It is an error to observe the evolutionary process in fossils while thinking that humans alone did not evolve. Humans have continued evolving and changing from before that time until now. Therefore, to the question ‘Why are human beings born?’ I answer, ‘They are born within relationships.’

Who Determines the Meaning of Life?

If many people are to live together, social rules are needed to prevent them from killing and harming one another. It is natural for moral rules to arise, such as the golden rule not to do to others what I do not want done to me. But explanations that observing such rules sends us to heaven while breaking them sends us to hell or a bad next life are human imagination.

I was born through natural processes and am not greatly different from a fly or mayfly. Once I accept this, I become free before the question, ‘How, then, shall I live?’ My parents and grandparents, ancestors before them, humanity’s survival, and relationships among the sun, air, sea, and universe brought me forth as if by a miracle. I now decide how to live each precious day when I may die as soon as tomorrow.

Living as the Protagonist of My Life

Society, parents, and other people do not decide my life. Once I break through what others claimed and what I learned that was merely human imagination, I can independently decide how to live according to my own will. Seeing and accepting the world and myself as they are and then choosing how to live this life is the Buddhist and existential answer I present.

What the Buddha saw was impermanence and not-self. I did not arise alone; I live in dependence on parents, society, and nature, affecting and being affected by everything, and I am born, change, and die. The central question is therefore how to live this present moment.

Let Us Help One Another and Live Happily

Once we understand that there is no independent, unchanging self and that we live in relationships with friends, parents, society, humanity, and nature, the conclusion is clear. Instead of living in suffering and hardship, we should help one another and live happily. I, not someone else, decide how to contribute to society through what I do well and where to place the meaning of my life.

Like being a lamp unto oneself and taking the teaching as a lamp, we must live by seeing the world and the teaching as they are through our own standard. This is my answer to the question, ‘Why am I born?’