The Definition of Being in The Agama Sutras

Abstract

This article studies the definitions of ”being” in both Eastern and Western, religious and philosophic worlds, including Western philosophy, the Kyoto School, the theory of Brahma-atma-aikya, Taoism and Buddhism, and also explores the crucial differences among them. Among these differences, the most critical one is, ”Buddhism takes positivism (positivus) of empiricism as its kernel of definition. However, all other religions and philosophic systems claim that being cannot be recognized and realized.” According to Buddha's definition of being in The Agama Sutras, being has the meaning of the origin of the universe and life, and it is personally realizable for everybody. This kind of unique definition in Buddhism has lots of evidence in the Buddhist sutras and conforms to the Buddhist dependent-arising doctrine. This article concludes that the definition of being, which is personally realizable, has three necessary conditions. This paper also proposes three judging rules that can be really operated and provide the criteria to ascertain if someone personally realizes the origin of life or not. For those who want to personally realize the origin of life, these rules are very inspirational. Regarding the key argument, the possibility of personally realizing the origin of life, this article outlines three important reasons to explain why philosophic scholars claim that being cannot be recognized and realized. Those reasons are, 1. The origin of the universe, which has the unlimitedness property, cannot be realized because the life and capability of human beings have their limitations. 2. The one that possesses the property of unlimitedness must be the origin of the universe. 3. Kant's transcendental philosophy claimed that moral postulates themselves were enough to be the reasons to achieve rational religions, not necessarily based on the verification of facts. The above three reasons are wrong because they all neglect the importance of the personal realization. The Agama Sutras bring up the definition of being from positivism and claim that all philosophic theories should return to the inspection by facts. This key subject will speed up the progress of the research in the religious and philosophic worlds.