Philosophical Writings

Author(s): Hemant Shah
Publisher: Academy of Philosophy

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Logos In Philosophy. Religion and Science
(B) Buddhism: Like Hinduism, it is a dominant spiritual tradition of Indian Philosophy, "It has a strong influence on the intellectual, cultural and artistic life of the people of India, Srilanka, Tibet, China, Korea, Malesia, Japan etc." The central problem of Buddha is human-suffering, its cause and solution. Buddha was not interested in metaphysical issues like the origin of world, the nature of Divine etc. Even then, Buddhism has very high intellectual philosophies to attain direct mystical experience, which Buddhists call the awakening. "The essence of this experience is to pass beyond the world of intellectual distinctions and opposites to reach the world of 'achintya', the unthinkable, where, reality appears as undivided and undifferentiated 'suchness'."42 Buddhism, as we all know, like Jainism, does not believe in creator God. It does not believe in soul, and the world or the universe exists since the beginning of the beginningless time. Like Heraclitus Buddha says "All things arise and pass away," flow and change are the basic features of the nature. The doctrine of impermanence and temporality ultimately lead to 'Enlightenment' through which one gets rid of sufferings.
After Buddha's death, efforts were made to settle the disputes and to develop systematic teaching and doctrines of Buddha's philosophy. Nagarjuna, under the strong influence of Ashvaghosha, demonstrated that reality, ultimately cannot be grasped with concepts and ideas. Hence he gave it the name 'Sunyata', 'the void' or emptiness', a term which is equivalent to Ashvaghosha's 'tathata' or 'suchness'; when the futility of all conceptual thinking is recognized, reality (Logos) is experienced as pure suchness. Just as the concept of suchness and void, there is also a concept of 'Dharmakaya' ('the Body of Being') in Buddhism. This concept is closer in meaning to 'Brahman' in Hinduism and to the general meaning of 'Logos' in ancient Greece and Christian theology.
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In Mahayan Buddhism, whose core is regarded to be in 'A vatamsaka Sutra" the central theme is the unity and interrelation of all things and events; a conception which is not only the very