Cataphatic Treatment of Ultimate Reality in Buddhism
Within Mahayana Buddhism, there is a species of scripture which essays a descriptive hint of Ultimate Reality by using positive terminology when speaking of it. This manifestation of Buddhism is particularly marked in the Dzogchen and Tathagatagarbha forms of the religion. Nirvana, for example, is equated with the True Self of the Buddha (pure, uncreated and deathless) in some of the Tathagatagarbha scriptures, and in other Buddhist tantras (such as the Kunjed Gyalpo or 'All-Creating King' tantra), the Primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra, is described as 'pure and total consciousness' - the 'trunk', 'foundation' and 'root' of all that exists.
Read more about this topic: Cataphatic Theology
Famous quotes containing the words treatment, ultimate, reality and/or buddhism:
“A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We need God, not in order to understand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the ultimate wherefore, to give a meaning to the universe.”
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936)
“Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.”
—David Cronenberg (b. 1943)
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)