Watching the Seven Ages of Starlight on BBC HD tonight, apart from appealing to my enquiring scientific mind, reinforced my Buddhist belief that we are at one with the Universe, being literally made of stardust.
The elements of Hydrogen and Helium, that are involved in the fusion taking place in a star, such as our sun, are the building blocks of all other elements, created as the star collapses under the force of gravity.
This process sometimes creates what we now call a supernova, a huge, intensely bright, but very short lived source of light. This in fact may have been the source of the ‘star’ that guided the Three Wise Men in the Christian religion.
Our bodies are made of a collection of the same elements as those created in the stars, iron, carbon even a little gold, but in essence, we are all stardust. When we die, those elements are returned to the Universe and the cycle goes on.
The Universe is around 13.5 billion years old and the cycle of birth and death has been going on for much of that time. We have come from the Universe, we will go back into the Universe. Science facts for the last few years and Buddhist beliefs for more than two millennia. As I say, science is finally catching up with Buddhism.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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