Buddhism has no creator god to explain the origin of the universe. Instead, it teaches that everything depends on everything else: present events are caused by past events and become the cause of future events.
Indian religions often see space and time as cyclical, such that world-systems come into being, survive for a time, are destroyed and then are remade. In Buddhism this happens naturally without the intervention of gods.
One tale told by the Buddha in the Aggan̄n̄a Sutta describes the process of recreation on this grand scale. An old world-system has just been destroyed, and its inhabitants are reborn in a new system. To begin with they are spirits, floating happily above the earth, luminescent and without form, name or sex.
Monkey 3. Conditioned consciousness © Man in a boat 4. Form and existence ©
The world in these early stages is without light or land, only water. Eventually earth appears and the spirits come to taste and enjoy it. Their greed causes their ethereal bodies to become solid and coarse and differentiate into male and female, good-looking and ugly. As they lose their luminescence the sun and moon come into being.
Gradually the beings fall into further wicked habits, causing themselves - and the earth itself - to become less pleasant.
A house with doors and windows 5. The senses © Lovers embracing 6. Sense-impressions ©
In this way, the Buddha seems to be saying, desire, greed and attachment not only cause suffering for people but also cause the world to be as it is.
The physical world as we know it, with all its imperfections and suffering, is the product of what the Buddha called dependent origination.
Dependent origination
The Buddha taught that this was a 12-stage process - a circular chain, not a straight line. Each stage gives rise to the one directly after it.
Man with arrow sticking from his eye 7. Sensation © People having a drink 8. Craving ©
1. Ignorance: inability to see the truth, depicted by a blind man
2. Willed action: actions that shape our emerging consciousness, depicted by a potter moulding clay
3. Conditioned consciousness: the development of habits, blindly responding to the impulses of karmic conditioning, represented by a monkey swinging about aimlessly
4. Form and existence: a body comes into being to carry our karmic inheritance, represented by a boat carrying men
Picking fruit 9. Attachment © Pregnant woman 10. Becoming ©
5. The six sense-organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body (touch) and mind, the way sensory information passes into us, represented by the doors and windows of a house
6. Sense-impressions: the combination of sense-organ and sensory information, represented by two lovers
7. Sensation: the feelings we get from sense-impressions, which are so vivid that they blind us, represented by a man shot in the eye with an arrow
8. Craving (tanhā): negative desires that can never be sated, represented by a man drinking
Woman giving birth 11. Birth © Bent old man 12. Old age and death ©
9. Attachment: grasping at things we think will satisfy our craving, represented by someone reaching out for fruit from a tree
10. Becoming: worldly existence, being trapped in the cycle of life, represented by a pregnant woman
11. Birth: represented by a woman giving birth
12. Old age and death: grief, suffering and despair, the direct consequences of birth, represented by an old man