Life oh life!

When does life really begin? Is it when the first fluttering beats of the primitive heart of a fetus start, or when the child is pushed from the womb into the world? Does it all actually start at the moment of conception when the egg and sperm meet and mix their genetic code together to create a new being? No one knows because no one is sure of when life truly begins.

There are many out there who say an unborn child isn't really a person, or even alive because it can not sustain its own life. If this were true, then no one is a real person until they are living on their own away from their parents. When you stop and really think about this, without listening to the arguments about when life starts or if something is considered alive until a certain time, you would be surprised at what you may find.

When the primitive heart of a tiny fetus starts to beat for the first time, it is then that it starts to actually survive on its own, apart from its mother. It’s that life growing inside them that started those mothering instincts. It’s those instincts that protect it from harm until it is able to survive outside the womb and until it can live apart from its mother later in life.

I'm not a scientist, a theologist, or even a doctor. I am just an average woman who can bear a child of her own. So, when does life really begin? I don't know, but when ever it does, its all well worth keeping it going, for the rewards are more than what anyone truly deserves. Love gives meaning to our lives – as do friendship, or art or faith in God. These are factors of true happiness, of inner peace, of feelings of harmony, allowing meaning to our existence.

But there is the other side. There is the cruelty of life, the pain, the evil, not to talk of death. They are the hidden tigers, ambushed and ready to attack the imprudent, to use an image present in the Buddhist Scriptures. Is between these pendulums - the positive, the one that gives happiness and meaning, and the negative - that our lives are lived. And when we meditate about all that, we arrive at a diverse and disagreeing set of thoughts about the meaning and purpose of life. As they say:

“Nature separates beings, after having surrounded them by love. It divides them, and demands that they still love each other.”