While practically all the schools of thought begin with a static first principle, Buddhism begins with the actual, dynamic world, and the individual, by cultivating oneself, strives to realize the ideal in the end. Samsara (the rise and fall of life) is not an onward flow, but a ‘wavicle’ circle, each wave being a cycle of life appearing on the great orbit of Samsara. It has no beginning nor end, just as one cannot point out the beginning of a circle.

There is, therefore, no room for the idea of a First Cause or Creation which might determine things. In the Dhamma-pada (Book of Religious Verse) the idea is described as follows: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts.” We must remember, however, that though the will is free or undetermined in the human world, it may appear as abstract energy-instinct or animal desire which is not un determined among the beasts and lower forms of life which are the lesser waves in the continuity of self-creation. The individual is self-creating and freely so, largely because he has no determinate nature or character.