Hey Sensei Tony - What’s your take on alien life? This is Chris.

Hey Chris- What a interesting question! Let’s start by defining our term. I believe that “alien” here refers to extraterrestrial life. And I’m also assuming that your not talking about microbes, but some kind of sentient creature. Before we go further we need to address what’s called, “The Fermi Paradox”. Essentially, the physicist, Enrico Fermi, put forth the question, “Despite the high mathematical and statistical probability that extraterrestrial civilizations exist, where is the evidence?” An honest and good rational query. To answer this we have several possible answers:

1. The Periodic Extinction Hypothesis - A potential evolutionary “bottleneck “ that prevents life from evolving into star- faring civilizations.

2. The Rare Earth Hypothesis - Sentient life requires such unique characteristics that earth may be a miraculous anomaly. We are in what is called a “Goldilocks” zone that defies what may be overwhelming odds.

3. The Zoo Hypothesis- Advanced civilizations may know we are here but choose not to interact because of some sort of “prime directive” or just plain indifference.

4. The Different/Scales Hypothesis - An advanced civilization may communicate in a way that we can’t detect.

Now, astrophysicists discovered an “exoplanet” the year my beloved son was born in 1992.  And it’s only a mere 48 light years from earth. If more of these exist out there than it would give evidence for the above mentioned statistical probability.

Furthermore, some researchers believe that there is evidence of what is known as “paleo contact” in the cultural memory of our ancient ancestors. And current revelations of UFO phenomena could also point to proof of contact. And there certainly are many respected persons who have put forth such controversial claims.  So as far as we know now, it might still be an open ended question.

Perhaps, my favorite quip in answer to this question is by the lovely Jodie Foster in the movie, Contact (written by Carl Sagan): “I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?”

Let us turn now to my faith tradition of Buddhism. In the Buddhist view there is pretty much perplexing phenomena of any kind you might imagine. Our ancient texts, for example, show no problem with alien life or multiple universes. And I personally believe that we might be a better ambassador than other religions for “first contact” especially, if the Star Trek/Vulcan version proves to be true- I certainly hope so!

Thus, I try to bring both scientific knowledge and my spiritual insights to this question. In my humble opinion, I believe the answer is most likely, yes and I do think alien life is a valid conclusion. Actually, we may be “alien” in some way ourselves and our very DNA might point to it. Whether it be the theory of “panspermia” wherein we were “seeded” for life or that there was direct involvement in our evolution. These are all very intriguing and pertinent questions and my hope is that whatever the truth turns out to be, we will deal with it a mindful manner. I hope this helped. It certainly was fun!