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Creator vs. Uncreator

idav

Being
Premium Member
Which is superior?

As a Buddhist, I cast my vote for the Uncreator.

Creation is a mass of suffering, as the Buddha explained, and it originates from ignorance. No matter the endless number of wonders we might discover throughout creation/samsara, it doesn't belie the fact that our experience of it all is inconstant, impermanent, and that none of it is ultimately satisfying. Therefore, anyone who is a "Creator" creates out of ignorance:

"And what is dependent co-arising? From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming (creating). From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering." (Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta, SN 12.2)

There are those (like myself) who perceive Buddhism as the practice of uncreation. By following the Eightfold Path, and more specifically, stilling the impulses for craving and creation by practicing progressive detachment from every level of samsaric existence through jhanic meditation and vipassana, we are essentially reversing the process of creation, or, rolling back our consciousness to its source (nibbana), so to speak. In that sense, I would call the Buddha in a sense the "Uncreator" (likewise with all arahant disciples):

There is, monks, an unbornunbecomeunmadeunfabricated. (Ud 8.3)

The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, composed of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come from nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for delight. The escape from that is calm, permanent, beyond inference, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, the stilling of fabrications, bliss. (Iti 2.6)

The man who is without blind faith, who knows the Uncreated, who has severed all links, destroyed all causes (for karma, good and evil), and thrown out all desires — he, truly, is the most excellent of men. (Dhammapada 97)

Exert yourself, O holy man! Cut off the stream (of craving), and discard sense desires. Knowing the destruction of all the conditioned things, become, O holy man, the knower of the Uncreated (Nibbana)! (Dhammapada 383)
It is a combination of both which is supreme. I like the term wu wei for that reason. Non-action does imply an intention without having to act on it, but doing, as a flow of how things are and will be.
 
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