Fossils and Meditation

Life has been on this planet for over 3 500 000 000 years. Human "civilisation" has been around for less than 10 000 years. Humans are not special, and are not at the top of the 'evolutionary ladder'. We just think we are, because of our selfish egocentric minds.

Fossils are the remains of plants and animals that lived in the past and have been turned to stone. Fossils are perfect as they are; wonders of nature and objects of great beauty. We had no part in making them.

Each individual fossil represents a former life preserved in stone. The plant or animal was born, lived and died. It was impermanent. It did not live for ever. It was not immortal. It was no different from me!

Each individual fossil did not live alone; it lived in a community. It relied on other creatures for food and (sexual) reproduction. It was no different to me!

The fossil I have in front of me is very rare. The odds of it being here are so remote. The animal it represents generally had to have some hard parts (bones or shell), not be eaten by predators when it died, be rapidly covered with fine grained sediment, fossilised, not subsequently dissolved, then the rock it is in at a later date uplifted and eroded just enough to be exposed but not weathered away, and then be found by someone who happened to be wandering past, looking and capable of recognising it as a fossil. The bigger the fossil, the lower the chances of fossilisation. The smaller the fossil the lower the chance of it being found. What are the chances of me being remembered in a thousand years time? Or a million? So why am I striving so hard for fame and fortune?

We like to collect and display 'perfect specimens'. So we ignore many of them. But that is just our human judgement again. No fossil is "better" than any other. Actually often broken and 'imperfect' specimens are more useful to the scientist because we can see internal features and collecting random bulk samples enables to study the ancient environment and community.

My favourite fossils: I like Speeton "Shrimps", fossilised crustacean, with no real hard parts, never perfectly preserved, but the chances of a shrimp being fossilised are even more remote than usual. I also like foraminifera, the shells of single celled creatures which are so intricate and beautiful, but microscopic.

On my Buddha-altar is an ammonite. Not a particularly 'perfect' specimen. Not a rare species. It was the only one I found on a particular field trip. On the way home, a motorcycle crashed blocking the road. And we all sat in a traffic jam watching the motorcyclist die and waiting for the ambulance for his passenger.

[That event brought me back to the Buddhist Path, and started my real practice to find out "why we die"? That ammonite is a token of the impermanence of life in so many ways, and also the perfect nature of life.]

Mike Horne,Hull, England.

click here to visit Ruel Macaraeg's "fossils as Thangkas" page