Hope you are all enjoying the last days of winter. I have been reading Yongey Mingur Rinpoche's "Joy 
of Living" about the connections between science and Buddhist philosophy. Today I attended a lecture 
by 2006 physics Nobel laureate John Mather about the search for the origins of the universe using 
measurements of cosmic background radiation. Many scientists believe life is simply an accident. This 
poem came about as a result of thinking about that question. Hope you like it. 
Yours, 
Sankar 
 
Nothing is an accident 
3/5/2009 
 
Is all life 
All existence 
the whole universe  
just an accident? 
 
The indifferent outcome 
of probabilities 
and random explosions? 
 
Atoms appearing and disappearing. 
entire universes 
and parallel universes 
existing  
for no particular reason 
with no thought or pattern. 
 
Ghostly blue galaxies 
Stalagmites of stardust  
No more or less beautiful 
or infinite 
As the strings on a spider's web 
stretched between the branches 
and leaves  
dotted with dew 
Refracting the sunlight 
reaching from millions of miles. 
 
If any of this  
is  
an accident 
 
Then 
Nothing is.