Heredity, The Blueprint of Life

Let us consider the life of an individual human being. With the fertilization of the female egg, human life begins to develop through a process of cell division. The process continues, as the cells divide for about 286 days, or nine months. By this time, the fetus has grown to possess about one trillion cells. The face of the newborn infant is red and wrinkled, but as time passes, the child’s features begin to resemble those of its parents. Whether or not this is a cause of celebration, it is unavoidable, and scientists tell us that heredity is to blame.

Heredity the tendency of a living being to inherit traits of characteristics of its parents, has been traced to a substance called DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, that exists within all living cells. The DNA molecule resembles a set of long ladders or chains twisted around one another to form a long spiral staircase-like structure known as a double – helix. The molecule is almost infinitely complex, and theorists believe that within its intricate structure is encoded the blueprint of the entire organism; in our case, a complete human being. This blueprint determines how more than 100,000 different proteins will be produced from 20 amino acids.

Proteins combine to form about 100 different kinds of cells in all, such as bone, muscle and hair cells. The body of a full grown adult contains about 60 trillion cells. Someone with small feet has less “foot cells” than the average person, while someone with a large nose has more “nose cells”. This is something that cannot be controlled, but is due to heredity, the genetic blueprint coded within the DNA molecule.

Each human cell, which is about 0.1 millimeter in diameter, contains DNA that holds the equivalent of a 600-million-word genetic language. If put in a written form, this language could fill more than 30,000 large dictionaries. This language would be infinitely descriptive and, in fact, is thought to describe when and where proteins will form and how cells will group together to form a complete human being.

Human life is made of lives of many magnificent individual cells, each possessing a sort of innate wisdom or power to survive. The human body, however, is far more than a mere collection of cells and organs. It possesses a unique individuality and unity of its own.

Human life is endowed with wisdom, individuality and life force. If we can fully display these qualities at each and every moment, whatever our hereditary background may be, we will never be defeated by any circumstances, nor will we be limited by any individual traits or characteristics. Instead, we will be able to use our unique qualities to our maximum advantage in overcoming any obstacle or limitation and have our dreams and wishes fulfilled.

Buddhism describes the source of life force and wisdom for living as the world of Buddhahood, which is inherent in all life. The objective of faith is to cause this world of Buddhahood to function, letting us tap the pure and powerful life force that exists within us.