Why are we born?

That probably is a question that intrigues some of us. At a superficial level, the answer to this question is quite simple – “because of mating of our parents” ;-). But if we look deep, that does not answer the question completely.

Philosophers take the ‘why’ question to the extreme till they reach a final answer. And most often than not, this final answer involves circularity. A circle has no beginning, nor an end. So, you can go no further.

Tipitakas talk about one such circular chain of causality that is responsible not only for our birth, but also to all our suffering, aging, death and re-birth. They call it ‘paticca samuppada’, often translated as ‘dependant co-arising’ – “something that happens, as a result of something else that happened before”.

Tipitaka (DN 15: Maha-nidana Sutta) describes this chain of causality as follows.

Let us start at some point on this cycle of causality and move forward. Let us start when we are born, say. What happens then?

• We have a body that has sense organs that can sense various sense inputs – sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. This is called ‘contact’(phassa) with sense inputs.
• When the sense organs contact the sense inputs, a ‘feeling’(vedanā) arises in us. This feeling could be pleasant or unpleasant.
• If the feeling is pleasant, we would like to have that feeling again and again. This is called ‘craving’(tanhā) for the pleasure produced by the ‘contact’ and the associated feeling.
• This pleasure came from the body, so we get attached to the body. This is called ‘clinging’(upādāna) to the body and the pleasures it produces.
• This clinging brings up a desire to ‘become’ the body once again when we age and finally die. This is called ‘becoming’(bhava).
• This intense desire associated with many such impressions that were stored previously during our lifetime, results in the accumulation of Kamma. Kamma are the records of impressions that finally decide our next step when we finally die.
• When we die, our body starts getting disintegrated. The last phase of our mind, the so called ‘final consciousness’, results in moving the previously stored mental impressions to an altogether new body in a new mother’s womb, as decided by the Kamma.
• Thus a new ‘we’ takes birth in another new body. And this cycle repeats.

That is the reason why we are born. Just mating of parents would not have resulted in it if there was nobody waiting to take birth! - according to Buddha that is.